In the center was a tiny handprint in red paint.

Trust me, true?" Butch barked a laugh. "Last time you said that i ended up with a vampire cocktail, remember?

Blay said yet again, that old, familiar voice cutting through all of those years of rejection and judgment, giving him not just a rope of acceptance to hang on to, but a flesh-and-blood hand to lead him out of the darkness of his past... And into a future that didn't require lies or excuses, because what he was, and what they were, was both extraordinary-and not hing out of the ordinary. Love, after all, was universal.

God, I miss you," he said in a voice that cracked. "Every night. Every day.

Even the powerful needed protection sometimes.

Sorry, you're on the ride now, and there's no getting off in the middle.

Sometimes the only way to know how far you'd come was to return to where you once had been.