Being with Mary was different because...he wasn't the only one who wanted to make love to her. The beast wanted her, too. The beast wanted out so it could take her.

When Vishous pushed open the door to the exam room, he got a gander at the kind of seating arrangement that made him think fondly of castration.

You so need to lighten up about that potato-launcher incident," Butch said. Phury rolled his eyes and eased back in the banquette. "You broke my window." "Of course we did. V and I were aiming for it." "Twice." "Thus proving that he and I are outstanding marksmen.

Sister," he murmured, not as an inquiry, but a statement of fact. "Brother mine," she groaned... before her consciousness slipped from her grasp and she drifted away. But she would come back to him. One way or the other, she would not leave her twin ever again.

This was the gift of recovery, he thought. The ability to be here in this moment with the female he loved and be fully aware, fully awake, fully present. Undiluted.

You're the reason I get out of bed every night. And you're the reason I can't wait to come home every dawn. Not the war. Not the Brothers. Not even Butch. It's...you.

good call. A second drag and your next stop's the wastepaper basket - and not to toss your kleenex, true.