Moonlight slipped in through the lace curtains, slicing everything with its sliver cracks. That's how I felt right now - cold and cracked and hollow and empty.

Hope. An emotion that always kept suckering me in, time after time, despite my supposed retirement from the assassin business. Hope. The one thing that always seemed to get me into more trouble than just killing people for money ever had. Ah, hope. Sometimes, I really hated it.

There's nothing I can do that's going to drive you away, is there?" I murmured. Owen flashed me a sly grin. "Finally figuring that out, are you? I nodded. His grin deepened. "Well, it sure took you long enough.

But I'd much rather face a dozen assassins like LaFleur any night than deal with something as tricky, convoluted, and fragile as my feelings.

Uh, what are you doing?” “Nothing much. Just erasing all of Calinda’s good grades and replacing them with incompletes. Eventually, the administrators will figure out what happened, but I’m making it look like a computer error. Still, I imagine she’ll get some nasty lectures from her profs and parents in the meantime.

I'm crazy about you, Spartan.

The band geek has liquor?