I’d never known that anyone could kiss in English, kiss in apologies.

I’m beginning to sense a theme,” Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. “I believe there is only one thing to say at this point.” What’s that?” Yee haw,” he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf.

I did have regrets these past six months,” he told me quietly. “I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you . . .

To know Pritkin was to want to kill him, but so far I'd resisted temptation.

you gotta think it’s a waste of—” “Ray!” I glanced around, but there was nobody within earshot. “Well, excuse me if I’m not used to buying condoms for aliens,” he said more softly. “They’re not aliens.” “Well, they’re not human. I mean, they could have anything under those tunics, you know?

They always assumed that I did not speak. That I could not. So many had plotted my death, discussed it, laughed about it, even while I was in the same room, because they assumed I was mindless. Like one of the failures of their kind, born mad. But I was not a failure. I was what I was supposed to be. I was dhampir. And they never lived to tell anyone they were wrong.

They’ll have to eat first. And by the time they’re finished, you’ll be back.” “With the condoms.” “Right.” “For the giant orgy you’re convinced we’re about to have in the backyard.” “Dory! Just go!” “I’ll go with,” Ray said, getting up. “I need a snack.” Which was how I ended up condom shopping with a vampire.