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

Come and take your seat, Lady Dorina.

He had the look of an atheist who’d just had a visit from God: stunned, disbelieving and faintly ill.

You could say I'm on the troubleshooting squad." "Troubleshooting?" He put a hand on the back of his waistband. "I see trouble and I shoot it.

I'm fine," I told him tersely. "Of course you are. You're one of the strongest people I know." It took me a second to process that, because he'd said it so casually. Like he was talking about the weather or what time it was. Only Pritkin didn't say things like that. His idea of a compliment was a nod and to tell me to do whatever it was I'd just done over again. Like that was usually possible. But that had sounded suspiciously like a compliment to me.

My body cheerfully informed me that he felt really good pressed against me like that, all hard muscles and smooth contours and ominous bulges. My body liked the air of barely leashed strength and caged mayhem he was giving off. My body thought he smelled really good, like heat and coffee and electricity. My body was going to get me killed.

Can we just do this?” Ray asked tightly, clinging to Zheng’s already slightly elongated arm. Because Louis-Cesare wasn’t the only one with a master power around here. “Let go,” Zheng told him. “I’m the rubber band; you’re the spitball. And spitballs don’t hold on to rubber bands.” “Die in a fire,” Ray told him savagely. But he let go.