I started to duck under the spears, only to have the two vamps on the other wall suddenly appear in my face. Or, at least, their crotches did. Another day, I would have made a cute remark about heat and leather jock straps, but I wasn’t feeling real cute right now.

He smiled at that, and then his gaze shifted to a spot over my shoulder and it faded. 'These doubts wouldn’t have anything to do with the company you’re keeping of late, would they?' I didn’t get a chance to answer before the shop door was thrown open and a furious war mage stomped in. Pritkin spotted me and his eyes narrowed. 'You shaved my legs?!' Mircea looked at me and folded his arms across his chest. I looked from one unhappy face to the other and suddenly remembered that I had somewhere else to be.

He wasn't that good looking, he had the social skills of a wet cat and the patience of a caffeinated hummingbird

Mess with my weed again and I’ll be informing Daddy that there was an early casualty on the mission.” I saw him wince at my designation for Mircea and grinned.

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

I was tops at the Scarlet O'Hara school of emotional distancing. I always thought about the uncomfortable stuff tomorrow, and, as everyone knows, tomorrow never comes.

Pritkin muttered something that sounded fairly vicious. “My clothes are warded! Even if I wished to accede to your demand, it would not work on them.” “Then strip.” “I beg your pardon?” He sounded almost polite suddenly, as if he believed he couldn’t possibly have heard right.