He lifted his brows. "If I really thought it was the absolute best thing for our kids, you'd have had a battle on your hands. That was just a debate." "With chair-throwing." "Heated debate. Fights involve chair-breaking. Chair-throwing is just getting your attention.

All I could think about was him, and how much I wanted this, and how incredibly lucky I was to get it, and how tight I was going to hold onto it.

Do you like manga?" she asked after a minute. "Anime?" "Anime's cool. I'm not really into it, but 1 like Japanese movies, animated or not." "Well, I'm into it. I watch the shows, read the books, chat on the boards, and all that. But this girl I know, she's completely into it. She spends most of her allowance on the books and DVDs. She can recite dialogue from them." She caught my gaze. "So would you say she belongs here?" "No. Most kids are that way about something, right? With me, it's movies. Like knowing who directed a sci-fi movie made before I was born.

What am I? Let's just say I won't fetch a stick for you. I won't beg for treats. And, no matter how nicely you ask, I will not roll over and play dead.

I could only stare, any sense that maybe I understood him evaporating as it always did. I'd glimpse something underneath, and he'd snatched it away so fast it left bruises that called me a fool for hoping for more.

What I was doing when I was creating my werewolves is really basing them on a wild wolf pack, as much as possible. It's not as if being bitten brings you in, but what it does is that it strengthens that instinct for pack. It strengthens that instinct to need to be with others who are like you, and to form tight bonds, as an actual wolf pack does.

so, when I spotted a cougar stretched out on a thick pine tree branch near the park gates, I wasn't surprised. I can't say the same for the women clinging to the branch above the cat. she was the one screaming. The cougar-a ragged-ear old top I clled Marv-just stared at her, like he couldn't believe anyone would be dumb to climb a tree to escape a cat.