We'll meet you here. Hopefully everyone will be in human form." A wry smile. "Though I'll warn you, he's not a whole lot more pleasant that way. At least as a wolf, he can't talk.

When I glanced at the chair, it started to shake. I’d like to think it was scared of me, but I rarely invoked that response in living things, let alone inanimate objects.

You're crying?" he said. "No, I- " I tore my gaze away. "Just dust. From the path. Simon's that way." I tried to pass him, but he stooped, trying to get a loom of my face. When I wouldn't let him, he caught my chin. I jerked back, flinching at his touch, heart thudding at it, too. I told myself Simon was wrong. I'd never be dumb enough to fall for Derek. But I had. With him so close, my stomach kept doing weird flips. It wasn't fear. It hadn't been fear for awhile. "You have been crying," he said, voice softer.

I didn't need to be rescued." "Sorry, but my sword outranks your…" she glanced at my hand, "sock puppet.

I have to. I've been fighting it all night. I'm going to lose. My battle is as futile as a woman feeling the first pangs of labor and deciding it's an inconvenient time to give birth. Nature wins out. It always does.

Using supernatural beings to build the perfect weapon? Intriguing idea." "Not really," I said. "They did it on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A sub-par season. I slept through half the episodes.

There was no closing my eyes and sliding back into that blissful dream of normal. This was my normal now.