I remember lying in the snow, a small red spot of warm going cold, surrounded by wolves.

Cole," I said, "Don't lose this number.

She screamed, the high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward.

And then I opened my eyes and it was just Grace and me - nothing anywhere but Grace and me - she pressing her lips together as though she were keeping my kiss inside her, and me, holding this moment that was as fragile as a bird in my hands.

I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't had to fake gratitude for a gift, and now that I actually was grateful, thank you didn't seem to cut it.

I was trying to decide if you still had free will as a wolf. If I was a terrible person for planning to drug my girlfriend and drag her back to my house to keep in the basement.

With Blue here, he was beginning to feel as if possibly he'd overdone it with the helicopter. He wondered if it would make Blue feel better or worse to know that it was Helen's helicopter, that he hadn't paid anything today for the use of it. Probably worse. Remembering his vow to at least do no harm with his words, he kept his mouth shut.