Don’t fuss. I love you just as you are, Mercy. I don’t need to swallow you whole, I don’t need to be in your head at all times. I just need to know that you’re there.

"Can't sleep with a dead man in my closet." "You killed someone?" asked Ben with interest.

Mmm, he rumbled into my ear. I thought that being married meant that I never go to bed hungry.

I was in the middle of a dream about garbage cans and frogs - don't ask, and I won't tell.

Charles was most comfortable by himself or, if that wasn't possible, with his pack in the wild. Talking for hours in a crowded auditorium was not on any list of things he enjoyed—or things he was good at. At least no one had died. Yet.

Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he asked. ”Enough to accept my apologies?” I suggested in a small voice. ”Heck no,” he said, and pushed off from the wall, stalking forward. When he reached me, he put his hands up and touched the sides of my neck with the tips of his fingers – as if I were something fragile. ”No apologies from you,” he told me, his voice soft enough to melt my knees and most of my other parts.

The Elders were closer to the Maker of All Things and should be deferred to whenever they made their will known.