There is something incredibly arousing about being wanted. I pulled my hand back and sucked in a deep breath. “Adam,” I said.

And that's when Anna realized that what the wolf had been asking Bran for was death. Impulsively, Anna stepped away from Charles. She put a knee on the bench she'd been sitting on and reached over the back to close her hand on Asil's wrist, which was lying across the back of the pew. He hissed in shock but didn't pull away. As she held him the scent of wilderness, of sickness, faded. He stared at her, the whites of his eyes showing brightly while his irises narrowed to small bands around his black pupil. "Omega," he whispered, his breath coming harshly.

He stepped back with exaggerated courtesy. But when I walked past him, he swatted my rump. Hard enough to sting. “You need to be more careful,” he growled. “Keep interfering in my business and you might get hurt.” I said sweetly as I continued to Jesse's room, “The last man who swatted me like that is rotting in his grave.” “I have no doubt about it.” His voice was more satisfied then contrite.

She crawled on top of him, naked and warm and soft, smelling like a miracle that had saved him from a lifetime of aloneness.

If she kept wondering about how much of her life Bran engineered, she’d end up on a funny farm knitting caps for ducks.

Yes,' he said sincerely. 'Such a one deserves peanut butter on the seat of his pants.

Such a small thing to cause so much trouble.