Ilona Andrews

“The mage pulled my knife out of his side and looked at it. “Nice knife.” The voice was deep but female.I threw my second knife. The blade bit into the mage’s chest. Shit. Missed the neck. “Here, have another one.”

“Would you like to borrow a pair of my panties to wave around at the next Council meeting to get the point across?”His eyes flashed. “Got any to spare?” I could’ve picked somebody rational. But no, I had to fall in love with this arrogant idiot. Come to the Keep with me, be my princess. Mourn me when your crazy dad kills me. Yeah, right.”

“The rabbis paled. I’d managed to terrify holy men. Maybe I could beat up a nun for an encore.”

“Curran grinned and my heart made a little jump. I didn’t expect that.“That’s it? That’s your witty comeback?”“Yep.” Eloquence ’R’ Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic—safer that way.”

“Morfran thrust his axe straight up. He pretty much seemed to have one sign for everything: poke a hole in the sky.”

“Technically, the dance worked best when done naked, but I didn't feel like prancing in the nude into Morrigan Hound's arms. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to see me.”

“Derek favored his left side. His horse refused to bear him. I couldn't blame the horse. I wouldn't want his demonic, undead-blood-smeared, wolf-smelling ass riding me, either. But it made us slow.”

“Derek, you just don't say things like that to a woman. Keep going this way and you'll spend your life alone.""Don't change the subject. Andrea is cool. And she smells nice. It will be okay."Apparently I was supposed to sniff people to determine their competence. "How do you know?"He shrugged. "You just have to trust her.”

“I'm secure enough in myself to wear panties with bows on them. Besides, they are comfy and soft.""I bet." He almost purred.I gulped.”

“You know what I like about you? You have no sense. You sit here in my house, you can barely hold a spoon, and you're telling me 'no'. You'd pull on Death's whiskers if you could reach them.”

“And men my prophet wail deride!”

“Estene aleera hesaad de viren aneda." And now, you are forever mine.”

“She swept away, putting an extra kink into her walk. I would not have thought that a woman with an ass that bony could make it wiggle so much but she proved me wrong.”

“If the lot of you survives, Curran will flay the skin off your backs," Doolittle said."That's what I always love about you, Doctor." Raphael grinned. "You're a cup-halfway-full kind of guy. All flowers and sunshine.”

“I've never seen such a collection of idiots in my whole life.' Doolittle shook his head. 'If you participate in this lunacy, y'all will get yourselves killed. Then don't come crying to me.'Now that would be a neat trick.”

“I flexed my wrist, popped a silver needle into my palm, and offered it to him.'What's this?''A needle.''What should I do with it?'He'd walked right into it. Too easy. 'Please use it to pop your head. It's obscuring my view of the room.'- Kate & Saiman”

“I do shodo magic,” Dali said. “I curse through calligraphy. I have to write the curse out on a piece of paper and I can’t move while I do it. One smudge, and I might kill the lot of us.”Oh good.“But don’t worry.” Dali waved her arms. “It’s so precise, it usually doesn’t work at all.”Better and better.”

“It a dude and a girl, and the house and wooo scary things happen and then they kill everything.”

“She could've stared into those eyes for a thousand years and never noticed the time passing by.”

“Do you know what separates adults from children? Self-discipline. We don’t want to go to work, we don’t want to do our chores, and we don’t want to make unpleasant decisions, but we do all those things because we’re aware of the consequences which will follow if we don’t.”

“You like the girl," Alasdair offered.Nassar leveled a heavy gaze at him."Lillian said you tried to be funny in the car. I told her it couldn't possibly be true. The moment you try to make a joke, the sky shall split and the Four Horsemen will ride out, heralding Apocalypse.”

“I glanced at Derek. The boy wonder didn't melt into a pile of goo, although his gaze was glued to Rowena's chest. Avoiding eye contact. Good strategy.”

“I chuckled to myself and kept walking. The Universe had proven Curran wrong: a person who aggravated him more than me did, in fact, exist.”

“I turned to leave and paused before the gap in the ruined wall. "One last thing, Your Majesty. I'd like a name I can put into my report, something shorter than typing out 'The Leader of the Southern Shapechanger Faction.' What should I call you?""Lord."I rolled my eyes.He shrugged. "It's short.”

“Oh my God, she was retarded and I was going to kill Jim.”

“You said sloppy! Look, I didn't even use my sword; I hit him with my head, like a moron.”

“You're problem is, you underestimate me because I'm a woman.”

“On your best day, you're only as good as I am on my worst with one arm tied behind my back.”

“No, you’re not going with him.”I crossed my arms. “Who decided that?”He put on his “I’m alpha and I’m putting my foot down” expression. “I decided.”

“Our stares connected and we were quiet for a long minute, united by our misery. At least he understood me and I understood him."A fine pair we make,” he said."Yeah.”

“Yes. What is it, guilt, revenge, love, what?”I swallowed. “I live alone.”"And your point is?”"You have the Pack. You’re surrounded by people who would fall over themselves for the pleasure of your company. I have no one. My parents are dead, my entire family is gone. I have no friends. Except Jim, and that’s more of a working relationship than anything else. I have no lover. I can’t even have a pet, because I’m not at the house often enough to keep it from starving. When I come crawling home, bleeding and filthy and exhausted, the house is dark and empty. Nobody keeps the porch light on for me. Nobody hugs me and says, ‘Hey, I’m glad you made it. I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.’ Nobody cares if I live or die. Nobody makes me coffee, nobody holds me before I go to bed, nobody fixes my medicine when I’m sick. I’m by myself.”

“He’d spent the night in the boat. Next to the spaghetti queen.William glanced at the hobo girl. She sat across from him, huddled in a clump. Her stench had gotten worse overnight, probably from the dampness. Another night like the last one, and he might snap and dunk her into that river just to clear the air.She saw him looking. Dark eyes regarded him with slight scorn.William leaned forward and pointed at the river. “I don’t know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce,” he said in a confidential voice. “I don’t really care. But that water over there won’t hurt you. Try washing it off.”She stuck her tongue out.“Maybe after you’re clean,” he said.Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead.Now what?The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face.“No,” William said. “Bad hobo.”The finger kept coming closer.”

“You're an interesting woman.""Your interest has been duly noted.”

“I make a bad mom, but I can pull off a crazy aunt.”

“I could have fixed almost everything else, but death defeated me every time.”

“In death, they all looked the same. This morning they spoke, they breathed, they kissed their loved ones good-bye. And now they lay dead. Gone forever.”

“I raged across the field, killing all before me. They ran when they saw me coming, and I chased them down, and killed them before they could take someone else's friend away from them.”

“This was hell and I was its fury.”

“I dropped all the guards. All the leashes, all the chains, everything that ever restrained me through the discipline and fear of discovery, I let it all go. No need to hide.”

“It's not your job to die for your Pack! It's your job to make the other bastards die for theirs.”

“Your ability to remain alive never ceases to amaze me.”

“I want to punish them. I want that punishment to be so hard, so vicious that the next who takes their place wets himself at the mere thought of trying to fight me.”

“Two years? That's entirely too long. If you want, we can take care of that. After two years it's pure therapy.”

“Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I'd be blushing.”

“I don't want it to be attributed to a loss of control on my part. When I throw you out of the window, I want there to be no doubt the act was deliberate.”

“You don't cause problems. You cause catastrophes.”

“I wouldn't want his demonic, undead-blood-smeared, wolf-smelling ass riding me either.”

“Half-man, half-beast, all nightmare. The shapeshifter warrior form.”

“Perhaps I just wasn't scary enough. Maybe I should invest in some horns or fangs.”

“A ghastly attempt at a smile, sure to send any normal person to a therapist.”