Rachel Vincent

“Whoever said it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved was full of crap.”

“Like I'm going to pass up an opportunity to smack your cousin.”

“Even before the withdrawal sets in, you'll do anything to get that feeling back, because as long as it lasts, nothing's wrong. It doesn't matter if you forget something, or lose something. Or if you fail someone. Nothing's wrong and everything feels good, and you never want it to end.”

“Was I wearing my 'I'm done with my virginity, please get rid of it for me' T-shirt?”

“Hey." Her grin grew as she glanced from me to Nash, then back. "You're blocking the fridge.""There's a cooler in the other room." Nash nodded toward the main part of the house.Emma shrugged. "Yeah, but no one's making out in front of it.”

“Oh fine. I'll play nice with the pretty people.”

“Because in most cases, I believe that people deserve a second chance. And because I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd stood by and let them both die souless, when I could have helped.”

“It already smells like sex in here, and you're both still dressed. You have no idea how messed up that is.”

“It's kind of like when a clock battery runs down. The hour and minute hands don't disappear, but they don't keep ticking either. They freeze on the last minute they measured.”

“There's pressure, but that's true no matter who you are or what you do.”

“He took both of my hands, twisting to face me more fully on the flattened box beneath us, and again the colors in his irises seemed to pulse with my heartbeat.”

“I got swirling eyes and the capacity to shatter windows with my bare voice. Tod got teleportation and invisibility. The supernatural world is so far from fair.”

“My aunt and overprivileged cousin only recognize two states of being: glitter and grunge. And if you weren’t glitter, well, that only left one other option.”

“I was no suffragette, but I was pretty sure the he-can’t-control-himself defense was a big, stinky load of horseshit.”

“So, what now? We’re friends?"Yeah. If friends could be in love, but not together. In sync, but out of touch. Willing to die for each other, but unable to trust.”

“Standing, I turned to face my father. “It’s the same as the scent on Moore. It’s definitely a foreign cat, but it’s...more, somehow.” Ethan snickered at my unintentional pun, but I ignored him.”

“Five toms bound and gagged. One ruptured scrotum...”

“Give me a minute to get dressed.""You're not dressed?"I smiled in spite of myself at the lighthearted quility of his jest. Until my broken door began to move. "Jace!" I shouted, trying to keep from laughing as I vaulted off the bed and scrambled to stop him. He wasn't seriously trying to sneak a peek; if he had been, he wouldn't have made any noise. But if I let him get away with a joke today, he'd try it for real tomorrow. Jace yelped as I ripped the door from his grasp and leaned it against the frame. Then he sulked, his eyes roaming just far enough south to see my tank top and shorts. "Liar!" he accused, the smile in his eyes ruining his pout. "You're not naked.""I meant I wanted to change."He grinned. "So, go ahead.""Nice try.”

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Jace said softly from my right."Call me that again, and I'll tell the whole Pride you sleep in Scooby-Doo underwear." "I don't sleep in Scooby-Doo underwear. Hell, I don't sleep in any underwear.”

“A minute later, Jace landed where I’d fallen, and I helped him up. “You okay?”“Hell, no.” He actually wobbled on his feet and clung to me, his face whiter than a sun-bleached Texas sidewalk. “There’s a reason cats don’t have wings.”“Yeah, but at least we always land on our feet.”“Then why did I land on my ass?”

“We need you to do some reconnaissance. A simple flyby over our ranch. All you have to do is count the cars and tell us how many men you see hanging around the property.”Kai shook his head without a moment’s hesitation. “Not even if you fed me your firstborn, still wet and screaming.”I blinked, but for a long moment, his words made no sense. Not the refusal. The part about cannibalizing my theoretical future child. “Well, isn’t that…gruesome? Who are you, Rumpelstiltskin?”Kai frowned, as if I made no sense to him. “No thunderbird would claim a name so senselessly flamboyant.”

“A cat’s body can sustain a lot of damage without actually dying,” Lucas said, his voice as deep as the rumble of the earth itself. “You just think about that before you so much as scratch yourself without permission.” Ryan gulped and nodded, still mute.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’ve always considered my sense of humor to be largely underappreciated, so it’s nice to finally meet a fan.”

“He couldn’t be serious. He was not accusing Marc of wanting me dead! If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I’d…I’d…pound the shit out of the pot myself!”

“Holy silicone suppository, Batman!” Ethan said, grinning. Dan snorted, Parker coughed to disguise a laugh, and I glared at them all. “What?” My brother shrugged defensively. “That’s what it looks like.”

“Pain ripped through my leg, and I knew from the powerful scent and the disturbing warmth that my blood was flowing freely. I kicked instinctively with my left leg, and followed that with another blow from the shovel, this one powered by anger, as well as fear. And to my extreme satisfaction, that bastard hobbled away from me with a dislocated shoulder, mewling like a newborn kitten. Meow, meow, motherfucker.”

“We would not have hurt the child, even if she is our natural enemy. Nor would we have hurt you, if it could be helped. Finn was killed by a male cat, and in exchange for that information, we also agreed to try to remove the female cats from your encampment before the true melee begins.” Melee?! Were these ninja birds? Green Berets with feathers?”

“I've had it with both of you." He pulled his own bag higher on one shoulder and turned to me. "You let me know when you decide what the hell you want from me. I love you, and I miss you, and I'll be waiting, whenever you're ready. But don't spy on me again. Ever." I nodded miserably as he twisted to face Sabine. "And you! You come find me when you're ready to be my friend, because that's all I have to offer right now. But as badly as I need someone to talk to, I don't need another complication in my life. And as for the two of you!" He stepped away from us, already walking backward toward the school entrance. "Work it out. Or don't work it out. But leave me the hell out of it.”

“As soon as the door closed behind my father, Alec turned to me, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. "You faced down a hellion to rescue three people from the Netherworld. Why the hell is he trying to protect you from me?"I could only shrug. "He's my dad. That's what he does.”

“You bitch!"Why is it that whenever I draw blood, I'm a bitch?”

“Anger is great. It's powerful, when you need something to hold you up. Something to steel your spine. But in the dark, when you're alone with the truth, anger can't survive. The only thing that can live in the dark with you is fear.”

“I want you. I want you so badly I can’t stand it. When you left, it felt like the world got darker. Like I couldn’t truly see anything. Couldn’t feel anything.”

“Some things are private. Some things needed to be said, even when the person who needed to hear them couldn’t hear anything. Ever again.”

“When I was a child, all problems had ended with a single word from my father. A smile from him was sunshine, his scowl a bolt of thunder. He was smart, and generous, and honorable without fail. He could exile a trespasser, check my math homework, and fix the leaky bathroom sink, all before dinner. For the longest time, I thought he was invincible. Above the petty problems that plagued normal people.And now he was gone.”

“Sorry doesn’t mean anything! Not when you’re still with him. It’s not just that you cheated—it’s that he’s still here, and you’re still with him. It just goes on and on, and it hurts every single time I see you with him. I hate it that he makes you smile, and that there’s nothing I can do to stop this. I can’t think straight, and everything hurts, and nothing makes sense anymore. You’re shredding my heart with one hand and stroking his ego with the other. And it’s killing me, Faythe. You’re killing me. And it’s only going to get worse, now that everyone knows.”

“I want to kiss you.” Jace’s whisper pulled me from my thoughts and I glanced up to find his eyes blazing with raw need. “Just because Marc won’t touch you doesn’t mean I shouldn’t. Right? I don’t have that kind of self-control, and honestly, I don’t see the point in it. Are you supposed to be impressed by how long we can go without touching you? ’Cause if that’s the game we’re playing, I think I’d rather lose.”

“Why is this so hard?” I whispered.His pulse leaped crazily at my admission. “Everything worth fighting for is hard.”

“So could we please not mob the three-thousand-plus-year-old reaper like tweens at a boy-band concert?”

“And I don't think I want to meet this super-reaper." Nash stuffed his hands in his front pockets. "The garden variety's weird enough.”

“Ethan was loyal and funny and protective. When we were little, he was the brother most likely to make me cry—and mostly likely to wipe away my tears.”

“I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths, trying not to smell Jace in front of me, not to taste him on my lips. But it was useless. In that moment, Jace was everywhere. He was in my mind, he was in my heart, and he was in my memory. He smelled good. He tasted good. And the blissful aftershock still throbbing in my most sensitive places felt wonderful, when everything else in my life was an obstacle to be overcome.”

“Faythe…?" The tremor in his voice broke my heart. Then understanding surfaced, and his tear-filled eyes searched mine desperately. "No. No," he whispered through clenched teeth. "This was not wrong. It’s the only thing I’ve done right in months. Don’t you dare regret this.”

“I’m saying that I can wait. For now. But when things get back to normal—assuming that ever happens—I want my shot. We can make each other happy, Faythe. I know it. And I’m done walking away from things I want just because they don’t come easily. You’re worth the work.”

“I still loved Marc desperately and couldn’t imagine life without him. Jace was…something else. Something I could feel but couldn’t articulate. Something I wanted, and hadn’t been able to resist in my grief-weakened state. He was something that would have to wait.”

“You don’t want me to stand against the council. You want a magic wand, so you can walk around smacking people with it until everything’s just the way you like it. But guess what, Faythe? Life doesn’t work like that. Life bites, and the harder you fight it, the more leverage it has to tear your heart right out of your chest. And if you really want to wake this particular sleeping dog, the truth is that if you’d just taken that "damn ring" five years ago, none of this shit would ever have happened!”

“Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was.My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.”“So what happened?” I asked.“I punched him.”For a moment, we stared at him in silence. “You punched the reaper?” I asked, and my hand fell from the strainer onto the edge of the sink.“Yeah.” He chuckled at the memory, and his grin brought out one of my own. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father smile. “Broke his nose.”

“I've seen this episode. This is the one where Sylvester eats Tweety.”

“Suggestions?" I asked [...]Marc never took his gaze from the cage. "Get the hose.”

“What could thunderbirds want with us?" I wondered aloud [...]"We'll find out when Big Bird wakes up," Marc said.My father shook his head. "We'll find out now. Wake him up and make him sing.”

“Can’t clean up after you anymore, baby brother, so don’t punk out. Make it count.”