Thea Harrison

“Tiago smacked Aryal in the back of the head. It didn’t look like a gentle blow. “Touch her plate and die.”

“She thought of him sprawled in the armchair in the downstairs study, calmly demolishing pastry after pastry while Aubrey looked at him in shock. Or what about that god-awful dinner? A variety of people looked daggers at him and tried several times to deliver a direct verbal cut, while he plowed through alarming amounts of beautifully prepared food with evident enjoyment for the cuisine and a monumental indifference for anybody else’s opinion.”

“You keep picking me up and carting me around,” she muttered. “You know, when I’m not injured or drunk on my ass, I do have two perfectly functional feet.” “You are just so magnificently portable,” he told her.”

“That is not an adequate response, faerie,” he growled. His Power lay in the room, a heavy brooding presence. “I require a series of words strung together that make coherent sentences.”

“I see,” said Aubrey, but Tiago was sure he didn’t yet.”

“That’s why I quit,” said Tiago. He popped another pastry into his mouth.”

“She put her hands to her face and rubbed, then dug her fingers into her scalp, trying to massage some life back into her tired brain.”

“Goddammit, T-bird, he said. I love that faerie as much as any of us, but I couldn’t watch and do nothing while she becomes your Titanic.”

“These jokers were not that complicated. Death-by-stupidity was the cause as far as Tiago was concerned.”

“What did okay mean to the harpy— not coughing up arterial blood?”

“He wanted to knock these humans’ heads together and toss them out of the suite, preferably out the window.”

“Who knew that the Wyr warlord’s real animal form was a mother hen?”

“There’s nothing you could do that I haven’t seen an army of uglier, hairier people do thousands of times before.”

“If she were meeting him for the first time and he looked at her like that, she would be spinning on her heel and on the run before you could say Kentucky Derby.”

“The gruff gryphon’s voice turned gentle. “What am I, chopped liver? You beat the crap out of me this afternoon. That pretty much makes us pals in my book.”

“You should eat more than that. It must take a lot of lettuce and carrots to keep up any kind of normal body weight.”

“I had a conversation with somebody. It was an epiphany.” His voice was rueful. He rocked her. “From that point on I swore I would never eat something that could talk.”

“Locks, wards—you name it, and she could walk through it. Nothing could cage her. Nothing, that is, unless it plummeted out of a clear blue sky and sat on her.”

“I know I had that punch comin’ to me. I owed you one. No hard feelings, sugar.” “Speak for yourself.” Pia’s words were coated in frost. “I’ve all kinds of hard feelings going on over here.”

“Payback and death weren’t the dragon’s only companions. He was on intimate terms with chaos and strife too.” Dragos”

“She was his beacon to what others called decency, not because she told him how to act but because she made him want to try.”

“Then she smiled that subtle, mysterious Mona Lisa smile of hers that tilted the corners of her lush mouth and caused the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes to crease, where that bastard mortality had stroked her velvet skin with skeletal fingers and carved his mark on her before she had kicked him in the balls.”

“For surely the gods would know better than she what to make of this hot, beautiful grief, the gods who had, after all, created her with such a fierce, lonesome soul.”

“Are you purring at me?""I might be," Rune said. His deep voice was rougher, and lazy with intimacy. "Unless you've done something wrong. Then I'm growling at you again.”

“He brought her to the moon with a flourish. The near side facing the Earth, not the far side, since he thought they should take the trip in stages. She turned in his arms to look around at where he brought them."W-what ... ""I told you it would be somewhere special," he said, in the invisible bubble he had created for them.She screamed.He smiled smugly. Yes, this second date destination was worthy of a happy scream. Very few humans had walked on the moon. He knew how rare this opportunity was. Surely it should make up for what had happened on their first date.Grace kept screaming. She turned and clawed at him. "Oh, my God. Oh. My. God. OHMYGOD!"His smile vanished. He tried to get hold of her in a gentle but tight grip. That was more difficult than he expected. She seemed to have acquired a half-dozen arms and legs. He informed her, "You may stop making noise any time now."Somehow she had climbed halfway up his body before he managed to grasp her waist. He plucked her off and set her on her feet. She started to climb up his body again."Are you having fun?" he asked suspiciously."We're on the fucking moon!" she shouted. "There's nothing here!"He stared at her. "I don't think you're having fun.”

“You make me sound dictatorial," he said. "Finish your breakfast.”

“She didn't need to say that she was going to die sooner or later while he wasn't, because the fact hung over their heads like the sword of Damocles that dangled by a single hair.”

“You goddamn, freaky bitch," Grace said, because, hells bells, it had been a righteous day, and all of a sudden, pow, her temper was done lost and gone.”

“Djinn were cursed with a terminal curiosity. It was often their worst weakness, and sometimes it was their downfall.Khalil was no exception. If a door was open, he peeked through it. If it was closed, it made the peeking so much better. If the door was locked, well. There was a natural progression to this sort of thing.”

“She was sliding dangerously fast down a slippery slope, if she went from "no kissing" and "we'll see" to him coming over when the children were gone. She cast around in her mind for something, anything, to stop her headlong plunge.She blurted out, "Do Djinn date?"He blinked. "That is not something to which I have given much thought," he said. "Perhaps some Djinn might date some ... creatures ... some ... times. Dating has not previously been a habit of mine."She nodded, too rapidly, and forced herself to stop. "I just wondered.""Humans like to date," Khalil said thoughtfully. Then he turned decisive. "That is what we will do tomorrow. We will go on a date."Suddenly she was dying. She didn't know from what exactly: repressed laughter or mortification or perhaps a combination of both. She managed to articulate, "You don't dictate a date.""I do not see why not," said Khalil, his energy caressing hers with lazy amusement. He tapped her nose. "Humans require air. Breathe now."She did, and a snicker escaped. "If you order a date to happen, it's no longer a date. It becomes, I don't know, a meeting or kidnapping or something.”

“If he ever sang, she thought, the song would be so unbearably gorgeous, it would soar over spires of stone and steel, and pierce the hearts of humans and other creatures, and he could rule the world.”

“She folded her arms and said, "No. We're done with the truth game. Ask me what you want to ask me, and I'll answer or not if I like. I'll ask you anything I want, and you'll answer or not if you like. No forfeit, no control, no balance. No more favors or deals or measuring shit. We'll either have a real, messy conversation, or you can get the hell out."He grew angry. She could feel it shifting through his energy, slow and sulfurous like slow-moving lava.She liked it. His anger felt satisfying. It meant he wasn't indifferent to her. So she pushed him harder. "Go on, go.”

“He spoke with a deep clarion power she imagined renegade angels might use, as they called one another to war with God.”

“She had been lonely, the kiss hadn't meant anything, and he was clearly regretting it. How many mistakes did that sentence encapsulate in the history of relationships?”

“Her mind whited out, and she coughed. It sounded suspiciously like a whimper. "Well, okay. I guess I blew that round again, didn't I?""I don't know," he whispered. "Did you? I found your choice of topic extremely interesting.”

“Shocked and disconcerted, she pulled away. His hand fell from her arm. Breathing unevenly, she sat in a rigid, upright position and stared straight ahead. She could feel the blood rush to her cheeks.His fiercely male presence filled the house, just as it had last night.And he was no longer entirely indifferent to her."Now you have interested me," murmured Khalil."I have no idea what you are talking" - she could barely squeeze enough air out of her lungs to get the words out - "about."He chuckled, and the husky sound was even more dangerous than that from the night before. It shivered along her exposed nerve endings with as much sensuality as if he had trailed his fingers along her bare skin. "I think I might like it when you lie," he said. "It makes my truthsense feel so superior.”

“Grace headed in desperation for the coffeemaker. Apparently it was going to be one of those mornings. Funny how often those happened after a short night's sleep.”

“Black smoke wafted around her, covering her from the waist downward. She drifted fingers through the top of it. It curled and eddied just like real smoke. Khalil was making his presence known to the Vampyres in no uncertain terms. She stirred the smoke with a forefinger. It looked really neat, actually, like she was standing in the mouth of a volcano. Or maybe in the mouth of hell."Meet my companion," she said. "He's not very friendly."Khalil Somebody Important. Which probably meant he was the Bane of More Than One Person's Existence. He might possibly be the Bane of Quite a Few Peoples' Existences. For the first time since meeting him, Grace felt almost cheerful.”

“You and the babies have my protection from the Vampyres, Khalil said, his mental voice as smooth as a rope of silk slipping over her neck. At a time of my choosing, you will do anything I ask you to do, for the sum of one favor. Agreed?She gave him a jerky nod. Agreed.Khalil gave Grace a sulfurous smile.”

“She should probably stop calling him "the Djinn." He did, after all, have a name. He was Khalil somebody. According to one of his companions, he was Khalil Somebody Important.Grace wasn't sure, but she thought his name might be Khalil Bane of Her Existence, but she didn't want to call him that to his ... well, his face, when he chose to wear a face ... because she didn't want to provoke him any more than she already had, and she was really, really just hoping he might get bored and go away now that all the excitement had died down.All the excitement was dying down now, wasn't it?”

“See, I told you it would all work out,” Niniane said to Tiago. “You are, as always, perfectly right,” Tiago told her.”

“Xanthe, you are the most beautiful surprise in my life. I hardly noticed you at first. You carry the quiet of a river with a still surface that runs very deep. I found that the more I looked at you, the more I saw—and now the more I see of you, the more beautiful you become and the more I want you.” He paused then said deeply, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I have grown to want you.”

“Listen to me. I did not say I was falling in love with you, if only you would hide some part of yourself or change some aspect to try to please me. I said I was falling in love with you—all of you. I don’t want you to curb yourself, deny yourself, cover up your face or head or any part of your body. I don’t want you to lose or gain weight, or watch what you say, or deny how you feel, or try to be anything but who you are, because who you are is the most beautiful person in the world to me.”

“Only one person," he whispered to her. "Only one thing.”

“When it was her turn to say good-bye, Aryal said, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."Niniane opened and closed her mouth. She said, "I have no idea how to respond to that.”

“He wished he knew how to describe to her what he felt.I started counting time for you.I want to change who I am for you.You are my Grace.He was too full, and there weren't enough words.He said, "I did not know I needed grace until I met you."Then as she held him tightly, he knew that what he said had been enough.”

“You will call me,” he said. “For the rest of your life, you will call me. I don’t give a shit whether or not you’re in the mood. I don’t care if your cause is useless or if I am too late or if you can fix the whole damn problem by yourself or if you just get scared. You will call me, Grace. You will call me.”

“I just had a dream.” “About what?” “It’s hard to describe. It was very dreamy.”

“Somehow she had climbed halfway up his body before he managed to grasp her waist. He plucked her off and set her on her feet.She started to climb up his body again.“Are you having fun?” he asked suspiciously.“We’re on the fucking moon!” she shouted. “There’s nothing here!”He stared at her. “I don’t think you’re having fun.”“No air!”He shook his head. “Think about that logically. Could you have possibly said those words if there truly was no air? Of coursethere’s no air or atmosphere outside this bubble—”“Ofcoursethere’snofuckingairhereorfuckingatmosphereonthefuckinggoddamnMOONyouGODDAMNFUCKINGCRAZYMORONICDJINN…”“Grace,” he roared in her face.”

“She cradled his head and bowed over him, wiping her damp cheeks with one hand. "We're so different from each other.""We live a long time. It's good to not be bored.”