“together—“like a moth to a flame, there’d be nothing left.”

“You string some letters together, and you make a word. You string some words together, and you make a sentence, then a paragraph, then a chapter. Words have power.”

“Lily," Mom said, "we need to talk."I don't think I'm ruining the surprise by pointing out that nothing good happens when someone starts a speech like that.”

“What’s this?” “An apology, of sorts.” I made a moue, but slipped the lid from the top . . . and then my breath left me. Inside the box sat a baseball, its well-worn white leather marked by the signatures of every Cubs player from the team. It was just like the one I’d had—just like the one I’d told him about the night we made love.”

“It is an apology,” he said, “for not believing in you . . . or in us. Yesterday, I thought I’d lost you, and then we fought together,” he said. “I pushed you away for fear of what our relationship would do, could do, to this House. And then we protected this House together. That is the true measure of what we could do.”

“Eventually, the room was cleared, and we stood there together, chests heaving, a spray of shifters and humans on the floor in front of us. We weren’t entirely undamaged—I’d taken a bruising shot to my right thigh, and Ethan had slices across his belly where he’d been caught with the edge of a bar of steel broken from someone’s office chair.But we were alive. We glanced over at each other. I was just about to speak, but before I could get out words, his hand was at the back of my head, his mouth pressing against mine. The intensely possessive kiss left me gasping for breath, but even as he pulled back, his fingers stayed knotted in the back of my hair.”

“There was a time,” he finally said, “when I would have acknowledged your reticence and given you time and space to reach your own decision.” He tipped my head down again and slid his fingers to the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. Then he lowered his lips to my ear.“This is not that time, Merit.” And then his mouth was on mine, and he took my breath away again. He kissed me like a man possessed, like a man with nothing more on his mind but the taste and feel of me. Like a man returned to life.”