“All of the designers I have met up to this point have been very nice, although upon being introduced to Karl Lagerfeld, he looks me up and down and dismisses me with the not super-kind, "What can you write that hasn't been written already?" He's absolutely right, I have no idea. I can but try. The only thing I can come up with right now is that Lagerfeld's powdered white ponytail has dusted the shoulders of his suit with what looks like dandruff but isn't....seated on a tiny velvet chair, with his large doughy rump dominating the miniature piece of furniture like a loose, flabby, ass-flavored muffin over-risen from its pan, he resembles a Daumier caricature of some corpulent, overfed, inhumane oligarch drawn sitting on a commode, stuffing his greedy throat with the corpses of dead children, while from his other end he shits out huge, malodorous piles of tainted money. How's that for new and groundbreaking, Mr. L.?”

“He stops, looks up at this window, and I can see the white oblong of his face. We look at each other. I have no rose to toss, he has no lute. But it's the same kind of hunger. ”

“...so I looked at this kid from West Texas, feelin' all cut up an' betrayed 'cause he suddenly realized the Land of the Free been fuckin' him in the ass all his life--an' I told myself, 'Shit, so that's what it's like to be the white boy. Any nigga you ask can tell you that's how America works.”

“Xavier leaned forward. "Sarcasm aside, you don't need a guy like that, Elena. Maybe you think you do - only female werewolf and all that - but hell, I've seen what you can do - tied to a chair, up against a male werewolf. You can do that, you don't need some fucking psychopath like Clayton Danvers-"He stopped, noticing my gaze."He's standing right behind me, isn't he?" Xavier muttered."Uh-huh."Xaview tilted his head back, saw Clay, and disappeared. He reappeared on the opposite bench, pressed up against me. I looked over at him, eyebrow raised. He swore under his breath and teleported to the far end of the other bench. Then he stood and turned to Clay."You must be-""The fucking psychopath," Clay said."Er, right, but I meant that in the most respectful way. Believe me, I have the utmost regard for, uh...""Raging lunatics," I said.Xavier shot me a glare."Oh sit down," I said. "He didn't bring his chain saw.”

“What? I demand to know. "What is it now?""You're not going to go." he says."Watch me.""I've been having a vision of this place, too." This stops me from my wild, cowardly (how can he think I'm brave?) retreat back to the road ..."You're having a new vision, too?" I ask. "It's right here." He walks toward me, his strides long and purposeful across the grass. "Right now. I've been seeing it for weeks, and it's happening right now."He stops in front of me. "This is the part where I kiss you," he says.”

“Anger surges in me and I stand up. "You have no right -"He's on his feet towering over me. "What if I want to have a right?”