“I do want lots of things, most of which are under your dress.”

“I don’t know,” I said, exasperated. “What else do you have in your wacked-out world? Heat sensors? Mine fields? Dirigibles? Booby traps? Machine guns? Shrink rays? What?” “Aside from dirigibles, which are rather expensive and rare outside of trade routes, most of what you just said made no sense whatsoever,” he said, as delighted as a child hearing a foreign language for the first time. “But it all sounds very dangerous. And fun. Especially the part about the boobies.”

“He was watching me, and he chuckled. "Do you know how a man tames a wolf?" he asked me."No," I said."You get some clothing that you've been wearing for a while, and you toss it in with her. In the cage or the cavern where she sleeps. That first one, she rips up, shreds it to nothing. The second one, she just mouths it a bit, gets a taste. Inhales, like you're doing there. The third but of clothing, she starts dragging it around, loving on it, sleeping with it. And then you've got her under your spell. She's got the scent of you, wants to keep it around. She'll follow you everywhere.""Are you calling me a wolf?" I asked."Are you calling me a man?" he said.”

“Dammit, woman! You're scent, your stupid bloody delicious scent lingering in every crevice of my body and my wardrobe, driving me nearly mad. Do you know what it's like to want something so badly, to have it so close, and still feel that it's out of your reach? Out of control?”

“You're here," he said simply. "Do I know you?" I asked, which came out more haughtily than I had intended. "You will," he answered, kicking off the tree and walking toward me. "After all, you're wearing my locket. And I've been waiting for you.”

“I needed to take control of the dream. I held out a hand with fingers splayed and focused my will. “Zzzzzzzsssst! Pshew! Zzzzist!” I said. But nothing happened. “What in Sang are you doing, love?” he asked. My arm dropped to my side. “I was trying to shoot lightning bolts out of my fingertips,” I said. Then, quietly, “It usually works.” “Told you it wasn’t a dream. Do you want to try flying, too?” Sheepishly, I gave a little hop, but my feet came back down to the ground. “No,” I said, feeling sullen and embarrassed and on the verge of outright panic.”

“What if your heart stopped when you saw that person, and only after that did you realize that they truly were everything you ever wanted?”