“Shifting in the hospital bed had blown her closet door wide open.”

“The door swung open and Kate walked in. Her jeans and T-shirt were splattered with blood and she was carrying a severed vampire head. The T-shirt has a smiley face on it.”

“I clawed my eyes open and rolled off my bed. For some reason, someone had moved the floor several feet lower than I had expected, and I fell and crashed with a thud.Ow.A blond head popped over the side of the bed, and a familiar male voice asked, “Are you okay down there?”Curran. The Beast Lord was in my bed. No, wait a minute. I didn’t have a bed, because my insane aunt had destroyed my apartment. I was mated to the Beast Lord, which meant I was in the Keep, in Curran’s rooms, and in his bed. Our bed. Which was four feet high. Right.“Kate?”“I’m fine.”“Would you like me to install one of those child playground slides for you?”

“It depends. If I don't let you in, will you huff and puff and blow my house down?" She had no idea. "I'm more of a kick the door open and cut everyone inside to ribbons kind of wolf.”

“Someone pounded on the office door. Barabas moved to the door, slid aside the metal shutter covering the narrow spy window, and looked through it.“It’s your lover man.”“Barabas, open the damn door,” Raphael snarled.Barabas slid the shutter closed. “Do you want me to let him in?”“I’m thinking about it.”Barabas slid the shutter open. “She’s thinking about it.”

“The kind of eyes that jumped from a woman's dreams right into her morning and made trouble in the marriage bed.”

“I've got a gig," Jim said.I sat up in my bed, wide-awake. A gig was good- I needed the money. "Half.""Third.""Half.""Thirty-five percent." Jim's voice hardened."Half."The phone went silent as my former Guild partner mulled it over. "Okay, forty."I hung up.(...)The phone rang. I let it ring twice before I picked it up."Fine." Jim's voice had a hint of a snarl in it. "Half.”