“Jamie felt as though her heart would literally take flight from her crest. Damn her and her mouth. “Nick, I was sort of exaggerating about how nasty I was going to act of the plane. Why can’t we just leave Fleas with Max and get going?” “She’s lying, Nick,” Max said. “You don’t do things her way and she turns into Satan’s daughter.”

“It’s really better this way, Ryan,” Paige said with a sympathy that made me nauseous.“Better for who?” he asked her. “For Jamie? For me? Or maybe just better for you. I can’t believe you, Paige! You have no idea what she’s beenthrough! Pain like you could never imagine! And you’re throwing it in her face over and over again for what? Because I’d rather go out with her thanwith you?You call her the ice queen, but Jamie would never do something like that to anyone.”“But look at what she’s doing to you,” Paige said.“She’s done nothing but make me happy, and she’s had to turn her entire life around just to do it.You guys are the ones doing all the damage!”

“Then she probably would have waved back," Max said. "And it might be a he.""Ha! Not likely," Lucia said. "Didn't you notice them?""Them what?" Max asked."Her... you know. She has breasts, Max! What do you think that is on her chest?""I think it's a pair of crossed arms," Max said.”

“So what do wolves do to date?” Nick asked.“We don’t date,” Vane said. “When a woman is in season, we fight for her and then she picks who mounts her.”Nick gaped. “Are you kidding? You don’t have to buy her dinner? You mean you don’t even have to talk to her?” He turned to Acheron. “Dayam, Ash, make me a wolf.”

“Lauren returned her phone to her ear. “Jenny!” she snapped, “I don’t have time right now. I need your help. I can’t move Nick by myself and I can’t leave him on the ground. He’ll catch a cold—”“A cold?” Jennifer interrupted. “You can’t leave him on the ground because he’ll catch a cold? How ’bout you can’t leave him on the ground because he’s Nick Blackthorne?”

“So you don’t fancy meeting up again?’ Max persisted, though Neve didn’t know why, because she thought she’d made her position perfectly clear. ‘Swap war stories?’‘I don’t have any war stories,’ Neve said, and in that moment she felt that she never would. That every night would be spent creeping round her flat in her socks with the telly turned down so low that she could barely hear it, so in the end she’d have no other option but to escape into the pages of books where there were other girls falling in and out of love but not her. Never her. She stared down at the scuffed toes of her faux Ugg boots in sudden and tired defeat.‘If you don’t have any war stories, then at least you don’t have any war wounds,’ Max said, so quietly that Neve had to strain her ears to catch his words. ‘Take my number.”