“Well...he's back in an exam room. Should I get out a quarter?"Everybody groaned. There was only one He out of the legions of male patients they treated, and coin bingo was typically how the staff decided who had to deal with him.”

“Wheeling around, he went blindly for the doors, messing up the piles, nearly knocking himself over on the coffee table.Saxton got there first, blocking the way out with his body.Blay's eyes locked on the males face." Get out of my way. Right now. You don't want to be around me.""Is that not for me to decide."Blay shifted his focus to those lips he knew so well. "Don't push me.""Or what.""If you don't get the fuck out of my way, I'm going to bend you over that desk of your-""Prove it."Wrong thing to say. In the wrong tone. At the wrong time.Blay let out a roar that rattled the diamond-paned windows. Then he grabbed his lover by the back of the head and all but threw Saxton across the room. As the male caught himself of the desk, papers went flying, the confetti of yellow legal pad and computer printouts falling down like snow.Saxton's torso curled around as he looked behind at what was coming at him."Too late to run." Blay growled as he ripped open his button fly.Falling upon the male, he was rough with his hands, tearing the the layers that kept him from what he was going to take. When there were no barriers, he bared his fangs and bit down on Saxton's shoulder through his clothes, locking the male beneath him even as he grabbed those wrist and all but nailed them to the leather blotter. And then he pushed in hard and let out everything he had, his body taking over .. . even as his heart stayed far, far away.”

“When Vishous pushed open the door to the exam room, he got a gander at the kind of seating arrangement that made him think fondly of castration.”

“As he stepped forward, it dawned on her that this was a bad idea. If he wanted to talk she should meet him downstairs. After all, he was very male. And she was very naked. And they were now... yup, shut in a bedroom together.Good planning. Excellent work. Maybe she should jump out a window next.”

“He also said that I would never get an apology out of you.” There was a long pause. “I want one. Now.”Xcor put aside his soup and found himself searching the wounds he had given himself, recalling all that pain, all that blood—which had dried brown on the floorboards beneath him.“And then what,” he said in a rough voice.“You’ll have to find out.”Fair enough, Xcor thought.Without grace—not that he had any, anyway—he rose to his feet. At his full height, he was unsteady for too many reasons to count, and the off-balance feeling got even worse as he met the eyes of his… friend.Looking Throe in the face, he stepped up and put out his palm. “I am sorry.”Three simple words spoken loud and clear. And they didn’t go nearly far enough.“I was wrong to treat you as I did. I am… not as much of the Bloodletter as I thought—as I have e’er wanted to be.”

“The sense that in his mother’s view, he had let down his family just by being who he was… was a failure of acceptance that he was never going to get over. He just wanted to live, honestly and out front, with no apology. Like everyone else. To love who he loved, be who he was… but society had a different standard.”

“See, this was the thing with Qhuinn. He could be out there and he could let his edge get away from him, but he always came back and made you feel like you were the single most important person in the world to him and that he was truly sorry for hurting your feelings.”