“If you leave me naked and waiting on the bed without making love to me, I’ll—” I didn’t get to finish the threat. I think it was the word “naked,” though maybe it was “bed,” but before I finished my sentence, he was on me. Mercy to Adam”

“Yes,” I told him. “I think the guy playing the Pirate King was awesome.”He stopped where he was.“What?” I asked, frowning at the big smile on his face.“I didn’t say I liked the Pirate King,” he told me.“Oh.” I closed my eyes—and there he was. A warm, edgy presence right on the edge of my perception. When I opened my eyes, he was standing right in front of me. “Cool,” I told him. “You’re back.”He kissed me leisurely. When he was finished, I was more than ready to head home. Fast.“You make me laugh,” he told me seriously.”

“It was Adam, but he was too late. He couldn’t love me anymore. He would be so angry with me. I had to hide. He didn’t love me so he might hurt me when he was angry. When he calmed down, that would hurt him. I didn’t want him hurting because of me. There was nowhere for a person to hide. So I wouldn’t be a person. My eyes fell on the shelves that lined the far back corner. A coyote could hide there.”

“For Adam, screwed-up bonding thing or not, I’d wait forever.“Really?” he asked in a tone I’d never heard from him before. Softer. Vulnerable. Adam didn’t do vulnerable.“Really what?” I asked.“Despite the way our bond scares you, despite the way someone in the pack played you, you’d still have me?”He'd been listening to my thoughts. This time it didn't bother me.“Adam,” I told him, “I’d walk barefoot over hot coals for you.”

“I can turn into a coyote," I said. "My mom tells me I must get it from my father."Calvin's jaw dropped, then his face froze. "Your mother was a white woman," he said urgently. "You can't turn into a coyote.""Can, too," I said indignantly. It was one thing for me to tell him he was lying--I knew I was right. It was an entirely different matter for him to tell me I was lying."Can't.""Can.""Can't""Can, too.""Mercy," Adam said with an exaggerated patience tinged with humor. He knew I was doing it on purpose. That was okay but he wasn't angry anymore."Cannot," said Calvin."Knock it off, both of you. Neither of you is five.”

“Take a note: it usually works better if you wait until I do something stupid before getting mad at me.”

“I knew he would never leave me, never let me down-because the man had never abandoned anything in his long life. If I hadn’t taken the gold rope of our bond, I knew Adam would have sat on me and hog-tied me with it. I liked that. A lot.”