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He cared naught for glory, as it held not a patch on the sweet release of murder.
His girl was a fighter, and she knew what she was doing, and he had no problems letting her go and watching the fun as she buried the competition.
“Get my fucking horse off this track and over to Tricounty—” “She isn’t worth it—” Manny snap-grabbed the front of the vet’s jacket, and hauled Mr. Easy Out over until they were nose-to-nose. “Do it. Now.”
She could not come here to this side only to replicate what she had been so desperate to escape from.
Keeping her alive simply so he didn’t have to face her death was not the right answer here.
The female is mine, he thought. And even though that made no sense at all, the conviction was so strong, he couldn’t question it.
at this moment, you are the problem. Not your twin’s condition, or Manny’s decision. You need to step back, get some clarity, and think, not react.
“I have no words,” he said hoarsely. “And I know exactly what you’re telling me.”
the rest did not care which targets were chosen—provided they were fed, watered, and well sexed, they were content to fight whenever and wherever were chosen for them.
Refocusing, he pushed the things that weren’t immediately helpful out of his mind,
“I’m wondering whether I should just let it all go and play dumb like I don’t know what’s going. Or get real.” “Real,” she said. “I do not have the luxury of even a moment of falsity.”
Payne’s human rubbed his eyes as if he were hoping that doing so would change his perception . . . or perhaps this reality they were stuck in.
And the silence that stretched out between them became as treacherous as a battlefield, and just as dangerous to cross. Yet she heard herself say, “There is a name for what I am.”
But as she had learned long ago, fate was rarely concerned with what she wanted.
He didn’t want a reply. Wasn’t even talking to his best friend. He was just looking up at the night sky with its washed-out stars and vast, answerless expanse hoping for some strength.
As thoughts of her last moments with her healer barged into her mind, she let them
The seeing bowls have allowed me to watch him through all the seasons of his life. And I daresay that this time, with you, is by far the best.”
Unfortunately, in situations like this, I feel like the pair of us are not so much together as side by side, if that makes sense?
He was locked in a cage with no key that he could find, years of his family’s derision boxing him in and cramping him:
“How can I tell her . . .” His voice broke, and he had to clear his throat. “How the fuck can I explain this to her?” “How can you not. She loves you.”
She said his name once, but the tunnel was an echo chamber that batted the syllables back and forth, multiplying them. He stopped. That was the only response she got.
Funny, there was a reason that people “built” lives together. Although the choices you made as husband and wife were not bricks, and time was not mortar, you were still constructing something tangible and real.
Yeah, I’d like to rahport a dead bahdy. Nah, I’m not giving my name. It’s in a Dumpstah in an alley off Tenth Street, two blocks ova from th’ Commahdore. Looks to be a Caucasian female, late teens, early twenties . . . Nah, I’m not giving my name. . . . Hey, how ’bout you get down the address and stahp worrying ’bout me. . . .
The two of them were so very independent and that was why their relationship worked: He was reserved and she didn’t need much emotional support, and usually that math added up beautifully. Not this week, however.
“I love you.” “Then you’ve got to talk to me. The one thing guaranteed not to work is silence.”
“I have no words. Sixteen languages, but no words.” There was both love and despair in his voice. He was truly handicapped when it came to emotions, and falling in love hadn’t changed that . . .
Her life was in many ways incomprehensible. Ghost married to a vampire? Come on. But looking at this closet, so nice and arranged with their crazy lives at rest among these carefully placed clothes and footwear, she felt good about where they were. “Normal” was not a bad thing in this lunatic world; it really wasn’t. No matter how it happened to be defined.
She had taken so much for granted, and now she missed who she had once been with a grief that she’d assumed one had only for the dead.
Broken. Useless. Deadweight. The breakdown that finally ensued carried with it no tears or sobs. Instead, the snap was demarcated by a grim resolve.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. Nothing good is going to come out of my being within earshot of you right now.”
Manny rose up on his toes and met the fucker eye-to-eye. “If you think you want to kill me now, this ain’t nothin’ compared to how you’re going to feel when I see her again.”
He knew, she thought. More than anything their mother could have done for her, he had brought her the one thing guaranteed to make her want to live. “Thank you, brother mine,” she said, eyes locked on him.
“I would do anything for you. Anything.” With that, he pushed his way out . . . and as the door eased shut, she realized that I love you could indeed be said without actually uttering the phrase. Actions did mean more than words.
“Do I weigh too much? I am large for a female.” “You are perfect for a female.” “Not where I come from,” she muttered. “Then they’re using the wrong standard.”
He was dead serious, and if she were to be truthful with herself, she fell a little in love with him in that moment.
“I decide,” she countered, a strange, pounding need taking root in her gut. “I decide what I can and cannot handle, yes?” His half smile was all evil. In a good way. “Yes, ma’am.”
“What can I do to help.” V had a quick, shocking picture filter through his brain. “Nothing you could handle. Unfortunately.” “Don’t do my thinking for me, motherfucker.”
Those deep hazel eyes held his and didn’t blink. “You’d be amazed what I would do to keep you alive.”
In the glow of the computer screen, he saw her face change. Gone was any remnant of shy, innocent passion. . . . In its place was a raw, strapping hunger that reminded him she was not human. She was a beautiful predator, a gorgeous, powerful animal that was just human enough for him to forget who and what she really was.
Jane didn’t agree with the female’s thinking or of her choice. But she was clear on the ethics, as tragic as they were.
Except that rationale simply wasn’t enough. At some point, the love they had deserved better than silence that was grounded in the past.
She was softly aglow, her skin casting a faint phosphorescence. . . . Perhaps this was her sexual response? Logical, she thought. For the way he made her feel on the inside was as uncontainable as happiness and as luminous as hope.
Humans were stupid cows, but a stampede with no brains was more dangerous than one with intelligence—you could never predict the clueless.
Having never viewed herself as even feminine, much less “beautiful,” it was an astonishment to hear the reverence in not just his words, but his voice.
“You worry about yourself.” Not possible. He wasn’t losing the only two compass points he had on the same night.
The independence was absolutely vital. To be allowed the simple, profound dignity of taking care of her body’s needs seemed like manna from above, proof positive that blessings, like time, were relative.
“Love can conquer everything but reality. Which will win every stinking time.”
But how much of that shit was him and how much was a mismatched-eye-based mutiny? Who the fuck was he really?
And yet here she was . . . shut down from a disgrace she had never earned and he had never meant to call out of her . . . still offering herself to him—except not in a pathetic way, but because she had been born and bred to serve a purpose that had nothing to do with what she wanted and everything to do with social expectation . . . and she was determined to live up to the standard. Even if she wasn’t wanted for who she was. Christ, he knew what that was like.
Her eyes finally met his and they were flat-out pissed. Which was a strange relief. Her meek acceptance of everything made him question how smart she was. But going by her expression now? There was a whole lot of something underneath the mantle she wore—and
