My Familiar Stranger (Knights of Black Swan, #1)

by Victoria Danann

He pressed closer and showed her what sex looks like in a smile.

“Somebody needed to do it?” Kay repeated. “Elora, that was truly a dumb ass thing to say, but maybe it fits, because I’m starting to think you are one.”

An epiphany is a surge of comprehension that pulls together loose ends of experience with tidbits of information and flashes of intuition, then rearranges them into a moment of perfect clarity.

Something about Baka’s sigh caused such an epiphany. He was her. He had reawakened to life in a strange new world. He was lost, with no family, no friends, and no clear imperative as to how to proceed.

Having never experienced the ordinary pleasures of being pursued as a teenager, Elora was a late bloomer who had been making up for lost time in the past few weeks, with an advanced education on the nuances of flirting. Now she was learning that there is a super bonus thrill attached to late night, clandestine conversations with bad boys.

She carefully observed the changes in their facial expression as she talked. Storm went from curious to resolutely pissed. Ram went from curious to stunned. Kay went from curious to thoughtful.

Apparently we’ve given her the mistaken impression that our collective asses are worth looking after. She wants to be…” “...Wendy,” Ram finished that sentence while absently looking out the window with a slightly off-focus expression.

It forced her to ask herself if she was sure that “doing the right thing” was always the “right thing to do”.

He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and gave her a smile that didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. Then, looking just a little older, he picked up his bag and walked to the plane without once looking back.