Ilona Andrews

So you want me to track down a supernaturally fast sniper who can disappear into thin air, retrieve your maps, and do it so nobody finds out what I'm doing or why?''Exactly.'I sighed. 'I'll get the paperwork.

We took a right at the fork, heading farther north. The charred houses continued. To the right, a large sign nailed to an old telephone post shouted DANGER in huge red letters. Underneath in crisp black letters was written:IM-1: Infectious Magic AreaDo Not EnterAuthorized Personnel OnlyA second smaller sign under the first one, written on a piece of plastic with permanent marker, read:Keep out, stupid.__e aren__ going to keep out, are we?_ Ascanio asked.__o.___wesome.

Sophie raised her head. Light filtering through the trees dappled her face. __awk.__harlotte looked up as well. A bird of prey soared above the treetops, circling around them.__t__ dead,_ Sophie said. __eorge is guiding it. He is very powerful.__he realization washed over Charlotte in a cold gush of embarrassment. __s George spying on Richard and me?___lways,_ Sophie said. __ll those perfect manners are a sham. He spies on everyone and everything. Declan hasn__ been able to conduct a single business meeting in the past year without George__ knowing all the details. He does let go when you make love. He is a prude.____rude_ is a coarse word. He has a sense of tact,_ Charlotte corrected before she caught herself.__ sense of tact,_ Sophie repeated, tasting the words. __hank you. The other one is somewhere around here, too.___he other one?__ophie surveyed the woods. __ can smell you, Jack!___o, you can__,_ a distant voice answered

Sh!t. F_ck sh!t.'....'Sh!t f_ck would have also been accepted.

Andrea: "....I think a dog is a great idea. I just never pictured you with a mutant poodle._ Kate: __e isn__ a poodle. He__ a Doberman mix."Andrea: __ha. Keep telling yourself that.

Everybody has something, that one thing they must do to feel happy. I think this is yours, and I want you to be happy. You don__ have to do it, but it__ here if you choose to come back to it.

Failure happened. The trick was to accept the risk and try anyway.

I__ missed him so much, it almost hurt. It started the moment I left the Keep and nagged at me all day. Every day I had to fight with myself to keep from making up bullshit reasons to call the Keep so I could hear his voice. My only saving grace was that Curran wasn__ handling this whole mating thing any better. Yesterday he__ called me at the office claiming that he couldn__ find his socks. We talked for two hours.

You want me to go back into that house protected by a magic sticky note?___on__ even start,_ I told him. __t__ working. If it weren__ working, you couldn__ drag me into that place.___hat did you write on here? __on__ die_?___o, I wrote, __on__ be an a-hole!__ I headed for the house.__n yours or mine?___n yours.___ell, in that case, your magic isn__ working. I__ still an asshole.

No more tubs for me." I jumped off the bed and pulled on a pair of Pack sweats. "They make me lose all sense."Curran sprawled on the bed with a big self-satisfied smile. "Want to know a secret?""Sure.""It's not the bathtub, baby."Well, aren't we smug. I picked up the corner of the lowest mattress and made a show of looking under it."What are you looking for?""A pea Your Majesty.""What?""You heard me."I jumped back as he lunged and his fingers missed me by an inch."Getting slow in your old age.""I thought you liked it slow."A flashback to last night mugged me and my mind executed a full stop.He laughed. "Ran out of snappy comebacks?""Hush. I'm trying to think of one.

I turned to leave and paused before the gap in the ruined wall. "One last thing, Your Majesty. I'd like a name I can put into my report, something shorter than typing out 'The Leader of the Southern Shapechanger Faction.' What should I call you?""Lord."I rolled my eyes.He shrugged. "It's short.

Myths tend to spiral out of control. Do you howl at the full moon and steal maidens to devour?""Depends on the maiden," he said.Was he flirting with me? Devouring didn't really go with flirting, but his tone of voice did. Was this how werewolves flirted? Hey, baby, if I had to kill any girl and eat her flesh, it would be you...clean sweep

You will show that thing to me and from now on, I will deal with them."I opened my eyes really wide and fluttered my eyelashes at him. "I'm sorry, I must've missed your coronation ceremony. Silly me.

Amy," Elsie Moore said in her crackling voice, her gaze fixed on Declan. "I want you to get me a new bear. A blond one.

Men and swords. My father said that if you put any able-bodied man, no matter how peaceful, into a room with a sword and a practice dummy and leave him alone, eventually the man would pick up the sword and try to stab the dummy. It is human nature.

Our relationship had been doomed form the start, because it was based on grief, and unlike love, grief eventually passed.

I trusted her about as far as I could throw her. I was strong and she was small, but it still wasn't very far.

Im's offspring stare at stars and make clocks that calculate useless happenings like the angle of a hawk's claws as it strikes its prey. They demonstrate their contraptions and everyone marvels. My children get drunk, confuse a herd of cows with an enemy regiment, and slaughter the lot, screaming like lunatics until the entire army panics.