Ilona Andrews: Going

“Yes, I'm too mad to punish you right now. We'll talk about it when we get home. Go brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on dry clothes, and get the guns. We're going to Wal-Mart.”

“You know anything about investigative work?"
"Sure. Annoy the people involved until the guilt party tries to make you go away.”

“When I'm with him, I can feel myself getting better. It's like he's picking up broken pieces of me and putting me back together, and I don't even know he's doing it. We never talk about it. We don't go to therapy. He just loves me and that's enough.”

“You're not going to die?"
"Not right this minute." And of course, saying something like that usually resulted in immediate dying. I braced myself for a stray meteorite falling through the roof to crush my skull.”

“Give me a few minutes.”
“You have time.” He sat in the grass.
“Are you just going to sit there and watch me?”
“Yes. Watching pretty peasant girls is what we poor little rich boys do best.”
“Peasant?”
He shrugged. “You started the name calling.”

“« Are you hungry, baby?” Curran asked.
“Starving.”
“I think we should go to dinner.”
“Great idea.”
“What are you going to wear?”
“My badass face.”
“Good choice,” he said. »”

“Who the hell would attack the Steel Horse anyway? What was the thinking behind that? “Here is a bar full of psychotic killers who grow giant claws and people who pilot the undead for a living. I think I’ll go wreck the place.”

“Ready to put your claws where your mouth is, or are you going to cringe behind the big boys and yip all day?"
His eyes flared yellow "Is that a challenge?"
"Yes it is.”

“And how did your day go?" I asked Ascanio.
He turned to me, a dreamy look on his pretty face. "We killed things. There was blood. Fountains of blood. And then we had barbecue.”

“Jealous of the actors now, are we?"
"What, of some fancy boy on the screen? Inconceivable."
Oh, this was going to be good.”

“And did you have to hack his arms off?” “Yes, I did. He wouldn’t go through the door.”
“You say it like you’re proud of it."
I was proud of it. It was an example of quick thinking in a difficult situation.”

“My investigative technique mostly consisted of going through the list of interested parties and making as much noise as possible, until the culprit lost his patience and tried to shut me up.”

“No, you’re not going with him.”
I crossed my arms. “Who decided that?”
He put on his “I’m alpha and I’m putting my foot down” expression. “I decided.”

“Aha," Andrea said. "I'm going to ignore that you just referred to yourself as 'sugar woogums'.”

“Oh my God, she was retarded and I was going to kill Jim.”

“So this is what it's about? This is your mature response to go off into the mountains rather than talking about it and have s'mores with a gnome and a mountain man."
"Yep"
"What's your plan for tomorrow? Brunch with a unicorn?”

“Speak to me."
"I hate you."
"Okay." Mad Rogan let go of me. "You're fine.”

“Go to the Black Sea, meet new people, see beautiful places, get killed by a mutant carnivorous kangaroo goat. One item off my bucket list.”

“I'm going to kick you in the head when I get home. Repeatedly.”