You can’t hide your head in the sand without expecting your ass to get burned.

I waved back just as hard, because when a half-giant expends that much energy in a greeting, it means you are loved.

Roses surrounded the raven, thorns wrapping around its talons. Runes and archaic symbols stretched along my forearms: Romanian, Sumerian, Gaelic. An amalgamation of all those who had come before me. Marks of alchemy, of fire and water, of silver and wind. They had been carved into me by my father over a period of years, the raven being the last. All except for the one on my chest above my heart. That’d been mine. My choice. It wasn’t magic, but it’d been for me.

You’re not broken.” He said, “You don’t know that.” I said, “I do. You’re alive. If you can take another breath, if you can take another step, then you’re not broken. Battered, maybe. Bruised. Cracked. But never broken.

Sam Haversford. You had a crush on him.

Can I kiss you?” It was said so shyly, so hesitantly, that I ached with it. “You want to?” I asked quietly. He nodded once, a little jerk of his head. “I guess that’s all right,” I said. “I’m not your first.” “No.” “And you’re not mine.” “No,” I said, jaw tense. “But you’re the only one that matters. So, it’s like it’s the first. For the both of us.

You don’t have to choose,” he says quietly. “We chose you already.

Four men walked from among the trees. All of them had their heads shaved. The one in the front, the Alpha, had a beard, dirty blond and full. He was the same size as the other two wolves, large and intimidating, moving with a grace he hadn’t had before. The fourth man moved with them, smaller than the others, but his tattoos were as bright as they’d ever been, the raven fluttering on his arm. They.

There’s a choice. There’s always a choice. My wolf chose you. I chose you. And if you don’t choose me, then that’s your choice and I will walk out of here knowing you got to choose your own path. But I swear to god, if you choose me, I will make sure that you know the weight of your worth every day for the rest of our lives because that’s what this is.

It’s better, Benji, to have something burn brightly for a short time than to never have it at all.