Ms. Haas," I protested, "I do not wish to commemorate our failure with confectionery.""Failure? I never fail. I just sometimes lack the impetus to pursue success as rigorously as I might.

I mean, I kind of feel alphas are the romance equivalent of an impulse buy. It looks great in the shop but then you get home and it’s like where am I going to put this thing? It doesn’t go with my furnishings and it keeps trying to kiss me punishingly.

Oh, Roz" -- Lauren gave a deep shudder -- "heterosexual sex sounds excruciatingly dull.

I really needed to stop getting into bed with random supernatural entities. I also really needed to start picking metaphors that didn't have a sexual undertone.

Hell: making the best things suck since the dawn of creation.

We were going to end up as newspaper headlines: Pensioner and Homosexual Found Dead in River - Coincidence, Tragedy, or Satanic Ritual Gone Wrong?

My companion made a noise that, in an aerated environment, would probably have come out as a weary sigh. 'Honestly, I remember a time when being violated by a monstrosity from the abysmal darkness was something you really had to work at. Young people today have no idea, do they?' She paused. 'That is to say, young people twenty years from the time we've just departed will have no idea, will they?'    'Tell me about it,' Miss Reef flicked her tail disdainfully.