Free Destiny and Deception by Shannon Delany

gave up on our time turning romantic and tugged free of his gentlemanly embrace, I kissed his forehead and left the room.
    Amy sat on the bottom of the steps, staring at the door to the front porch.
    I plopped down beside her. “Hey.”
    “Hey.” She continued to stare straight ahead.
    “What’s got so much of your attention?”
    A shadow moved on the door’s other side, and I instantly recognized the silhouette.
    “Oh. Not what. Who. What’s Max done now?”
    “He asked me to sleep with him.”
    A year ago I would have needed to pick my jaw up off of the ground after hearing a statement like that. Now? I barely stopped myself from nodding. “The … bastard? ”
    She glared at me. “He thinks I’m easy.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Why else would he suggest that I sleep with him if he didn’t think I was easy?”
    “Because maybe he actually meant sleep with him? Not sleep with him. Like, the passive form of the verb, if there is such a thing, compared to the”—I cleared my throat—“more active form?”
    She snorted. “So you actually think Maximilian Rusakova, stud of Junction High, just wants to have me in his bed to hold me like some lame body pillow—or teddy bear?”
    “It happens,” I said with a sigh.
    “Really? Max actually means sleep as in sleep? ”
    “Why not?”
    “I never thought…” She stared even harder at the door and the small window set into it covered by thin and lacy curtains.
    As if by her wish, the door opened and Max appeared, pausing on the Oriental rug, his boots shining with snow and slush. He saw her instantly and hung his head, his tousled curls falling into his eyes.
    “Hey,” she said.
    “Hey.”
    How was it that between the two of them that single word had so much more intimacy and immediacy than I’d ever heard it have used in any other way? The weight of those three letters felt totally different stretching across the air between them.
    Amy shifted beside me and tugged at her ponytail. “I may owe you an apology,” she said to Max. “It might just be possible I misinterpreted your words.”
    Without raising his head, Max lifted a single eyebrow, his eyes darting from one of us to the other and back again as he tried to figure out what she actually meant. “Want to talk about it?”
    Amy pulled me close and said in a whisper loud enough for Max to hear, “It freaks me out when he suggests we talk and it doesn’t mean he’s breaking up with me.” Then she turned and looked at him again. “You’re not like most guys, are you?”
    He raised his head, straightened his shoulders and back, and gave her a cocky grin. “The werewolf thing didn’t give you a hint?”
    She blinked at him, nonplussed.
    The grin faded back to a simple smile, and he cleared his throat and tried his answer again. “Undoubtedly not.”
    “Good,” Amy said firmly. “Because most guys suck. Let’s talk.”
    She rose, pausing to rest her hand on my shoulder. Then she left, taking Max’s hand in her own and leading him down the basement steps so they could be alone and discuss what sleep actually meant.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Alexi
    I sat in the car, my eyes drifting over the large brick building at the opposite end of the parking lot. The sign reading GOLDEN OAKS ADULT DAYCARE AND RETIREMENT HOME was in need of a fresh coat of paint, and what used to be sharp lines of architectural detailing had blurred slightly with time or acid rain. Its window ledges were softened by smudges of snow, but the facility looked respectable.
    And I had been here before.
    Once to bring home a wayward retiree and once when Pietr called after falling from the second story chasing a kitten and mystifying the onlookers because he walked away with barely any bumps or bruises.
    Then I’d returned another dozen times or so since learning my biological mother was a resident. Just to circle the parking lot, look up at the windows, and wonder which one was hers. And if she had ever peered out and noticed a