Burning Up

said I love you.”
    Emmett cupped her cheek in his hand, those amazing, wild eyes becoming impossibly wilder. “Say that again.”
    She did.
    Emmett’s smile was slow, possessive, brilliant. “I love you, too, mink.”
    Her lips trembled. Throwing her arms around him, she let him pick her up and kiss the air right out of her. Sometime later, he said, “You’re my mate. Think you can handle that?”
    It was hard to speak with her heart bursting open. “Think you can handle me?”
    “So long as you’re gentle with me.”
    And she knew he was going to tease her about this for the rest of their lives. Her smile almost cracked her face, she was so delighted by the idea.

EPILOGUE
    O f course Dorian flirted shamelessly with Ria at her and Emmett’s mating ceremony. But Emmett didn’t carry through his threat to eviscerate the younger man. Because Ria was his now, and Dorian, like every other man in DarkRiver, would rather die than cross that line.
    His leopard smiled indulgently as the blond soldier danced Emmett’s mate into a whirl, then caught her laughing form. Her eyes met Emmett’s over Dorian’s shoulder and she blew him a kiss. Smiling, he decided he’d shared his mate quite enough. “Go find another partner, Blondie.”
    Dorian released Ria with a mournful smile. “But I like your mink.” Dodging Emmett’s swipe, he walked off with a cocky grin.
    “Is your pack always like this?” Ria asked, looking up at him, her arms wrapped around his waist.
    “Crazy?”
    “That, too. But so . . . like family.”
    “Yep. Pack is family.”
    A frown gathered between her brows. “What about my parents, grandmother, my brothers, Amber, and Joy—will they be shut out now?”
    “They’re family, too,” he told her. “Sometimes, they might wish they weren’t.” Grinning, he directed her gaze to where poor Amber and Joy were being “looked after.” The changelings weren’t touching either mother or baby, but it was obvious they wanted to. Then Ria noticed the beautiful handcrafted baby blanket being held out to Amber. Her sister-in-law looked stunned . . . before a slow smile crept over her face.
    “We like kids,” Emmett whispered in her ear.
    Pressing herself to him, she stood on tiptoe to whisper back. “Me, too.”
    He squeezed her close.
    “How come you took so long to find me?” she asked.
    “Stupidity.” A nip of her ear. “But now that I have you, I’m never letting go.”
    Ria smiled and kissed the edge of his jaw. “Who says I’d let you?”
    Laughing, Emmett spun her off her feet and around in a dizzying circle. Ria met her grandmother’s eyes halfway through the first rotation. Miaoling was holding court with the young ones, but her smile was just for Ria. And Ria knew her grandmother understood.
    Emmett was it for her. Forever. No matter what.
    It was, she thought, looking down into eyes gone cat in joyful play, perfect.
The San Francisco Gazette
January 1, 2073
     
CITY BEAT
     
     
A New Wind
     
It seems that certain statements made in this column last year were prescient in the extreme. According to every person we spoke to during our research for today’s column, the real power in San Francisco is no longer seen to lie with our elected representatives, but with a group of leopard changelings. Perhaps it’s these cats who should be sitting in local government?
Lucas Hunter, the DarkRiver alpha, had this to say when I put the point to him: “We have no desire to stand for office. But we consider San Francisco our home—and we take threats to that home, and to the people within it, very seriously.”
Bravo, Mr. Hunter. As far as this reporter is concerned, DarkRiver has proven both its determination, and its right, to hold the city. San Francisco is unequivocally a leopard town.

BLOOD AND ROSES
    Angela Knight

ONE
    T he vampire knew how to sit on a horse. He rode with an easy muscularity despite his armor, achieving an effortless rhythm with his huge black stallion. A helm covered his head, red plumes floating in the wind, and gleaming plate mail sheathed his big body, so that he moved with the creak mail sheathed his big body, so that he moved with the creak of leather and the scrape of steel on steel.
    He was surrounded by a small troop of mounted men who maintained an alert, professional silence, their armor glinting in the light of the floating spell globes that danced over their heads. As befitted humans riding so close to Varil territory, they rode warily, with