" If, when he disappeared through his portal, he went to Faery, time moves differently there.”
“That’s what V’lane said.” I emptied the cash drawer, counted the bills into stacks, then began punching in numbers on an adding machine. The store wasn’t computerized, which made bookkeeping a real pain in the neck.
He gave me a look. “The two of you are getting downright chatty, aren’t you, Miss Lane? When did you last see him? What else did he tell you?”
“I’m asking the questions tonight.” One day I was going to write a book: How to Dictate to a Dictator and Evade an Evader, subtitled How to Handle Jericho Barrons.
He snorted. “If an illusion of control comforts you, Ms. Lane, by all means, cling to it.”
“Jackass.” I gave him a look modeled on his own.
He laughed, and I stared, then blinked and looked away. I finished rubber-banding the cash, put it in a leather pouch, and punched the final numbers in, running the day’s total. For a moment there he hadn’t looked dark, forbidding, and cold, but dark, forbidding, and . . . warm. In fact, when he’d laughed he’d looked . . . well . . . kind of hot.
I grimaced. Obviously I’d eaten something bad for lunch. "

― Karen Marie Moning , Bloodfever (Fever, #2)