He growled at me, low and rolling, the sound as familiar to me as the thunder of an approaching summer storm.

"The growling is fine," I informed him, crossing my arms over my chest and smirking. "None of the physical stuff is going to freak me out. I'm fine with all of what you've got going on. It's literally just your personality that's pissing me off."

"Maybe this is who I am," Dain said, his face twisting. "Did you consider that? Perhaps I have no charming little things to lead with."

Without further ado, I flicked him on the nose, as if he was being a naughty animal.

Dain jerked backwards like he'd been stung by a wasp, his wing-arms flaring out into scythes and his arms coming up as he dropped into a defensive pose. His mouth opened into a silent snarl, baring white wolf-teeth, the long canines gleaming in the light.

"Seriously," I said. "Cut it out. Only cartoon villains are this over-the-top. It's getting ridiculous."

"I don't know what that is," he said, his voice rumbling with the edge of a growl.

"Pretend bad guys for children's stories."

Dain's ears pinned back, and he didn't move out of the fighting stance.

I shrugged and turned my back on him, though it made my adrenaline spike and raised goosebumps down my arms to have him behind me. I wandered over to a bookcase and started browsing. Someone had filled the case with a bunch of copies of books from Earth, an eclectic selection that included no fewer than three Bibles and the Book of Mormon sitting cheek-by-jowl with bodice-rippers and mystery novels. I counted seven copies of books from the Twilight series and what looked like John Grisham's entire catalog. It was as if someone had raided the Goodwill dumpster and come back with the leavings like some sort of fae packrat.

Honestly, that was probably exactly what had happened.

I selected a fantasy novel with a picture of a wizard fighting a dragon on it, discovered it had at some point lost a big chunk of pages in the middle, and went instead for a trashy romance that at least looked intact. The cover was classic bodice-ripper, with a flame-haired woman in a low-cut dress clinging to a shirtless Fabio with long dark hair, and with a name like "Taken by the Untamed Stallion," I knew it was going to be a doozy. Without looking back at Dain, I sauntered over to the couch and dropped down into it, propping my dirty feet up on the coffee table and starting to read.

At the sound of a low growl, I glanced back up at Dain, who still stood there like he was going to fight someone. I raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you, my new furniture?"

"Don't ignore me," he said, anger laced through the words.