Eileen Wilks

“I need to check your ankle.” “Ask.” “If you object, I—” “Giving me a chance to object is not the same as asking permission. You’re used to telling people what to do. That works with those guards you’re in charge of. You aren’t in charge of me. You have to ask.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “It’s more efficient my way.” “If your primary goal in life is efficiency, you should just die.” That startled him. His head actually jerked back. “What?” “The most efficient way to live a life is to die a couple seconds after you’re born. Pfft. Done.” She dusted her hands to demonstrate that. “It’s too late for you to achieve optimal efficiency, but you could still . . .”

“Anyone else asks how I’m doing I’ll say okay, and that wil be bullshit. It’s true, but it’ll stil be bullshit.”

“Fear and bigotry don’t need explaining. They simply are, like traffic jams and taxes.”

“As soothing as it would be to rip off his arm and beat him with it, it would really slow things down.”

“He wanted slow. He wanted lingering and teasing, and she was not in a patient mood. As with so much in a relationship, compromise was key.”

“We always want to fix things for the people who matter. Can’t, mostly, but we want to.”

“Do you need me? Always, but not immediately.”

“Death cuts off possibilities. Even if they were possibilities you never meant to act on, it feels differentwhen they’re gone.”

“When you’re raw you don’t want people studying your reactions, even if you’ve convinced yourself you’re just fine. Maybe especially then.”

“But not all scars showed, did they?”

“The dead weren’t scary. It was the living you had to watch out for.”

“Walking was a habit he'd been unwilling to give up. He couldn't see the point in shutting himself up in a vehivle any more often than he had to, doing damage to the earth and the air in order to avoid using his body. People did just that all the time, though. Most claimed they needed to save time. It was true they had little enough of that-- their lives were so soon ended. But Nathan didn't see them treating time as precious otherwise. They'd sit in their cars at a fast-food place for fifteen minutes when it would be quicker to park and go inside. No, he blamed the modern culture of urgency. Only the most urgent sensations, emotions, and situations were considered important. They called it living life to the fullest. Not surprisingly, many sought numbness in alcohol or the pervasive voyeurism of reality TV while others tried to live a perpetual peak experience through drugs, sex, or celebrity. Ordinary lives, ordinary living had little value. Nathan thought people needed to wash dishes by hand sometimes. Prepare their own meals more often. And take walks.”

“He closed the damn door and turned and stopped, looking at her. “Sometimes,” he said softly, and stopped, then started again, “I often wonder why human men are so fixated on how a woman looks when there’s so much more to explore, and so many kinds of beauty—why obsess over one particular version? But sometimes, when I look at you, I understand."And sometimes, when he looked at her the way he was now, she was beautiful. Not just okay. Not even really pretty. Beautiful.”

“Isen wasn't a two birds with one stone kind of guy. More like one stone, two birds, a rabbit, a fox, and maybe that deer will trip over the fox and we can get him, too.”

“She didn't take it well, I guess," Jasper said. "Hard to deliver that kind of news." "No...no, you don't understand. But then you haven't met her." Slowly Rule looked up, relief blooming inside. He felt like he had as a small child, waking from some terrible nightmare to find his father's hand on his shoulder. The sudden bone-deep reassurance wasn't logical, wasn't reasonable. But it was real. "It's okay. It's good. Grandmother is coming.”

“She was talking about the future. About their future, as if it were settled and agreed upon that they would be together. As if she'd accepted the mate bond.The hard crust of time moved inside him--calcified years shifting, shifting, threatening to break apart under the assault of this new flood of feeling. He didn't move. Didn't breathe. Didn't allow his fingers to tighten on the hand he held. He was too strong. He could crush it, could quite literally crush her bones if he gripped too hard. He could hurt her. He wouldn't. Easier to stop breathing than to take that chance. But she wanted his promise, didn't she? To give her that, he needed air. [His] chest heaved. The breath he drew was ragged. He felt it all the way down. "All right. But you have to promise the same..."Her face was still and solemn, her eyes large. It was too dark to see their beautiful ocean color, yet he could feel the ocean in them washing over him. Her voice was quiet. "I do so vow."Those were the right words. The perfect words. Were they Wiccan? Part of some sidhe ritual? It didn't matter. He gave them back to her. "And I, too, do so vow."(Blood Challenge by Eileen Wilks)”

“Querida. You make me ache”

“Surely a woman who picked a spot so close to the ocean didn't automatically hide from the rain.”

“(Lily and Rule discussing wedding plans...)"You want to get married by Carl?""Your father's cook?""Yes, and I've been wanting to talk about the doves.""Doves." Her eyes widened in horror. "My mother wanted doves.""Perhaps she had a point. Wouldn't it look splendid, releasing a few dozen white doves all at once to carry our message of hope and love up to --""Your are so full of shit." But she started laughing. "Doves, sure. Our guests would love some flying hors d'oeuvres. Maybe we should have some cute little bunnies for them to chase after the ceremony instead of cake, sending our message of fuzzy, yummy love to flesh eaters everywhre.”

“There is no place on you I can’t love, and love grants me entry . . .”

“This time he just inhaled, deep and luxurious. The inhale was to fill up on her scent, she knew. The exhale was her name, just that, warm and moist against her skin.”

“She had of course, kept working. He liked to think she would have moved under the table to continue her task if a gun battle had broken out, but he wasn't sure.”

“Nice to know a few things aren't in the government's files,' he said, opening the front door and stepping out ahead of her. The human courtesy of waiting for the woman to go through a door was all flourish, no sense. If any danger waited on the other side of a door, he'd rather meet it himself, not send her into it.”

“What?" She drew herself up, stern as a cat presented with the wrong food for dinner.”

“Alex, seated on her left, was one of those men who acted like he‟d been issued a certain number of words at birth and didn‟t want to run out. It took a little effort to get him talking,”

“We aren't guaranteed the time we think weneed to mend fences with those we love.”

“Not knowing… that could be as hard to handle as despair.”

“She wasn’t entertainment for him. Hedidn’t need her to make him laugh or bolster his ego or to figure him out so he wouldn’t have to. A lot of men who said they were looking for a relationship really wanted a combination sex buddy, therapist, and mirror.”

“But when you slice truth too thin, you deceive.”

“This was what she needed… the quiet turning to the other in the middle of the night, the wordless meeting of lips, skin, breath. The trust, unfurling one pale petal at a time, that he would be there.”

“His eyes made her think of water at night—full of mysteries and hints, revealing little.”

“Dogs make sense. They understand hierarchy and the need to cooperate. They come when you call them. A cat though—a cat will take your number and get back to you. Maybe. If he’s in a good mood.”

“Women were complicated creatures. Any man who thought he had one figured out simply wasn’t paying attention,”

“He stared at the heart of his heart, the one woman in the world for him”

“Don't call the man a claustrophobe just because small spaces scare him. Right.”

“We don't go to the ocean for anything as simple as happiness, do we? Wego there to feel alive. Like life, the ocean holds chance and change, grief and terror and beauty. It promises mortality, not peace.”

“It's okay to play turtle for a while, as long as you don't get too fond of your shell.”

“Uh - do you want to do it outside?"Frequently. Oh, you meant the wedding. That, too.”

“Marriage and especially the ceremony which announces it, the wedding... That is how we say to the world, 'These two are now a family, and with this joining our families are joined, too. And you had damned well better respect that.”

“Living is very serious, very real. It is also always a game. If we are wise, it is very real, very terrible, and very lovely, and a good deal of fun.”

“Living does not undo life. Death does not, either. Life and death are not either-or.”

“My feelings were hurt. Once I started I couldn't seem to let it go. Be strange if the person who matters most in the whole world couldn't hurt your feelings, wouldn't it?”

“So selfless she was, willing to give up a little sleep for a man who was clearlydetermined to make sure it would be no sacrifice. How did a woman give to a man who was so determined to give to her?”

“What was romance but a lovely bit of play between man and woman?”

“Guilt always makes the other feelings worse.”

“I see you. I will be careful with the places that hurt.”

“…the same kind of answers the stars are always trying to give us, she thought, when we look up and up at them. So high above, speaking in gradual whispers about time, about their own flaming hearts and the endless cold that lies between…”

“Regrets are the most useless form of guilt. They always arrive too late to do any good.”

“How to put this feeling, this certainty, into something as limited as words?”

“I do love you. I think you know that, but just in case...I love you. ”