“Cold as winter, strong as stone; She faced the darkness all alone. A silver goddess; a reflection. A mirage; a recollection. No return; no turning back. The past is gone, the future, black. Serpents gather in their nest, And she stands above the rest. Shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow. The moon is risen; she stands below. She views her world through the eyes of others. Black and white; there are no colors, As she looks down upon a shattered youth. A shattered mirror shows a shattered truth.”

“Absently, she brushed back some of the hair from her face, and she saw as Jaguar's eyes followed how the long strands slid across her throat. Though his dark skin did not show pallor as clearly as Lord Daryl's had, Turquoise could tell Jaguar had not fed yet, and she recognized the hungry look in his black eyes.Testing, she stood, the movement appearing reluctant. "I"ll leave you to your work if you'd like."He answered the way she had expected him to. Not raising his gaze from her throat, he said, "Come here." Though the words were an order, the tone left room for argument.For a moment, Turquoise almost felt guilty. She was intentionally manipulating him. A feeding vampire is an easy target; most of them completely lost sense of their surroundings as they drew blood. Jaguar did not even try to catch her mind as his lips fell to her throat. If she had been armed, it would have been revoltingly easy to kill him.”

“She'll forgive me for defending myself as soon as she...gets back. And you had better hope that she is back by the next time those pretty black eyes open, because otherwise, I am going to have to get creative, and you probably aren't going to enjoy that, So shut your mouth, shut your eyes, and go to sleep, or I swear to Heaven, Hell, and all the worlds between, I will give you good reason to scream.”

“He had murdered any illlusion of Alex Remington. The golden pendant had been replaced by a spiked dog collar, and he was wearing a black T-shirt that hugged his form and showed off the many designs on his arms: Fenris on the right wrist, and Echidna, the greek mother of monsters, high on his left arm. The norse world serpent was wrapped around his left wrist, and a new design had recently been added: Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades. The world serpent was partially obscurred by a black leather knife sheath, which held a silver knife Aubrey had taken from a vampire hunter a few thousand years earlier. His hair was slightly touseled, as if he'd been running, and a few strands fell across his face. Looking at him now, Jessica couldn't imagine how she had ever mistaken him for a human. But illusion was Aubrey's art. And it was simple to fool people who expected nothing else. For the moment, Aubrey appeared to be exactly what he was: stunning, michievous, and completely deadly all at once”

“Now she was a killer, a mercenary. And that was all.”

“Those who cannot be aggressive are hunted down while they shiver and hide because the night is dark.”

“Every moment of every day, she had fought to keep his face out of her mind, and his voice out of her head, had fought not to hear him say, "Just relax, luv. It's all right.”