“The only way I can protect him now is to make sure he never understands how easy killing can become.”

“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.”

“My prayer is simple my dear one, my dear one. May you never need understand. My prayer is for peacetime, my child, my child. Live it well and this life can be grand.”

“No one can make you a victim but yourself.”

“ Do you trust him? When had we reached the point where the answer to Rei's question had become yes without hesitation? When Zane had sat by my bedside for hours while I was drifting in and out of consciousness? When he had arranged for me to be visited by entertainers and friends, or had carried me home when I was too tired to walk? Or when I had first seen him cry and had wanted nothing but to comfort him? I do not know how, yet somehow, impossibly, we are here. ”

“My cousin tried to kill me today," he said. He realized that his voice held an edge of hysteria. "She nearly succeeded. But I guess that's fair, since I was trying to kill her at the time.”

“Love is the strongest emotion any creature can feel except for hate, but hate can't hurt you. Love, and trust, and friendship, and all the other emotions humans value so much, are the only emotions that can bring pain. Only love can break a heart into so many pieces. ”