“Even as a child, even as my blood-past was drained from me, I understood that if I were strong enough to accept it, I was being offered a second history.”

“Donovan Caine wanted me, but he wasn’t strong enough to accept me. Not my past, not my strength, not the woman I was. Bitter disappointment filled me, replacing my rage, but I forced myself to ask the final question I wanted an answer to...”

“Even as a small child, I understood that woman had secrets, and that some of these were only to be told to daughters. In this way we were bound together for eternity.”

“I used to think that being consumed by the questions of my identity and origins made me an inferior person, even as a child.”

“Sometimes a savage beauty lured me into the sun and I would start to love the danger a little. On these occasions I felt the reluctant love drained painfully from me as blood drains from a deep wound. The tigers lapped my love’s blood and remained enemies. The inhabitants of the day laughed at the gift I wanted to bring them, and I shut myself in my inner room to escape the betrayal of their arrogant mouths.”

“My own story, anyone's own story, is always told against me, even what I myself am writing here, because I have no heroic history to offer. There is no difficulty not of my own making.”