“My arms hurt from how tightly Patch held me. “Now that’s what I call a scream,” he said, grinning at me.”

“I'll be firm," I promised Patch, adopting a no-nonsense expression. "No backing down."By now Patch was full-on grinning. He kissed me again, and I felt my mouth soften its resolve. "You look cute when you're trying to be tough," he said.”

“Making money for my clones, now that’s what I call self-enrichment. Having all my clones working for me, working for free, and enriching me, now that’s what I call social progress. Ah, but that’s life, no?”

“But suddenly something sharp was cutting me, my throat, my wrists, my ankles. I screamed in shock, thinking he'd brought me there to hurt me more. Then fire started burning through me, and I didn't care about anything else. I begged him to kill me. When Esme and Edward came home, I begged them to kill me too. Carlise sat with me. He held my hand and said that he was so sorry, promising that it would end. He told me everything, and sometimes I listened. He told me what he was, what I was becoming. I didn't believe him. He apologized each time I screamed. Edward wasn't happy. I remember hearing them discuss me. I stopped screaming sometimes. It did no good to scream.”

“He caught me to him, his arms banded tight around me. His face pressed into my throat. "Where do we go from here?"I held him. "Wherever this takes us. Together.”

“I loved Ian in the now, the way he looked at me, how he made my stomach swim, how he held my hair when I was puking my guts up after eating a bad enchilada. That’s love.”