“It's not enough that we have to handle our own race's problems," Claude said. "Now we're sucked into the fucking vampire struggles, too.""No," I said, feeling I was walking uphill in this conversation. "You as a group weren't sucked into the vampire struggles. One of you was taken for a specific purpose. Different scenario.”

“Ha," I said. "Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, ’cause they love me. You see how many vampires are up here? Zero, right?"One," said Eric, stepping out of the stairwell.”

“What I think I'll do,' Alcide said, 'is I'll do my best to yank Debbie from my roots. And then I'll turn up at your doorstep, one day when you least expect it, and I'll hope by then you will have given up on your vampire." "And then we'll be happy ever after?" I smiled. He nodded.”

“People fidget. They are compelled to look engaged in an activity, or purposeful. Vampires can just occupy space without feeling obliged to justify it.”

“We want to climb in with you,' Dermot said. 'We'll all sleep better.'That seemed incredibly weird and creepy to me - or maybe I only thought it should have. I was simply too tired to argue. I climbed in the bed. Claude got in on one side of me, Dermot on the other. Just when I was thinking, I would never be able to sleep, that this situation was too odd and too wrong, I felt a kind of blissful relaxation roll through my body, a kind of unfamiliar comfort. I was with family. I was with blood.And I slept.”

“...But also because I find I really do…" He paused, as if he were about to say something outrageous. "I find I have feelings for you." "Oh," I said into his chest, sounding as astonished as Eric had(...)"Eric," I said, after a long pause, "I almost hate to say this, but I have feelings for you, too.”

“May I search it?" she asked. "We screen for weapons."I stared at her, always a risky thing to do to a vampire. "Of course not. I have no weapons.”