“Sullivan, just pick it up.""My way is more genteel.""Your way is more tight ass.""Your respect for me, Sentinel, is astounding.""I'd respect you more if you took a bite of that dog.""You don't respect me any.""Like I said, I'd respect you more. More than none.”

“You're perfect- beautiful, intelligent, intractable in a kind of... attractive way. Headstrong, but a good strategist. An amazing fighter.""But that's not enough?""It's too much. You think I haven't thought about what it might be like to return to my rooms at the end of the night and find you there- to find you in my bed, to have your body and your laugh and your mind? To look across a room and know that you were mine- that *I'd* claimed you. *Me.* Ethan Sullivan. Not the four-hundred-year-old vampire, not the child of Balthasar or the Novitiate of Peter Cadogan. Me. Just me. Just you and me.”

“You undo me, Merit. Wholly and completely. You don't take me at my word. You challenge me at every opportunity. And that means when I'm with you, I am less than the head of this House...and I am more than the head of this House. I am a man." He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. "In my very, very long life, I need you more than I have ever needed anything.”

“Let’s just remember, Sullivan, that I want you for your smoked meats and your smoked meats only.”He barked out a laugh. “Touché, Sentinel.”

“Stop. That was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened." "No?""No." "I could offer you more.” "What?” "Power. Access. Rewards. You’d need be available only to me.” "Are you asking me to be your mistress?” "Yes.” "Oh, my God.” "Is that a yes?” "No, Ethan, Jesus. Definitely not.”

“So you’re now an official member of Enclave Three. You weirdo.”I snorted. “I’m a weirdo? You’re a werewolf.”“I suggest you say that with respect, Parker.”“Or what?”“Or I’ll have to bite you.” His lips widened into a grin of heart-stopping proportions. I guessed itwould have been pretty effective on him in werewolf form, too.”

“Scout released me, then wiped tears from beneath her eyes. Catharsis, I guessed. “I’ve said itbefore and I’ll say it again—you seriously rock, Parker.”"Tell me again, Green,” I said as we switched on flashlights and headed through the tunnel.“Seriously, you rock.”“One more time.”“Don’t press your luck.”