“She didn't want soft and gentle. She needed his rough possession, claiming her, branding her, taking her in a firestorm of heat and flame that would end the world around them, leaving them nothing but ashes, clean and fierce and forever welded together.”

“In her dreams the Hawk would be waiting for her by the sea's edge; her kilt-clad, magnificent Scottish laird. He would smile and his eyes would crinkle, then turn dark withsmoldering passion.She would take his hand and lay it gently on her swelling abdomen, and his face would blaze with happiness andpride. Then he would take her gently, there on the cliff's edge, in tempo with the pounding of the ocean. He wouldmake fierce and possessive love to her and she would hold on to him as tightly as she could. But before dawn, he would melt right through her fingers. And she would wake up, her cheeks wet with tears and her hands clutching nothing but a bit of quilt or pillow.”

“With a loud whoosh he stretched his wings out,and then deftly wrapped them tight around her, a cradle of soft white holding the two of them fast."You really believe it?" she whispered. "That someday I'll live through this?""With all my heart and soul," he said, cupping her face in his hands, pulling his wings tighter around them both. "I will wait for you as long as it takes. I will love you every moment across time."By then,Luce was broiling hot. She cried out from the pain,thrashing in Daniel's arms as the heat overwhelmed her. She was burning his skin, but he never let her go.The moment had come. The starshot was tucked inside her dress,and this-right now-was when she would have used it.But she was never going to give up.Not on Daniel. Not when she knew,no matter how hard it got,that he would never give up on her.Her skin began to blister.The heat was so brutal,she could do nothing but shiver.And then she could only scream.Layla combusted,and as the flames engulfed her body,Luce felt her own body and the soul they were sharing untwine,seeking the fastest escape from the unforgiving heat. The column of fire grew taller and wider until it filled the room and the world,until it was everything,and Layla was nothing at all.”

“Karen wasn't hard, she was soft, too soft. A soft touch. Her hair was soft, her smile was soft, her voice was soft. She was so soft there was no resistance. Hard things sank into her, they went right through her, and if she made a real effort, out the other side. Then she didn't have to see them or hear them, or even touch them.”

“Had she been in town, the two of them would have spent most of the day together, and she didn't want that. Then again, deep down, it was exactly what she wanted, leaving her more confused that she'd been in years. ”

“She was fierce, quick to anger, her temper terrifying and unpredictable, her words deeply damaging when she wanted them to be. Because she had almost no need for people, she had no trouble hurting them. It seemed to enlarge her, give her strength. Quinn told her she had "poison blood".”