“The two detectives had been there for well over an hour, and in that time the demon in Aidan had been growing stronger and stronger. HE had all but sprouted fangs as one of them did everything but beg for a date with Alexandria. Did she really need yet another suitor? He was going to have to post a sign on the lawn stating that all males courting Alexandria Houton did so at their own peril.”

“Tanith frowned. Did people still go on DATES any more? She was sure they did. They probably called it something different though. She tried to think of the last date she'd been on. The last PROPER date. Did fighting side by side with Saracen Rue count as a date? They ended up snuggling under the moonlight, drenched in gore and pieces of brain - so it had PROBABLY been a date. If it wasn't, it was certainly a fun time had by all. Well, not ALL. But she and Saracen had sure had a blast.”

“If you don’t get out of my way right this minute, I’m going to . . .” She pictured bringing up her knee hard and watching him writhe in pain on the floor. The image in her mind was as vivid as his shark image had been. Aidan leapt away from her, laughing as he did so. “You have a nasty little temper, Alexandria.”

“She did not hate Clent for the way he had spoken. For most of her life she had been at the mercy of stronger and more powerful people who cared nothing for her. She had always been afraid, and her fear had made her angry.”

“All that time she had worked in the acquisition of Power. All that time she had been ruled by ambition. All those centuries that she had lived in such a vast yet fleeting journey, and here he was holding everything she had reached for, not striving, not continually learning to be better, not fighting to acquire any of it. He just was, the mysterious, magical rune, the riddle of a creature that nature decreed should not be able to exist, and yet he did.”

“Would it hurt to die? All those times he had thought it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself: his will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death.”