“This man was different from all others; he was forbidden fruit, the outsider. Her mother had trained her well, but she had never told her what to do if a man set her heart to throbbing like the hooves of a runaway horse.”

“Commitment and family were important decisions, but so were matters of the heart. [Monique] might not know much about politics, but she knew she couldn’t command her heart to love. And she’d never be pressured into giving herself to Eero, not to appease her family or to strengthen her brother’s political position. She’d seen all she cared to of him and his power in the short week that he pursued her and that night he’d tried to bind their powers without her consent.”

“After all, you couldn't expect any man to turn away from a beautiful woman with her ass in the air.”

“White angel wings, made up from thousands of short feathers, now surrounded him."Uh. Bird?" She pointed dumbly, unable to form a single coherent though more."Harpie." He gave her a glare that could have killed.”

“She became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought the more of her. She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master. But now, -- now that it was all too late, -- the veil had fallen from her eyes. She could now see the difference between manliness and 'deportment.”

“He was always part of her thoughts, and now that he was real, he was inescapably part of her life, but it was as she had told her mother: saying he was part of her or that they were more than friends sounded like love, but it seemed like loss as well. All the words she knew to describe what he was to her were from love stories and love songs, but those were not words anyone truly meant.”

“She had no doubt the man would kill her. Stupid things went skating through her mind--she'd never told her mother how much she loved her chocolate cupcakes... or Felicia what a kind friend she'd been... or Keith that it was cool and mature that he owned a house, even if it was in Brooklyn.”