“Are you smelling me?” After yesterday I suspected that my body was giving him all kinds of information I didn't want him to have.“Don't tempt me,” he murmured.”

“Somewhere in the center of my soul, a rusty chain began to unwind. It freed itself, link by link, from where it had rested, unobserved, waiting for him. My hands, which had been balled up and pressed against his chest, unfurled with it. The chain continued to drop, to an unfathomable depth where there was nothing but darkness and Matthew. At last it snapped to its full length, anchoring me to a vampire. Despite the manuscript, despite the fact that my hands contained enough voltage to run a microwave, and despite the photograph, as long as I was connected to him, I was safe.”

“I know,I can smell it, too,”

“My experiences thus far had me planning to throttle the first Tudor historian I met upon my return for gross dereliction of duty.”

“Wordlessly I looked back at him, astonished that a kiss on the palm could be so intimate.”

“You persist in this romantic vision of what it is to be a vampire, but despite my best efforts to curb it I have a taste for blood.”

“Ni muer ni viu ni no guaris,Ni mal no·m sent e si l’ai gran,Quar de s’amor no suy devis,Ni no sai si ja n’aurai ni quan,Qu’en lieys es tota le mercésQue·m pot sorzer o decazer.”“Not dying nor living nor healing,there is no pain in my sickness, for I am not kept from her love.I don’t know if I will ever have it,for all the mercy that makes me flourish or decay is in her power.”