“The hero was the sort of character you could feel yourself falling in love with, no matter how much you tried to convince yourself that he wasn't real”

“Seclusion wasn't good for anyone; it made you forget how to protect yourself.”

“It was exactly the sort of thing I needed to be reading that afternoon: a story where, no matter how bad things got, you knew everything was going to turn out fine in the end.”

“I'm not trying to avoid you,' I replied lamely, but what else could I say? Sorry Brae but when I first came down to meet you I had no idea how hard it was going to be to avoid telling you that I was turning into a grotesque monster and I am worried that there is a good chance I could wake up one morning with a sudden lust for your blood. Somehow I didn't think that would go down particularly well.”

“He could never care about you. He sees you in the same way they see all of us: ruthless, cruel and power hungry." He laughed callously. "I guess we're about to prove them right.”

“I sat down on the grass and looked up at Brae. He was still shirtless and - although it pained me a little to even think it - it suited him. He was in really good shape and he looked less uptight without it, more relaxed. If it wasn't for his weird silver hair he could have looked perfectly ordinary. Better than ordinary in fact.”

“I forced myself to breathe deeply; perhaps they would have vanished. Perhaps I'd been imagining them because Brae was gone and I was scared without him, and now that he was back I'd feel safe enough again that they would go away. Perhaps it was just paint or something and would have been washed out by the sea spray earlier. I breathed again, feeling much calmer and then, slowly, opened my eyes.”