“This, she thought inanely, is the part where I am supposed to run. Oh, and that screaming thing”

“Now, here I am, a stranded woman marching down a spooky, remote road with no one to hear me scream. I'm in a damned plot for B horror flick!”

“I would think you an utter fool if you did not doubt me, warrior. Instead, I am forced to respect your uncommon intelligence. Now what, do you suppose, should I do from there?”

“He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw until she thought he would break a tooth. No doubt he was giving himself a very intense lecture on inappropriate thoughts during lifesaving moments.”

“She had spent days balancing on the edge of a choice. A choice, she had suddenly realized, that was never truly a matter of selection. It was what Damien had seemed to know from the start. The only choice she could make was to ignore the demands of her heart and her spirit, both of which she had tried to ignore no matter how loudly they had screamed at her. In truth, there was no choice. She was meant to be his, and he was meant to be hers. She had searched day after day for outside proof of this, only to realize that there was none, and never would be. The proof was stamped in the desires of her soul. It was the instinct that had been born in her, flipped on like a switch, the moment it had flipped on as brilliantly in him. Only he had seen the light, and she had been blinded by it.”

“Whenever I see you, I am overcome with the urge to be rooted within you, to be buried deep so your body can nourish me.”

“Oh yeah, you’re a regular sage. Shouldn’t you be sitting on a mountain somewhere cultivating a long white beard waiting for knowledge seekers to come to you?” “Have I mentioned that sarcasm has the potential to be detrimental to the natural beauty of your face?” he countered.”