“I am sorry the only outlet for her troubled mind was in clumsy foreplay with an inadequate partner."He threw the rest of her sandwich at the swinging door as she passed through it.”

“One minute she acts like she wants to be with me and I'm the one rejecting her. The next, she's got this barbed wire fence and barking dogs around her, like I can't even ask her the simplest questions.""And here I was assuming you didn't care about her."Stabbing his fingers through his hair, he groaned, "I don't!""And you make it perfectly clear." Men. Idiots.”

“Can I have a glass of water?" Her voice was hoarse, probably from screaming. She'd always sounded like that after they'd-He didn't just force the thought aside. He clubbed it unconscious, threw it into a crawl space and walled it up alive.”

“Then I smiled at her, right before I grbbed a handful of copper hair and yanked her out of the chair. Screw being a better person.”

“I'm sorry I'm not more cultured. I'll watch PBS. And cut people open for fun. Will that be better? Will you be less embarrassed to be my fledgling then?”

“What?” I whined, and tried to push his hands away.He cursed and gripped me tighter. “Wake up!” he yelled. When I didn’t, he slapped my cheek.My eyes flew open and I sputtered in shock. “What? Just let me go back to sleep!”“I can’t! You’ve lost a lot of blood. If you go to sleep, you’ll die.”

“I rolled my eyes. He made me sound like a cunning criminal about to bring down the entire covenant.”