“Maybe she should cut the guy a little slack, [...] Maybe Thorne had been a no-show because something bad happened to him on the job.What if he'd been injured in the line of duty and didn't come by as promised because he was incapacitated in some way? Maybe he hadn't called to apologize or to explain his absence because he physically couldn't. Right. And maybe she had checked her brain into her panties from the second she first laid eyes on the man.”

“From the beginning, Tegan, you were more brother to me than any kin by blood. You still are.”Tegan felt likewise, in spite of all they’d been through. Maybe because of it. “I’ll always have your back, Lucan. You can count on it.”

“He wrapped his palm around the back of her neck, possessive but tender as he gazed into his mate’s brown eyes. “She knows she’s got me, anyway she wants me. Forever, if I have anything to say about it.”

“he settled back on the bed with her and wrapped her in his protective embrace, giving her a hundred solemn promises that he was very eager to keep, and loving her with all the reverence and worship of a blood-bonded male who had stared hell in the face and now understood that he was holding heaven in his arms.”

“Renata reached out for the gun nearest to her and a full magazine of rounds. She had the weapon loaded, locked and ready for action in three seconds flat. Niko had never seen anything sexier in his life.”

“You would quit the Order for her? Niko asked, the youngest only behind Dante, and a warrior who relished his duty perhaps even more than Dante had himself. I would quit breathing for her, if she asked it of me.”

“What did Mira show your attacker last week? he asked, desperate to turn the attention away from himself now. Yakut shrugged. Only he can know. The girl has no knowledge of what her eyes reflect. Thank God for that. Niko hated to think of the education she might have just gotten otherwise.”