“She felt like she was walking up on a wounded animal, unsure if reaching out to him was going to win her a bit of uneasy trust or a vicious taste of fang and claw.”

“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.”

“She wanted to feel him pound away her fears, a hammer to smash through all her guilt and pain and emptiness.”

“There’s danger in feeling,” Tess murmured. Although she could not begin to imagine what kind of pain Dante carried within him, she felt a kinship growing between them. Both alone, both adrift in their worlds. “I don’t want to feel anything for you, Dante.”“God, Tess. I don’t want to feel anything for you either.”

“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.”

“I have to go to her, Lucan. For my own sanity, if nothing else. If I stay here, I'm not sure what good I'd be, to tell you the truth. She's the only thing that's held me together in a very long time. I'm a wreck for this woman, my friend. She owns me now.”

“I’m bonded to her, Lucan. I love her. If you want to keep me out of this, you’re going to have to kill me right here and now.”