“He had been so many things. Seductive as silver and deadly as a cobra. And vulnerable like a hurt child underneath it all.”

“Oh my God, not only is he older than the Grand Canyon, but he’s like the pope and the Fae King and the president of the United States all rolled up into one. To some ancient cultures he had been a god. He was going to hurt her so bad before he killed her so dead, and all she could think of was how hot his kiss had been in the dream and how delicate the touch of his finger was as it traced down her body.”

“Good thing he's dead," Lula said, "or that would have hurt like the devil.”

“Would it hurt to die? All those times he had thought it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the thing itself: his will to live had always been so much stronger than his fear of death.”

“Then he put in a call for Nicole in Zurich, remembering so many things as he waited, and wishing he had always been as good as he had intended to be.”

“When one had once suffered a great hurt, there was always a weakness afterward, a vulnerability where there had been wholeness and strength before - and innocence.”