“It wasn’t simply about the sex any longer, wasn’t simply about assuaging the skin hunger that haunted them both. It was about saying good-bye to a dream that had never had a chance.”

“I don't need a mate,” she muttered, staring up at the bright circle of the early autumn moon. “But can't you send me a nice, sexy, strongmale to dance with? Pretty please?” She hadn't had a lover for close to eight months now, and it was starting to hurt on every level. “He doesn't even have to be smart, just good between the sheets.” Good enough to unsnap the tension in her body, allow her to function again. Because sex wasn't simply about pleasure for a cat like her—it was about affection, about trust, about everything good. “Though right this second, I'd take plain old hot sex.”That was when Riley walked out of the shadows. “Got an itch, kitty?” Snapping to her feet, she narrowed her eyes, knowing he had to have deliberately stayed downwind in order to sneak up on her. “Spying?” “When you're talking loud enough to wake the dead?” She swore she could feel steam coming out her ears.”

“Truth was a tool. It should never simply be said. No, it had to be bent, twisted, colored, until it became a weapon.”

“Say what you would about the dietary requirements, vampirism sure did do great things for the skin and body.”

“Drew told me to never, ever talk to him about sex. As far as he‘s concerned, I‘ll be a virgin until I‘m a hundred, same as Brenna.”

“I had sex," Drew said with a grin. "Lot's and lots and lots of sex... Hey, no use in good energy going to waste.”

“Take her to the kitchen,” came the order. “If she lies, throw her in the cauldron."“He was jesting about the cauldron, wasn’t he?You cannot have a cauldron big enough for a person?”Bard halted, sighed, looked at her with those wide, liquid eyes.“We,” he said, “have knives.”