“That works fine for me . . . Sienna Lauren Snow.”

“Sienna, meet Zacharel. He's a warrior angel for the One, True Deity. Zacharel, meet Sienna. She's mine.”

“I shut up everything inside. Everything." Words ground out through clenched teeth. "I thought if I could hold it, just hold it, it would be fine. But it's not.""Why?" she asked. "Why are you losing control so badly?" The answer, when it came, broke Sascha's heart."Hawke." It was an almost soundless whisper."Oh, Sienna." She stroked her hand over the girl's hair, even as her mind worked at piercing speed. "Has it been cumulative?"Sienna nodded. "The second I met him, everything crumbled, my shields, my conditioning, everything!”

“So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!”

“That was the awakening, really; it dawned on me that this wasn't really very fair on anyone. On her. On me. On Sienna. But I wasn't willing to change anything, either. I was fiercely protective of my friendship with Sienna. I had fought for it, against my true feelings, for years. I had battled so hard to suppress my feelings, and succeeded. I could never let her go.”

“You sure got a quick trigger, Sienna,” he teased...”