“He breathed in hard. The stench of blood filled his lungs. Only now for the first time could he truly appreciate it.”

“His smell—the scent of a demon, cinnamon incense, amber musk—wrapped around me, filled my lungs. I felt like I could breathe again, without every breath being tainted by the stench of dying cells. The smell of him seemed to coat my abused insides with peace, and flow down into the middle of my body to spread through my veins. I filled my lungs again. While I could, before what was undoubtedly a hallucination vanished.”

“his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered.”

“She can feel his blood, just beneath his skin; when he breathes, the air fills with smoke. He's like a dragon, ancient and fearless.”

“He thought of the feeling of receiving oxygen from a mask and the calming sensation it brought, partly because of the concentrated gas but partly too because he could hear his muffled lungs expelling their product within the mask, and it reminded him that he was breathing, that the gas was flowing at all times but most importantly at that moment, a constant and essential truth. His lips and lungs and teeth were witness to the passage of breath.”

“He would not give her up,he could not.For the first time in his life he'd found someone who filled all the empty spaces in his heart”