“All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings of a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was - my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self - disconnected from me in that second - snip, snip, snip - and floated up into space.”

“I couldn‘t make sense of the mess in my head. Diego was dead, and that was the main thing, the devastating thing. Other than that, the fight was over, my coven had lost and my enemies had won. But my dead coven was full of people who would have loved to watch me burn, and my enemies were speaking to me kindly when they had no reason to.”

“You are...Well, not exactly the love of my life, because I expect to love you for much longer than that. The love of my existence." -Bella”

“Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you”

“I'd loved in so many bodies, but never one I loved like this. Never one that I craved in this way. Of course, this would be the one I'd have to give up. The irony made me laugh, and I concentrated on the feel of the air that popped in little bubbles from my chest and up through my throat. Laughter was like a fresh breeze - it cleaned its way through the body, making everything feel good. Did other species have such a simple healer? I couldn't remember one.”

“His mouth was on mine then, and I couldn't fight him. Not because he was so many thousand times stronger than me, but because my will crumbled into dust the second our lips met. This kiss was not quite as careful as others I remembered, which suited me just fine. If I was going to rip myself up further, I might as well get as much in trade as possible.So I kissed him back, my heart pounding out a jagged, disjointed rhythm while my breathing turned to panting and my fingers moved greedily to his face. I could feel his marble body against every line of mine, and I was so glad he hadn't listened to me―there was no pain in the world that would have justified missing this. His hand memorized my face, the same way mine were tracing his, and, in the brief seconds when his lips were free, he whispered my name.”

“It would always be that way for me, too. I would always love this fragile human girl, for the rest of my limitless existence.”