“It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom is to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is finished. But all the time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death”

“He felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?”

“No matter who broke your heart, or how long it takes to heal, you’ll never get through it without your friends.”

“My heart hurt so much I can't believe it. How can it keep beating, feeling like this?”

“When he stopped walking and kissed me a few minutes later, it was like time had stopped, with the air, my heart, and the world all so still. And it was this I remembered every other time I was with Marshall.”

“A heart beats seventy-two times a minute. The blood that flows within the essence of life also becomes a compass that navigates through the uncharted waters of romance and eventually arrives at the port called LOVE..”