“The faint bruise on the side of her cheek had paled to a sickly yellow.Imagine that. She'd fallen in the shower. Again.Just ask Daddy.”

“I wouldn't let him distract me. "Your accent gets thicker when you're being...improper.""Improper, is it?""Inappropriate.""Indelicate?" He waggled his brows just before her rounded a corner, disappearing into shadows.”

“He had dirty-blond good looks to match a dirty-good smile. Yes, dirty. There was just enough twinkle in his smiling brown eyes to suggest there might be all manner of naughty-guy impulses rattling around that cute body of his.”

“I was leaving.Finally.For good.There was only one way I'd ever return to the town of Christmas, Florida, and it involved my dead body.”

“His eyes were slitted and intense, like he might need to have sex at any moment.”

“This group is known as the watchers. And to be a watcher is a woman's fortune."He said that last bit as though it was the greatest honor girls like us could ever attain. My thoughts turned grim. It was once considered an honor to be a sacrificial lamb, too.”

“It appeared that spending my formative years getting smacked around by my dad may have earned me the privileged of getting smacked around by a bunch of vampires.”