This was the gift of recovery, he thought. The ability to be here in this moment with the female he loved and be fully aware, fully awake, fully present. Undiluted.

The collision was impending and electric, but the moment was soft and sweet: She positively glowed as she looked up at him. "What," she whispered, palming his face. Vin took a moment to memorize her features and the way she felt beneath him, seeing her not just through his eyes, but feeling her with his skin and his heart. "Hello, lovely lady...hello.

Don't think I was the only reason he healed. You're his light, Marissa. Don't ever forget that.

I'm an angel not a frickin' saint.

The weight of the dead was heavier than the pounds of the body.

Sister," he murmured, not as an inquiry, but a statement of fact. "Brother mine," she groaned... before her consciousness slipped from her grasp and she drifted away. But she would come back to him. One way or the other, she would not leave her twin ever again.

There was both love and despair in his voice. He was truly handicapped when it came to emotions, and falling in love hadn't changed that.