In quick succession, Qhuinn reviewed his answers: No, of course not, the knife was acting of its own volition. I was actually trying to stop it...No, I only meant to give him a shave...No, I didn't realize that slicing open someone's jugular was going to lead to death.

...Bringing the very heavens close enough to touch. It was Zsadist. His eyes closed, his head back, his mouth wide open, he sang. The scarred one, the souless one, had the voice of an angel.

I'm glad you like him," he murmured, his hands tugging up her shirt. "Because the two of us are yours. For as long as you'll have us." "That would be eternally," she said as she let herself go. And reveled in all the love.

When you were the son of evil, there was little you couldn't do, own, or kill, and yet her mortal self was an elusive trophy he could touch, but not put on his shelf. This made her rare. This made her precious. This made him...love her.

Rule number four for me as a writer? Plotlines are like sharks: They either keep moving or they die. ~J.R. Ward

To her, saving grace meant you got to live out your life like a normal person: You were healthy and strong, an the prospect of death was just some far-off, barely acknowledged hypothetical. A debt to be paid off in a future you couldn't imagine

Blay said yet again, that old, familiar voice cutting through all of those years of rejection and judgment, giving him not just a rope of acceptance to hang on to, but a flesh-and-blood hand to lead him out of the darkness of his past... And into a future that didn't require lies or excuses, because what he was, and what they were, was both extraordinary-and not hing out of the ordinary. Love, after all, was universal.