But sometimes, that depth of need—to save, to protect—can become a blinding fervor, one that destroys the very thing it thinks to safeguard.

Animals obviously ranked higher in Michaela's world view than humans. Having seen some of the things humans were capable of, Elena couldn't disagree.

You're not a restful individual to be around" Ashaya to Dorian

For the first time in forever, he was stunned to silence. Not by her words, but by the tenderness in her hands, the worry in her eyes. He was an archangel. He’d been wounded far, far worse and shrugged it off. But then, there had been no woman with sun kissed by the sunset and eyes of storm gray to tear into him for daring to get himself hurt.

Looking at her, bedraggled and beaten, some might have seen weakness. He saw strength, determination, and a will no one could crush.

Take care of my heart won't you, Sophie? It's a little odd having it outside my body-but I'm planning to steal yours to make up for it.

While Dmitri, as the leader of Raphael’s Seven, could not accept such a weakness, the mortal he’d once been, the one who had loved a woman with a wide mouth and eyes of slanted brown . . . that man understood what it was to love so deeply it was a kind of beautiful madness.