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.

He leaned a fraction closer. “My lovers have always been warrior women. Strength intrigues me.” She refused to let him play with her like this, even if her body disagreed. Vehemently. “Do knives intrigue you, too? Because touch me and I will cut you up. I don’t care if you throw me off the nearest balcony.

A lot of women have trouble with their mothers-in-law.” Raphael’s look was priceless. “My mother is an insane archangel.

Love is the greatest form of loyalty, one that places happiness of the beloved over the lover.

I wouldn't wish my consort to suffer ennui.

Content in a way he’d rarely been before Mercy, he simply stroked her until she purred. It delighted him as it always did. “I made you purr.” A lazy yawn. “I’m faking it.

Under her palm, his heart beat strong and sure. It was such a human sound, so honest, so real.