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.

Dropping her hand, she turned in his arms. Then, rising up on tiptoe, she cupped his face in her palms and drew him down. Her kiss was innocent, vulnerable, a caress so gentle that it made him her slave between one breath and the next.

Push me and I will. I’ll get punished, but you’ll still be dead.

It’s Adria’s face I see when I think of home.

You trying to make me crazy?” “Everyone needs a hobby.

There's not much left inside me, Max" Sometimes, all she heard were echoes.

If you die, Lily ... I’ll steal your soul and take you to the Abyss, where I will keep you in my magical dungeon so you can never escape.