"We die," she said, "we die together. That's the deal."

As her skin sizzled under the delicious heat, she supposed she should’ve been giving serious thought to the lunacy of what she was doing playing with a vampire, who was, for all his charm, as lethal as a stiletto across the throat. But then again, most of her friends already thought she was half a nut short of a fruitcake. Why disappoint?

No, Nathan, no." She wrapped his face in her hands. "I just need you--all of you--so much that I'm going crazy. I need your laugh. I need your company. I need you to sleep beside me and I need you to wake when I wake. I need you with everything in me.

One thing I've always wondered—why did you enter that bikini contest when you were a teenager?” Her face flushed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “How far back did you trace me?” “Far enough.” A pause. “You didn't answer my question.” “And you didn't turn into a puff of smoke and disappear. The world is full of disappointments.

Fathers and mothers,” she found herself saying, “leave their mark, no matter if we’ve known them a lifetime or only a day.

We fit, you and I,” he whispered looking into that haunting gaze. “Two broken pieces making a whole.

I don’t want to lose my memories. Don’t make me forget. I would rather die as Elena, than live as a shadow.