love gave someone the power to break you. I'd been broken beyond repair.

You held out your hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope.

What kind of an idiotic question is that?

But it's possible to love more than one person at a time, Bella. I've seen it in action.

Vampirism, for me, was a way to live in fantasy and have superpowers, but not just in a really perfect, happy, everything is great way. It's superpowers with a cost. It's having to be the villain, and what do you do about that.

...humankind's limited scope of mercy was reserved for their own.

He shifted his weight, throwing his good leg off the bed as if he were going to try to stand. “What are you doing?” I demanded through the tears. “Lie down, you idiot, you’ll hurt yourself!” I jumped to my feet and pushed his good shoulder down with two hands. He surrendered, leaning back with a gasp of pain, but he grabbed me around my waist and pulled me down on the bed, against his good side. I curled up there, trying to stifle the silly sobs against his hot skin.