Richelle Mead

“You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”

“Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies.”

“Do you think I'm pretty? I think you're beautiful Beautiful? You are so beautiful, it hurts sometimes.”

“I’d said it before and meant it: Alive or undead, the love of my life was a badass.”

“If not for me being stoned and clinging to a taco, it would have been terribly romantic.”

“Don’t take the high ground and assume you already know what you’ll do. The truth is, when it comes to someone you love, you’ll find there isn’t anything you won’t do.”

“The center will hold.” “How do you know?” “Because we are the center.”

“I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I love you.”

“Yet, it had been Dimitri’s gentleness and thoughtfulness mixed with that deadliness that made him so wonderful. The same hands that wielded stakes with such precision would carefully brush the hair out of my face. The eyes that could astutely spot any danger in the area would regard me wonderingly a...”

“I had never thought I could love another person this much. I also never thought I’d live in such fear of losing another person. Was this how everyone in love felt? Did they all cling tightly to their beloved and wake up terrified in the middle of the night, afraid of being alone? Was that an inevita...”

“One of the few downsides to being awakened is that we no longer require sleep; therefore we also no longer dream. It's a shame, because if I could dream, I know I'd dream about you.I'd dream about the way you smell and how your dark hair feels like silk between my fingers. I'd dream about the smooth...”

“You know I love you, right?” The urge to kiss her goodbye was so strong that I almost broke our rules. She smiled, beautiful and golden in the late morning light. “Not as much as I love you.” “Oh, man. This is my dream come true: having an ‘I love you more’ debate. Here, I’ll start. I love you more....”

“Wow,” said Adrian. He sat down on the bed and tested its bounciness, giving it a nod of approval. “This is amazing. What do you think, buttercup?” “I have no words,” I said honestly. He patted the spot beside him. “Want to try it out?”

“Things die. But they don't always stay dead. Believe me, I know.”

“Sorry,ʺ she said, her face shining with joy when she saw me. ʺShould have put a sock on the door. Didnʹt realize things were getting hot and heavy.ʺ ʺNo avoiding it,ʺ I said lightly, clasping Dimitriʹs hand. ʺThings are always hot with him around.ʺ Dimitri looked scandalized. Heʹd never held back wh...”

“Adrian tipped my face up toward his and kissed me. Like always, the world around me stopped moving. No, the world became Adrian, only Adrian. Kissing him was as mind-blowing as ever, full of that same passion and need I had never believed I’d feel. But today, there was even more to it. I no longer h...”

“I know how devastated you must be to miss me, but leave a message, and I'll try to ease your agony”

“Let go of me!”

“There's nothing worse than waiting and not knowing what'll happen to you. Your own imagination can be crueler than any captor.”

“I'll find you. There is no place in this world you can hide from me. I'm watching. Love, Dimitri”

“I don't care if you say we can't be together. I don't care if you think I'm the most evil, unnatural creature walking on earth. You can think whatever you want, go whatever you want. I'm going to just go on loving you, even if it's hopeless.”

“I'm backing down now. I really do love you. That's why I'm doing this.”

“Why are they all high-calorie foods?”

“Well, you can think what you want, so long as you remember - no matter how ordinary things seem between us - I'm still here, still in love with you, and care about you more than any other guy, evil or otherwise, ever will.”

“Everything about her has to do with me.”

“His eyes were on his heart, completely caught up in his work. 'Just something kicking around in my head. Reminds me of you. Fiery and sweet, all at the same time. A flame in the dark, lighting my way.' His voice... his words... I recognized one of his spirit-driven moments. It should've unnerved me,...”

“Other people spoke, and I tried to keep up with the translations. All the stories were about Dimitri's kindness and strength of character. Even when not out battling the undead, Dimitri had always been there to help those who needed it. Almost everyone could recall sometime that Dimitri had stepped...”

“Love fades. Mine has.”

“Life, unfortunately, doesn't seem to care what we want.”

“Yeah? Can you draw a skeleton riding a motorcycle with flames coming out of it? And I want a pirate hat on the skeleton. And a parrot on his shoulder. A skeleton parrot. Or maybe a ninja skeleton parrot? No, that would be overkill. But it'd be cool if the biker skeleton could be shooting some ninja...”

“A gun. I had been brought down by a gun. It was practically comical. Cheaters, I thought.”

“Adrian was easily distractible by wacky topics and shiny objects.”

“God might work on mysterious ways, but hell worked on efficient ones.”

“Sometimes you wake up from a dream. Sometimes you wake up in a dream. And sometimes, every once in a while, you wake up in someone else's dream.”

“Vampires. Honestly, they're like children sometimes.”

“Those words, that voice, had more power over me than any phantom ever could.”

“Love fades, mine has. ~Dimitri Belikov~”

“Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.”

“Sometimes it's worth lingering on the journey for a while before getting to the destination.”

“The book's always better than the movie.”

“Aubrey, crouching on a nearby counter, watched me with squinty eyes, apparently pondering why anyone would willingly immerse themselves in water ever, let alone for extended periods of time.”

“But when I touch you, your aura … it smolders. The colors deepen, it burns more intensely, the purple increases. Why? Why, Sydney?” He used that hand to pull me closer. “Why do you react that way if I don’t mean anything to you?” There was a desperation in his voice, and it was legitimate.”

“Sex had been amazing, but it wasn't a magical cure for everything. Damn. Somewhere along the way, I'd picked up common sense.”

“And besides . . . I don’t want to leave you. Er, you guys.” He smiled, and it lit up his whole face. “Well, ‘we’ are certainly happy to hear that. Oh, and I’m also happy to watch our darling little love child dragon while you’re in St. Louis.” I grinned back.”

“If I had learned anything in my life about love, it was that they were tenous things that could end at any moment. Caution was essential-but not at the cost of risking your life”

“I sent a quick text to Adrian: I have a hickey! You can’t ever kiss me again. I honestly hadn’t expected him to be awake this early, so I was surprised to get a response: Okay. I won’t kiss you on your neck again. So typical of him. No! You can’t ever kiss me ANYWHERE. You said you were going to kee...”

“It was impossible to get the Dimitri and Tasha thing out of my head, but at least packing and getting ready made sure I didn't devote 100 percent of my brain power to him. More like 95 percent.”

“It was a lame excuse, and I knew that wasn't the reason he was canceling. If he wanted to avoid me, I would have preferred he made up something about how he and the other guardians had to up Moroi security or practice top-secret ninja moves.”

“Okay, God, I thought. Get me out of this and I’ll stop my half-assed church-going ways. You got me past a pack of Strigoi tonight. I mean, trapping that one between the doors really shouldn't have worked, so clearly you're on board. Let me get out of here, and I’ll...I don’t know. Donate Adrian’s mo...”

“You're better than this. Better than whatever it is you're going to do now.”

“beautiful” at the top of his list of adjectives. Not that I should have cared. “Sweet talker,” I scoffed. “You didn’t know anything about me the first time we met.” “I knew you were beautiful,” he said. “I just hoped for the rest.”

“I’m not a warrior or a goddess,” I said at last. Adrian leaned closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both.”

“Do you know what I see in you now? The usual aura. A steady golden yellow, healthy and strong, with spikes of purple here and there. But when I do this. . . .” He rested a hand on my hip, and my whole body tensed up. That hand moved around my hip, slipping under my shirt to rest on the small of my b...”

“The only thing better than imagining Dimitri carrying me in his arms was imagining him shirtless while carrying me in his arms.”

“Did you see that dress?”

“You will lose what you value most, so treasure it while you can.”

“Wait. You think I'm going to die? That's why you slept with me?”

“He was too perfect, despite being one of the most imperfect people I knew.”

“Centrum permanebit.”

“Relax, having kids is years away. But can you imagine? Your brains, my charm, our collective good looks... then add in the usual physical abilities dhampirs get. It's really not even fair to everyone else.”

“Things on the essential list: vodka, Nine Inch Nails, a steady supply of mortal men, and an all-purpose bitchy attitude.”

“You did not just say that. I have a feeling we're on the verge of hugging and coming up with cute nicknames for each other.”

“Sydney spent a lot of time on my bed these days. Unfortunately, it wasn't with me.”

“When we were almost to the other campus, I felt the weird nausea hit me. I called a warning to Christian, just as a Strigoi grabbed him. But Christian was fast. Flames wreathed the Strigoi's head. He screamed and released Christian, trying frantically to put the flames out. The Strigoi never saw me...”

“Even now, despite Angeline's watchfulness, she'd occasionally oscillate between random topics, like how shepherd's pie wasn't a pie at all and why it was pointless for her to take class in typing when technology would eventually develop robot companions to do it for us.”

“You can't save everyone, though God knows you try.”

“I've heard that the soul often recognizes truth when it hears it, even if the mind does not.”

“If I let myself love you, I won't throw myself in front of her. I'll throw myself in front of you.”

“But I couldn't help myself, couldn't help the way I felt as I recalled the bliss and rush of a vampire's bite.”

“Smiling, I cut across the quadrangle toward the commons. I felt better about life than I had in a very long time. We could do this, Lissa and me. We could do this together.”

“It does. This is how it should have been anyway.' I caught my breath as he kissed my neck, teeth grating my skin. 'And I'll take back what's mine.”

“And after a while...I mean, how do you choose? Who gets to live? Part of life is that...well, some people have to die. My powers aren't a prescription you can get filled as needed.”