The deepest show of love is when you surrender your mind, body and soul to me to use as I please, trusting that when I take you to the brink of my self-control, I'll bring you back more whole than before.

This kiss was different from the first one under the olive tree. That one had been unplanned, she was pretty sure. This kiss had intention and hunger branded all over it. It was like one of those kisses you read about in fairy tales__ut Alana had never imagined that such a kiss could cause bone-trembling shivers as well as bliss. She__ never considered the downside of the awakening kiss, of how the princess felt when the hero tore through the thorns or scaled the tower and speared heat and sex and life-changing energy into the princess__ world.

When you are in a room with Kurtis, whether its one or a hundred he is the only person that matters.

I also had a dim idea that if I walked the streets of New York by myself all night something of the city's mystery and magnificence might rub off on me at last. But I gave it up.

There's a little known virtue called magnificence: an unostentatious liberality of expenditure in doing good. You would deny me the practice of it. Mierda! I should have left you on the comet.

Killing another with slow, deliberate intent is a warping of the gifts that magic offers. It warps the mage in a manner he cannot repair. You cannot kill another slowly and not twist something within yourself, Alador. Remember this: magic is not without cost regardless of its wonder and magnificence.