Stacey Lewis

“You can run. You can keep running to the ends of the earth. But I won’t be far behind you.”

“Ethan—”

“No. I will never be far behind you.” He tipped up my chin so that I could do nothing else but look back into his eyes. “Do the things you need to do. Learn to be a vampire, to be a warrior, to be the soldier you are capable of being. But consider the possibility that I made a mistake I regret—and that I’ll continue to regret that mistake and try to convince you to give me another chance until the earth stops turning.”
― Chloe Neill, Hard Bitten

“Was I not tempting enough?” I asked him. “Not classy enough?”

I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. And that was almost worse. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

He’d stood up and slipped his hands into his pockets. I met his gaze and saw the green fire in his eyes. “You’re perfect—beautiful, intelligent, intractable in a kind of . . . attractive way. Headstrong, but a good strategist. An amazing fighter.”
― Chloe Neill, Twice Bitten

“Have you ever had a moment where you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were in the right place?
That you were on the right journey? Maybe the sense that you’d crossed a boundary, jumped a hurdle, and somehow, after facing some unconquerable mountain, found yourself suddenly on the other side of it?
When the night was warm and the wind was cool, and a song carried through the quiet streets around you. When you felt the entire world around you, and you were part of it—of the hum of it—and everything was good.
Contentment, I suppose, is the simple explanation for it. But it seems more than that, thicker than that, some unity of purpose, some sense of being truly, honestly, for that moment, at home.
Those moments never seem to last long enough. The song ends, the breeze stills, the worries and fears creep in again and you’re left trying to move forward, but glancing back at the mountain behind you, wondering how you managed to cross it, afraid you really didn’t—that the bulk and shadow over your shoulder might evaporate and re-form before you, and you’d be faced with the burden of crossing it again.
The song ends, and you stare at the quiet, dark house in front of you, and you grasp the doorknob, and walk back into your life.”
― Chloe Neill

“There was a time,” he finally said, “when I would have acknowledged your reticence and given you time and space to reach your own decision.”
He tipped my head down again and slid his fingers to the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. Then he lowered his lips to my ear.
“This is not that time, Merit.”
And then his mouth was on mine, and he took my breath away again. He kissed me like a man possessed, like a man with nothing more on his mind but the taste and feel of me.
Like a man returned to life.”
― Chloe Neill, Drink Deep