There were things one could do, things so terrible, Val was certain they could make someone stop loving you. She was equally certain that she had done some of these things, and as desperate as she was to be proven otherwise, she was equally afraid that she was right. That she had become as awful as the rest of the world seemed to think she was. That she was unlovable.

Nothing is as deadly as the love of a powerful man.

Nobody had ever looked at her like that—as if she were filled with such lethal sweetness that craving could be synonymous with ruin.

There it is,” he breathed. “That’s how you looked the night you came to me. Hot and golden, with that black dress all but falling off your body. You looked at me just like that.

We are nothing more than game pieces on a celestial board whose sheer scale we could not possibly fathom. All of it is inevitable—just like you and I. You can’t fight Fate.”“I can fight you.”He smiled. It was a courtier’s smile. An elegant cover to endless secrets and depravities. “I’m counting on it.

You were the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen. I couldn’t decide whether to pluck you out of the sky and cage you, or simply break your wings.

She was full of fire and he had never wanted to burn so badly.

Maybe that was why the French called orgasms “las petites morts”: because the things that bring us passion tend to slip past our defenses, to creep insidiously into every facet of our consciousnesses and kill us as ruthlessly, and efficiently, as any drug.

It's true what they say, you know. First fuck. First love. First kill. You never forget your first.