An image of Sydney's face appeared in my mind's eye, calm and lovely.I believe in you.My anxiety faded.I took a deep breath and met the gazes of all those watching me in the room.Who was I to do this?I was Adrian Ivashkov.And I was about to kick some ass.

Ivashkov," she repeated, her face the picture of serenity. "My name is Sydney Ivashkov.

Moroi shied from the sunlight but as I watched Sydney, I knew without a doubt that humans had been made for the sun.

Out of old habit, I put my hand on my collarbone, touching a cross that was no longer there. Don't let them change me, I prayed silently.Let me keep my mind. Let me endure whatever there is to come.

My boyfriend was insanely sexy, vampire or not, and I couldn't keep my hands off him.

Everything I’d fought for, every challenge, every victory … all of it was empty if anything happened to him. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the courage to become the person I was. Without him, I wouldn’t have realized what it truly was to live and love life. Centrum permanebit. He was my center, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do, nothing I wouldn’t give up, to keep him safe.

Not everything about me is cute.""That's true, some things are cute. The rest are sexy. Astonishing, agonizingly sexy. It's a wonder I can get anything done at all, when all I ever think about is the way your lips taste or how your fingertips feel on my skin or how your legs are...""Adrian, shut up.

My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Beauty, brains, and now brawn.

I'm guessing whatever 'ways' you have in mind aren't Jill-appropriate either." "Put your books away and I'll show you.