“Conan, you make me feel…safe. More than that, you make me feel valued. You’re the first person who has ever made me feel truly alive. Before I met you, my life was on a course dictated by others. You’ve shown me what it means to be cherished, to matter. Every moment with you is a gift I never thought I’d get. I don’t have the words to express how much you mean to me, but know this: you are my strength and my courage. I trust you with my life—with my heart. I’ve never experienced anything like this, and I never will again. You’re everything I never knew I needed.”

~Anastasia Volkov, Day Shift

“I love you, my little bird. With everything in me. I love every part of you—your red hair, your sharp tongue, the strength you hide behind that fire. There will never be another woman for me. I’ll die with your name on my lips.”

~Lucian Byrne, Eyes of the Unholy

I didn’t know what was going on between us, but one thing was clear: this woman was unlike anyone I’d ever met, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run from her iciness or straight into her fire.

~Braxton Thorin, Mission Shift

He, a man who took what he wanted, had no way of knowing that he held a woman who had never been taken. He had no idea I was still a virgin, that I’d never done any of this before.

I’d kept it to myself, thinking I would know when the right time would be for my first lover.

And now, somehow, the right time looked a hell of a lot like being pinned against a wall and f***ed by a man who’d stalked me for weeks.

~Lyla Oakley, Eyes on You

If Lucian had wanted me dead, I’d be dead. If he’d wanted to hurt me, use me, trade me, ransom me—he’d have done it already. Instead, he handled me as though I were breakable. As though I mattered. As though losing me would cost him everything.

And the way he’d looked at me when he told me I was pretty, it hadn’t sounded like a line.

It had sounded as if I were the very air he needed to breathe.

~Scarlett Hayes, Eyes of the Unholy

“Am I joining The Syndicate?”

“No.” His answer came with quiet amusement. “You’re doing something considerably more dangerous.”

“Oh?”

“Loving one of its men.”

I shut my eyes, my mind drifting again to my Russian stalker.

The one whose voice played over and over again in my thoughts…my dreams. I couldn’t stop thinking about his hands. His mouth. His angst. The way he’d kissed me, like he hated himself for wanting me.

I couldn’t understand why he kept showing up out of nowhere.

But right now, I wanted that version of him—the one who’d chased me through that building not to hurt me but to get to me first, like he knew monsters lurked in the shadows.

Maybe I didn’t deserve to be saved. I’d been too impulsive. Too trusting.

But God help me—I wanted him to come.

~Lyla Oakley, Eyes on You

“Mouse, you’re not going to hurt me.” I guided her down. “It’s time you found your place over my heart.”

Tears welled in her eyes.

“How do you always read me so well?” she whispered.

I brushed my thumb along one of her cheeks.

“Because you’re the first woman I’ve ever wanted to know by heart.”

In that split second when I locked eyes with this devastatingly lethal masterpiece of untamed beauty—mine searching to understand, hers hardened in resolve—I knew one thing with absolute clarity: she wasn’t the kind of woman a man walked away from unscathed. She fought like a demon, looked like a damn dream, and if I had any sense, I’d focus on survival instead of how much I wanted to pin her down for entirely different reasons. Whether I made it out of this fight or not, I was already a goner. She wasn’t just dangerous—she was the kind of trouble men lost themselves in.

~Braxton Thorin, Mission Shift

I was intrigued by this fiery-mouthed woman wrapped in freckles and flame. She stirred something within me, a hunger for redemption—mine and perhaps even hers.

~Dr. Atticus Thorin, Night Shift