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.

What is it with you and girls, Adrian, dear? Why do they either mean nothing to you or everything? It's always an extreme."
"Because I don't do things in halves, mom. Especially when it comes to love.

Well...I'm on birth control"

I was drinking the water again and choked on it. It took several moments of coughing before I could gasp out. "What?"

"It takes a while for it to start working, so I figured I should be prepared, just in case."

"Just in case," I repeated, still dumbfounded.

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.

I gave him a smile that I hoped was as dazzling as one of his. "I realized I'm in love."
Marcus, startled, looked around as though he expected to see my object d'amour in the car with us. "And you just realized this? Did you just have some sort of vision?"
"Didn't need to," I said, thinking of Wolfe's ill-fated trip to the Orkneys. "It's always been right in front of me.

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