" Butch let his head fall loose on his shoulders and he wept openly… though not out of happiness, as they must have assumed.

He wept at the hollowness he felt.

Because however wonderful this all was, it seemed empty to him.

Without his mate to share his life with, he was but a screen for events and circumstances to pass through. He was not even empty, for he was no vessel to hold even the thinnest of air.

He lived, though was not truly alive. "

― J.R. Ward , Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #4)