" I wasn’t sure whether he was a grad student, poet, actor, stripper, or brilliant combination of all those things. But the man knew Lord Byron, and he knew words. He knew the rise and fall of sentences, the way to pause, the moment to look up, catch our gazes, smile. He knew emphasis and speed, pacing and clarity. He was a prince of poetry, and he had us mesmerized.

Champagne was uncorked and dunked into gleaming silver chalices of ice, then poured into tall, thin glasses while we listened, legs crossed and perched forward in our chairs.

“Is it better if we’re objectifying his body and his brain?” Margot asked, lifting the thin straw in her gin and tonic for a sip.

“I don’t much care,” Mallory said. “He gives good word.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself. "

― Chloe Neill , Blade Bound (Chicagoland Vampires, #13)