But Lane killed the culmination of that thought.

Not, however, before dark, fiery jealousy touched him with fangs new to his endurance.
To drive it away, Lane launched into more narrative of the war.

And as he talked he gradually forgot himself.

It might be hateful to rake up the burning threads of memory for the curious and the soulless, but to tell Mel Iden it was a keen, strange delight.

He watched the changes of her expression.