85
" All this is simply your reaction to my Gifts. You never loved me before, not in all those years. Now that you who I--what I can do, you've convinced yourself it's more than it is. Its simple instinct."
"Perchance you're right. But the result is the same, isn't it? We were meant to be together in life. That's our law, because that is our instinct, the natural order of our kind. Strongest mates to strongest."
She took the steps necessary to stand before him. She held out a hand to him and he accepted it, lightly, his fingers cradled hers. "This is not life, Rhys."
"No." He studied their locked hands, the pulse in her wrist. "But it is still love. Just as I loved you when we were young--"
"Stop it," she whispered.
"My heart beast for you." He released her fingers and gave her that faint, sardonic smile.
"I am going to marry Hayden."
"I know. And I'm still going to love you." The smile deepened. "Sorry. "
― Shana Abe , The Treasure Keeper (Drakon, #4)
87
" They fire lots of bullets very, very quickly. Quicker than anything else.”
I looked up and around the bedroom, the mismatched furniture, the weirdly firm light. “Why? What could you hunt with those? What could they have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “That’s what’s so unnerving.”
I rubbed a hand to my forehead, feeling an ache beginning to build behind my skull. “Armand.”
His eyes went to mine.
I had to say this carefully; I had no wish to add to his despair, but I couldn’t let it go. “Do you think…do you suppose it’s possible that your father might…mean to do you any harm?”
But I’d actually made him smile. A real one, too, even if it came acerbic and thin. “With a pair of Vickers? Not unless he means to mount them in the hallway and spry me with bullets when I’m not paying attention. Seems like rather a spot of work for him. Surely even an unwelcome heir is better than none.”
I returned his smile as I pulled away my hand. “I think we need to teach you how to Turn to smoke, just in case. It’s a handy thing to be able to vanish in a hurry.”
His smile widened, but there was no humor left to it. “Handy.” He fell back against the blankets of the bed, his eyes gone shiny and hard. “If I could vanish into smoke, Eleanore, I’d leave this place and never return. That’s a promise.”
“Just like Rue,” I said softly. "
― Shana Abe , The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1)
89
" By the next afternoon, a shepherd boy had heard his shouts and he’d been hauled up the cliffs and confined to an empty pigeon house, the sole survivor of his doomed mission.
Gone cracked, though, from the ordeal. Ranting in perfect English about dragons and a young woman who could fly.
No one believed him. A few people swore the airships had suffered lightning strikes, although the night had seemed so clear. A few more vowed they’d spotted them off the bluffs and fired at them, and that had brought them down.
Whatever it had been, everyone seemed certain of two things. It had not been a dragon, and it had not been the poor, tormented Duke of Idylling. "
― Shana Abe , The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1)
90
" It is considered an honor to be…plucked from the crowd, so to speak. There are fine families in the district who have lived here for generations, none of whom have been so favored with the duke’s attention. Yet I wonder if it’s not truly His Grace himself behind this invitation, but his son.”
“Perhaps there’s a piano aboard.”
Her nostrils flared. “Don’t be pert. This is not a matter of jest, Eleanore. If you go on that yacht, your every move will be scrutinized. Your every word will be dissected. Your manners must be irreproachable, and they must be so at all times, even if you believe you are alone. Do you understand me?”
Do not steal anything. Do not belch or scratch your arse.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Should Lord Armand choose to favor you with his attention, you will react politely, graciously, but always with an aloof, dignified demeanor. It could be that he believes you to be…less than what you are. You will show him the error of that thought.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He’d already seen me naked. I supposed everything from there would be a step toward dignified.
“Do you still have the bangle he presented to you?”
The cuff, I wanted to correct her. As if I was going to lose it.
“I do.”
“Wear it. Let him see that you value it, but take my strong advice on this, Eleanore. Do not accept another such gift from him. One is permissible. Two becomes a suggestion.”
“Oh.”
“Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, ma’am. We do.”
A smatter of laughter and applause reached us from beyond the open window. Some of the girls had set up a game of lawn pins, and the sudden crack! of a ball hitting its mark echoed through the room.
“One last thing,” said Westcliffe.
“Yes?”
“Wear your uniform. It won’t hurt to remind everyone of where you belong.”
I puzzled over that for the rest of the bright day. "
― Shana Abe , The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1)
91
" Armand towed me up and Jesse hustled me away. I staggered against him, looking past his shoulder just in time to see my nightgown dance over the rim of the roof, a twirling, empty ballerina blowing away to the stars.
“That was stupid,” I said loudly.
“Too right it was.” None of Armand’s fury had left him.
“No, I mean you. Both of you. Following me like that. You could have been killed!”
“We were doing well enough until you-did that! Went to smoke like that.”
“He couldn’t shoot smoke!”
“He could have shot the half-wit on top of him!”
“But he didn’t!” I swallowed, a lump of something sick rising in my throat. “I didn’t kill him, did I?”
Armand seemed to shrink a little. He looked back at the duke and shook his head. “No. I think you knocked him out. He’s breathing.”
“Has anyone a coat?” I asked, and found myself crumpling down to the roof, a leisurely sort of collapse. Armand grabbed me by the arm again and I managed to remain seated instead of prone.
“Dragon-girl.” Jesse was stripping off his shirt. “Bravest girl. I keep telling you to eat more. "
― Shana Abe , The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1)
94
" I wasn’t even certain if my wings were meant for flight. I hadn’t exactly had any luck with it the one time I’d tried.
I could glide, though. Probably.
Maybe.
Should worse come to worst, I could smoke up to them. Turn to dragon right there, dig my claws in, and hang on. That might do it.
Looked like I was about to find out.
What I hadn’t thought about, what I’d completely managed to forget about, was that I wasn’t exactly skilled at maintaining my transformed shape, either. The reminder came to me rather forcibly as I was streaming my way east, over the channel, and felt myself beginning to solidify.
No. No!
Yes.
Several thousand feet up in the air, I Turned back into a girl. Screaming, cartwheeling, everything topsy-turvy purple as gravity reclaimed me and I plummeted down to the water.
fly! sang the stars, weighing in past my screams. fly, beast!
It was a damned near save. I was a girl and then I wasn’t, managing the Turn so close to the sea that the foam from the cresting waves splashed up through the smoke of me.
Good thing I didn’t have a real heart just then. It would have stopped entirely. "
― Shana Abe , The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1)
96
" Kit opened his eyes.
"Where is she?"
The voice was high and thin and directly by his left ear-also the location of the blade pressed up hard against his jawline.
"Where is she?" the voice demanded again, whispery words nearly spilling over one another in fury. "Tell me, you bastard! I'll kill you!"
Options flitted through his mind: this person was small, this person was young, it smelled like an urchin, the blade felt like a dagger or dirk. He could break its arm or its neck, he could Turn and crush it from behind or more simply rip off its head-and the only thing that kept his body motionless in the bed was the realization that the creature was obviously speaking of Rue.
"Zane," she said then, a single word that broke like a calm dream through the chamber. "Please do not kill the Marquess of Langford."
-Zane, Kit, & Rue "
― Shana Abe , The Smoke Thief (Drakon, #1)
100
" My neck was slender and long and I could bend it nearly all the way about to take in my body: also slender, also shining.
I was a dragon of gold, as if Jesse had touched me and transmuted me but not taken my life. I was sinuous and covered in lustrous golden scales, all the way almost to the tip of my tail, until they faded into purple.
I had a mane, too, mapping a line down my back. It looked like a ruff of silk or cut velvet. I folded my neck around almost double so that I could rub my chin on it. Silken, yes, but also jagged. Combing my chin through it sent quivers of pleasure down my spine.
Then I saw my wings. They were folded against my back, metallic. Without knowing how I did it, I opened them, using muscles I didn't even have as a person. ... I slashed my tail through the rain and realized that it was barbed when it hit an oak tree and I got stuck.
No problem. I pulled it out and danced around, delighted at the fresh, gaping hole in the trunk. ... If the shark-hunters or lance-bearers came for me, I'd chew them to chum. "
― Shana Abe , The Sweetest Dark (The Sweetest Dark, #1)