3
" I slipped in and out of consciousness as time stretched and flowed around me. Dreams and reality blurred, but I liked the dreams better. Noah was in them.
I dreamed of us, walking hand in hand down a crowded street in the middle of the day. We were in New York. I was in no rush—I could walk with him forever—but Noah was. He pulled me alongside him, strong and determined and not smiling. Not today.
We wove among the people, somehow not touching a single one. The trees were green and blossoming. It was spring, almost summer. A strong wind shook a few steadfast flowers off of the branches and into our path. We ignored them.
Noah led me into Central Park. It was teeming with human life. Bright colored picnic blankets burst across the lawn, the pale, outstretched forms of people wriggling over them like worms in fruit. We passed the reservoir, the sun reflecting off its surface, and then the crowd began to thicken.
They funneled into a throbbing mass as we strode up a hill, over and through. Until we could see them all below us, angry and electric. Noah reached into his bag. He pulled out the little cloth doll, my grandmother’s. The one we burned. "
― Michelle Hodkin , The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)
7
" You’re all right, Blue Eyes.” She lifted her head to look into them. “You’re all right, down the line. You ever want a free bang, you got one coming.”“It would, no doubt be a memorable bang. But my wife is fiercely jealous and territorial.” He grinned over at a very cold-eyed Eve.“Her? You? That’s a kick in the ass.”“Every damn day,” Eve muttered, and strode out.She kept striding, out of the club, back into the comparatively fresh air of the city street. And fisted her hands on her hips as she spun to him. “Did you have to do the ‘my wife’ crap?”His grin remained, and only widened. “I did, yes. I felt a desperate need for your protection. I believe that woman had designs on me.”“I’ll put a design on you that won’t come off in the shower.”“See, now I’m excited.” Reaching out, he toyed with the lapel of her coat." What have you got in mind ? "
9
" Amelia envisaged that between York and the royal-infested Scottish Highlands there was a grimy wasteland of derelict cranes and abandoned mills and betrayed, yet still staunch, people. Oh and moorland, of course, vast tracts of brooding landscape under lowering skies, and across this heath strode brooding, lowering men intent on reaching their ancestral houses, where they were going to fling open doors and castigate orphaned yet resolute governesses. Or — preferably — the brooding, lowering men were on horseback, black horses with huge muscled haunches, glistening with sweat — "
― Kate Atkinson , Case Histories (Jackson Brodie #1)
12
" But Amarantha rolled her eyes and slouched in her throne. “Shatter him, Rhysand.” She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. “You may do what you want with the body afterward.”
The High Lord of the Summer Court bowed—as if he’d been given a gift—and looked to his subject, who had gone still and calm on the floor, hugging his knees. The male faerie was ready—relieved.
Rhys slipped a hand out of his pocket, and it dangled at his side. I could have sworn phantom talons flickered there as his fingers curled slightly.
“I’m growing bored, Rhysand,” Amarantha said with a sigh, again fiddling with that bone. She hadn’t looked at me once, too focused on her current prey.
Rhysand’s fingers curled into a fist.
The faerie male’s eyes went wide—then glazed as he slumped to the side in the puddle of his own waste. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ears, pooling on the floor.
That fast—that easily, that irrevocably … he was dead.
“I said shatter his mind, not his brain,” Amarantha snapped.
The crowd murmured around me, stirring. I wanted nothing more than to fade back into it—to crawl back into my cell and burn this from my mind. Tamlin hadn’t flinched—not a muscle. What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn’t broken that distant expression, that control?
Rhysand shrugged, his hand sliding back into his pocket. “Apologies, my queen.” He turned away without being dismissed, and didn’t look at me as he strode for the back of the throne room. I fell into step beside him, reining in my trembling, trying not to think about the body sprawled behind us, or about Clare—still nailed to the wall.
The crowd stayed far, far back as we walked through it. “Whore,” some of them softly hissed at him, out of her earshot; “Amarantha’s whore.” But many offered tentative, appreciative smiles and words—“Good that you killed him; good that you killed the traitor. "
― Sarah J. Maas , A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
14
" Elgin himself looked ten years younger, now that he’d cast the die, but I thought exuberance had got the better of him when he strode into the saloon later, threw The Origin of Species on the table and announced:" It’s very original, no doubt, but not for a hot evening. What I need is some trollop." I couldn’t believe my ears, and him a church-goer, too. " Well, my lord, I dunno,” says I. " Tientsin ain’t much of a place, but I’ll see what I can drum up —" " Michel’s been reading Doctor Thorne since Taku," cried he. " He must have finished it by now, surely! Ask him, Flashman, will you?" So I did, and had my ignorance, enlightened. "
16
" I had to keep my hands clenched at my sides to avoid wiping my sweaty palms on the skirts of my gown as I reached the dining room, and immediately contemplated bolting upstairs and changing into a tunic and pants. But I knew they’d already heard me, or smelled me, or used whatever heightened senses they had to detect my presence, and since fleeing would only make it worse, I found it in myself to push open the double doors.
Whatever discussion Tamlin and Lucien had been having stopped, and I tried not to look at their wide eyes as I strode to my usual place at the end of the table.
“Well, I’m late for something incredibly important,” Lucien said, and before I could call him on his outright lie or beg him to stay, the fox-masked faerie vanished.
I could feel the full weight of Tamlin’s undivided attention on me—on every breath and movement I took. I studied the candelabras atop the mantel beside the table. I had nothing to say that didn’t sound absurd—yet for some reason, my mouth decided to start moving.
“You’re so far away.” I gestured to the expanse of table between us. “It’s like you’re in another room.”
The quarters of the table vanished, leaving Tamlin not two feet away, sitting at an infinitely more intimate table. I yelped and almost tipped over in my chair. He laughed as I gaped at the small table that now stood between us. “Better?” he asked.
I ignored the metallic tang of magic as I said, “How … how did you do that? Where did it go?”
He cocked his head. “Between. Think of it as … a broom closet tucked between pockets of the world.” He flexed his hands and rolled his neck, as if shaking off some pain.
“Does it tax you?” Sweat seemed to gleam on the strong column of his neck.
He stopped flexing his hands and set them flat on the table. “Once, it was as easy as breathing. But now … it requires concentration.”
Because of the blight on Prythian and the toll it had taken on him. “You could have just taken a closer seat,” I said.
Tamlin gave me a lazy grin. “And miss a chance to show off to a beautiful woman? Never. "
― Sarah J. Maas , A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
