5
" What do you believe in, Dara?” Noam pressed again.
Dara sipped at his soda. Swirled his straw round the glass when he lifted his head again. “I believe Vladimir Nabokov is the best novelist of all time.”
“Dara.”
Dara gazed back at him, Noam’s incredulity written all over his face. Without telepathy, Dara couldn’t quite tell if he was actually frustrated or just . . .
But then Noam snorted and said, “Yeah. All right. What else?”
The corners of Dara’s mouth tipped up. “I believe in utilitarianism,” he said. “I believe bourbon is the gentleman’s choice in whiskey. I believe pineapple belongs on pizza. Oh, and the fact that goats eat everything you own just makes them more endearing.”
“You are ridiculous,” Noam said—but he was laughing now, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over this chest. "
― Victoria Lee , The Fever King (Feverwake, #1)
6
" I want to choose you,” Noam said softly. “Every day, again and again.”
Dara kissed him, Noam’s lips parting under the pressure of Dara’s mouth and his hand lifting to Dara’s cheek. And for that moment Noam let himself believe in the future they’d spun together, all its brightness and its flaws, something so magnificently mundane it almost felt unachievable: late mornings waking up together, Dara perched on the kitchen counter while Noam made dinner, trading work stories over tea in the early evening, Wolf curled up in bed between them while they slept. "
― Victoria Lee , The Fever King (Feverwake, #1)
9
" It’s . . . what you said, in the bar the other night. About how I can’t let things go. You’re right. And maybe—I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so—my whole life, people do things to, they . . . they hurt the people I love. And there was never anything I could do about it. Not until I got magic.” Noam’s hand slackened against Dara’s, but Dara didn’t try to pull away again. He rubbed his thumb against the backs of Noam’s knuckles, and Noam said: “I can do something, now. And maybe I . . . maybe I’m afraid of being powerless again.”
The moment that followed was heavy and silent, thick enough between them Dara could’ve twisted it in his grasp like fabric.
“You aren’t powerless.” Dara’s voice wavered. “You—Noam, even if you didn’t have magic, you wouldn’t be powerless. You’re so . . . you’re the bravest person I know. The stupidest too.” That earned a broken sort of laugh from Noam. “But. You’re strong. He won’t break you like he—”
His throat closed around the rest.
Noam’s inhale was sharp, audible. He lifted his hand and slid chilly fingers into Dara’s shorn-short hair. “You aren’t broken, Dara. "
― Victoria Lee , The Fever King (Feverwake, #1)