Deliliah

“And still he loomed over her. How did ones do that? she wondered. Turn standing into looming. She’d never wished so intensely as in that moment for the knowledge of a proper loom.”

“Ye kiss like a virgin, I’ll give you that.”
“And you kiss like a man who would know the difference,” she volleyed back. “A man who would turn a virgin into his whore and then blame her for the deed.”

“He achieved not despite them, but to spite them. He studied harder, worked longer, and did better than them all so that when he entered a room, the naysayers dare not breathe in his direction. In fact, they all had to bow and address him as my lord.
And he knew the title tasted like ashes in their mouths.”