Michaela17

“I want to kiss you,” he said.
“You already kissed me,” I replied with a nervous laugh.
A smile tugged at his lips. “I want to kiss you again,” he amended.
“Oh,” I breathed. His mouth was inches from mine. My heart leapt into a panicked gallop. This is Nikolai, I reminded myself. Pure calculation. I didn’t even think I wanted him to kiss me. But my pride was still smarting from Mal’s rejection. Hadn’t he said he’d kissed plenty of girls?
“I want to kiss you,” Nikolai said. “But I won’t. Not until you’re thinking of me instead of trying to forget him.”
I shoved backward and lurched awkwardly to my feet, feeling flushed and embarrassed.
“Alina—”
“At least now I know you don’t always say the right thing,” I muttered.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“True,” said Nikolai. “But they know what you are too, Sankta Zoya.”
“Do not call me that.”
“It has a nice ring to it,” said Tamar.
“Our Lady of Dragonfire?” Suggested Nadia.
“Sweet scaly vengeance?” Said Genya.
Zoya turned her back on all of them and strode towards the tents. “I’m going to go live in a cave.”
― Leigh Bardugo , Rule of Wolves

“I can't do this," Genya whispered. Her face was swollen from crying. Her vibrant hair lay limp down her back.
"You don't have to do anything," Zoya said. "Just be here. Stay standing."
"Not even that."
"I've got you. I won't let you fall.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves

“Zoya, do you know why the Darkling lost the civil war? How Alina stopped him?”
Zoya pinched the bridge of her nose. “No. I wish I did.”
“Because he always fought alone. He let his power isolate him. Alina had us. You have us. You push us away, keep us all at arm’s distance so that you won’t mourn us. But you’ll mourn us anyway. That’s the way love works.”
Zoya turned away. “I don’t know how to do this anymore. I don’t know how to just go on.”
“I don’t know either. There are days when I don’t want to. But I can’t live a life without love.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves