Karen

“Can’t you tell I’m broken?” she demanded. “I can’t stand anyone touching me!” “You handled me touching you until I pushed you too far.” “Freaking out because someone you’re enjoying kissing tries to get closer to you is not normal.” “It wasn’t normal that I was turned into a vampire because a female vamp became obsessed with my best friend,” David replied. “When Liam didn’t follow after her, she decided to turn his friends in the hopes she would get him to fall in line with her. That’s about as far from normal as it gets. I didn’t have a clue about the paranormal being real when my transformation occurred. Vampires were for horror movies, not reality. Life’s not normal. Shit happens. We all work through it.” “Is that so, Dr. Phil?” The frustrating man smiled at her. “That’s so,” David replied.”
― Brenda K. Davies, Fractured

“If you have not confronted true horrors, understood evil, suffered hopelessness and despair, found faith, and made yourself completely accountable for your own choices, actions and outcomes, then I can guarantee that any acceptance you pretend to have will be as brittle and temporary as a snowball in the middle of summer.”
― Graeme Rodaughan, The Crane War

“The truth about our existence would have been discovered long ago if we did. Now we’re myths and legends. Predators who can walk side by side with our prey.” “But we are monsters.” “If something has the ability to think and to reason, it has the ability to be monstrous,” Lucien said. “Why aren’t all human beings benevolent? Why do even the best of them sometimes do things they abhor?” Makeda frowned. “No one is perfect. That’s human nature.” “Of course it is,” Lucien said. “And humans—like us—can be monstrous. That some of our kind choose not to be—even with our greater strength—is the reason we exist. I believe we do what the lion does. We maintain balance.”
― Elizabeth Hunter, A Stone-Kissed Sea

“The barrier undulated and shimmered as the blood flowed. Too small a death, the tribute was dismissed. They waited, hissing at the man and his droning praise. Praise, tribute and promise called it, but all was in order and there would be no rift. Their eyes burning, demons clawed the thinning wall, a barrier that separated two different universes. Like pearls on a string, each universe was unique. One was home to the darkest of energies and the endless chaos of destruction. The other was a teetering mass of creation, springing from a blend of order and chaos. Within the dark universe, life of a different sort fashioned its own world. It was already old when, peering though the shifting folds of the barrier, it had glimpsed our world. For eons, it observed Earth’s smoldering beginning, then its parade of life and the rise of Man. Then it entered our dreams, whispering, cajoling, and hissing promises of glory and power.”
― M.K. Noble, The Demon Rift