Kovida

“Tell me, Nina, if there wasn’t this deal between us, would you have come when I nodded?” he asks. “Nope.”
I don’t expect him to ask me to elaborate, but he does, and his question surprises me. “Why not? Is it because of the wheelchair?”
He says it conversationally, but there is a hidden undertone I can’t quite define. I abandon watching the crowd and look him right in the eyes. “It’s because I’m not a poodle, Mr. Petrov.”
― Neva Altaj, Painted Scars

“Tristan Caine: Apparently, you're not out of my system, Ms. Vitalio.”
― RuNyx, The Predator

“No one will be teaching you Russian, but me. Got that?” “Got it, kotik.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “You do not call a Russian pakhan ‘kitten’, Nina. I have an image to uphold here.”
― Neva Altaj, Painted Scars

“I’m afraid someone may try to take you from me, and I have this compulsion to kill them all before they have a chance to give it a try.”
― Neva Altaj, Broken Whispers