Ara Angeli

“Calmly, slowly, she reached behind with her left hand and came up against — yes, fabric. Fine linen, to be precise. So far, so good: she was inside a wardrobe, after all. The only problem was that this linen was oddly warm. Body warm. Beneath the tentative pressure of her palm, it seemed to be moving...

With terrifying suddenness, an ungloved hand clamped roughly over her nose and mouth. A long arm pinned her arms against her sides. She was held tightly against a hard, warm surface.

"Hush," whispered a pair of lips pressed to her left ear. "If you scream, we are both lost.”
― Y.S. Lee, A Spy in the House

“You seem sad, Coriel.”

I nodded. “The world makes me sad these days. Things I would not have noticed a year ago seem dreadful to me now. Is that a function of growing older? And will everything seem more dreadful every year, from now until I die?”
― Sharon Shinn, Summers at Castle Auburn

“He has offered to help me, and right now I need his help."
"Is it just his help, or are you going because you wish to be with him?" He leaned closer, face fierce. "Do you love him? Is that it?"
"You, of all people , have no right to ask me that."
"Maybe not, but I ask it anyway. Do you love him?"
"Love him?" Helen's voice rose. "Apparently I am not allowed to love in this godforsaken world!"
"Apparently neither am I," he said through his clenched teeth. "Yet..."
Yet what? His face. his body, were so close. So dangerously close.
"Stay," he breathed.
She shook her head.
He stepped away, the sudden distance between them full of pain.”
― Alison Goodman, The Dark Days Pact

“I want you to know that should something happen to me, don’t worry about my body. My soul isn’t going to return to it, nor to God. It’s flying straight to you, where it knows it can find you, in Lazarevo. I want to be neither with kings nor heroes, but with the queen of Lake Ilmen.”
― Paullina Simons, The Bronze Horseman