Julie Waters

“You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”
― Richelle Mead, Frostbite

“Stop fighting me!" he said, trying to pull on the arm he held.

He was in a precarious position himself, straddling the rail as he tried to lean over far enough to get me and actually hold onto me.

“Let go of me!” I yelled back.

But he was too strong and managed to haul most of me over the rail, enough so that I wasn’t in total danger of falling again.

See, here’s the thing. In that moment before I let go, I really had been contemplating my death. I’d come to terms with it and accepted it. I also, however, had known Dimitri might do something exactly like this. He was just that fast and that good. That was why I was holding my stake in the hand that was dangling free.

I looked him in the eye. "I will always love you."

Then I plunged the stake into his chest.

It wasn’t as precise a blow as I would have liked, not with the skilled way he was dodging. I struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if I could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.

"That’s what I was supposed to say. . .” he gasped out.

Those were his last words.”
― Richelle Mead, Blood Promise

“Katniss, the girl who was on fire!”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“You will lose what you value most, so treasure it while you can.”
― Richelle Mead, Shadow Kiss