Ava

“When you live without someone for as long as I have, love becomes this abstract concept, something you attach to a memory. And when memories are that old, they feel like dreams, and you wonder if any of it was real, or if your mind created it all.”
― Laura Thalassa, The Queen of All that Lives

“You can’t kill me, even now, even though I deserve it— and I do deserve it.”
I pull back enough to get a good look at him.
The king I knew took, and took, and took because he felt it was his right. And now, what he is essentially saying is that what he did wasn’t his right.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Have you grown a conscience?” It’s an almost preposterous thing to consider.
“Age gives you wisdom, not a conscience,” he says as we wind our way through his halls.
“And where was that wisdom when it came to me?” I ask.
His eyes look anguished when he says, “It was wisdom that kept me from waking you, nire bihotza, not the other way around.”
― Laura Thalassa, The Queen of All that Lives

“You wrestled him without any clothes on."

"That is sports," said Damen. He folded his arms, thinking that Veretians lacked any sense of dignity, even as Laurent sitting up and pressing a delighted kiss to his lips had him slightly mollified.”
― C.S. Pacat, Kings Rising

“If he could do it, Damen could do it. He could make impersonal negotiations, speak in the formal language of kings. The ache of loss didn't make sense, because Laurent had never been his. He had known that.”
― C.S. Pacat