Lydia ☽︎

“Rhys straightened. "You'd- make me food?"
"Heat," I said. "I can't cook."
It didn't seem to make a difference. But whatever it was, the act of offering him food... I dumped some cold soup into a pan and lit the burner. "I don't know the rules," I said, my back to him. "So you need to explain them to me."
He lingered in the center of the cabin, watching my every move. He said hoarsely, "It's an... important moment when a female offers her mate food. It goes back to whatever beats we were a long, long time ago. But it still matters. The first time matters. Some mated pairs will make an occasion of it- throwing a party just so the female can formally offer mate food... That's usually done amongst the wealthy. But it means that the female... accepts the bond."
I stared into the soup. "Tell me the story- tell me everything."
He understood my offer: tell me while I cooked, and I'd decide at the end whether or not to offer him that food.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“Not consort, not wife. Feyre is High Lady of the Night Court. My equal in every way; she would wear my crown, sit on a throne beside mine. Never sidelined, never designated to breeding and parties and child rearing. My queen.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“His fingers tightened on mine, and I looked up. He was smiling at me. And looked so un-High-Lord-like with the glowing dust on the side of his face that I grinned back.
I hadn’t even realized what I’d done until his own smile faded, and his mouth parted slightly.
“Smile again,” he whispered.
I hadn’t smiled for him. Ever. Or laughed. Under the Mountain, I had never grinned, never chuckled. And afterward…
And this male before me…my friend…
For all that he had done, I have never given him either. Even when I had just…I had just painted something. On him. For him.
I'd—painted again.
So I smiled at him, broad and without restraint.
“You’re exquisite,” he breathed.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury