Bhakti Negi

“I’ve never understood this taste for otkazat’sya. Is it because you thought you were one of them for so long?”
“I had a taste for you, once.”
His head snapped up. He hadn’t expected that.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“He looked down at me. The cold air had put a flush in his cheeks, and the lamplight shone in his gray eyes. “Alina, if I tell you that I still believe we can find the stag, would you think I’m mad?”
“Why would you care what I think?”
He looked genuinely baffled. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I do.”
And then he kissed me.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“The king is a child."
My mouth fell open in shock and I looked around nervously, afraid someone had overheard. These people seemed to speak treason as easily as breathing. Genya didn't look remotely disturbed by the Darkling's words.
The Darkling must have noticed my discomfort, because he said, "But today, you've made him a very happy child.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Shadow and Bone

“The Darkling appeared to me almost every day, usually in his chambers or the aisles of the library, sometimes in the war room during council meetings or as I walked back from the Grand Palace at dusk.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I whispered one night as he hovered behind me while I tried to work at my desk.
Long minutes passed. I didn’t think he would answer. I even had time to hope he might have gone, until I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Then I’d be alone, too,” he said, and he stayed the whole night through, till the lamps burned down to nothing.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm