Karen Marie Moning

“The legendary Tuatha De Danaan had come! And what did the grand Keltar laird do? Fainted like a willy-nilly peahen.”

“Leave it alone, I'm handling this," Barrons told Ryodan."I suggest you do a better job.""And I suggest you go fuck yourself.”

“Ryodan doesn’t like Mac. He never has. She got between him and his best boy-bud. I give him a look. “I’ll tell you a secret, Ryodan. You mess with her, Barrons’ll kill you.” I drag a finger across my neck. “Just like that. You aren’t all that. Barrons’ll stomp your ass, hand’s down.”He smiles faintly. “I’ll be damned. You have a crush on Barrons.”“I do not have a crush—““You do, too. It’s all over your face. Anybody could see it.”“Sometimes, boss, you’re just wrong.”“I’m never wrong. You might as well take out a billboard. ‘Dani O’Malley thinks Jericho Barrons is hot.’ My offer to teach you is still open. Save you from future embarrassment. If I can see it on your face, he can, too. ”“He never figured it out before,” I grumble then realize I just admitted it. Ryodan has a tricky way of wording things that makes you say things you didn’t mean to say. “Maybe I’ll ask Barrons to teach me,” I mutter and turn away from the stairs, heading for his office. I run smack into his chest. “Dude, move. Trying to get somewhere here.”“No one but me is ever going to teach you, Dani.” He touches me before I see it coming, has his hand under my chin, turning my face up. My shiver is instant and uncontrollable.“That’s non-negotiable. You signed a contract with me that grants exclusivity. You won’t like it if you try to break it.”

“Some of us are born more than once.Some of us recreate ourselves many times. Ryodan says adaptability is survivability. Ryodan says a lot of stuff. Sometimes I listen,All I know is, every time I open my eyes, my brian kicks on. Something wakes up deep in my belly, and I know I'll do anything it takes...To.Just.Keep.Breathing.”

“There are moments in my life when I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to do. I pay attention to them. They’re my cosmic landmarks, letting me know I’m on the right path. Now that I’m older and can look back and see where I missed a turn here and there, and know the price I paid for those oversights, I try to look sharper at the present.”

“With the Book hitching rides, hiding on people, guess we’re all going to be dressing like skanks for a while, huh? Skintight or skin. Dude, everybody’s everything’s gonna be hanging out, and some o’ those fat chicks at the abbey are gonna gross my eyeballs right outta my head. Muffin tops and camel toes, gah!”

“I wasn't going to have time to dash to the church down the street and dab holy water at my wrists and behind my ears; my version of Eau de Don'tbiteme.”

“Air ye deaf, lass?"I think. He might have called me a hairy jackass”

“If you weaken, I'll be strong. If you get lost, I'll be your way home. If you despair, I'll bring you joy. I will love you until the end of time.”

“In that you're wrong. I choose, I adhere, I pursue, I commit, I attain. That - that, my errant friend - is an absolute." - Hawk”

“I have a box inside me now that never used to exist. I never needed it before. It's down in my deepest, darkest corner, and it's airtight, soundproofed and padlocked. It's where I keep the thoughts I don't know what to do with, that could get me into trouble. Eating Unseelie hammers on the inside of that lid incessantly. I try to keep kissing Barrons in that box, too, but it gets out sometimes.”

“Life is not black and white. The closes we ever get to either of those colors is wearing them.”

“I look up but don't spot him. "I take care of myself. I ain't living with nobody. Got my own digs. What are you doing up there?" "Tracking the Hag. Trying to devise a way to trap her. She's fast but she's not a sifter." I jerk, and look around warily. That's all we need right now. "Is she here?" "If you brought that crazy bitch near me again." Ryodan doesn't finish his sentence. He doesn't need to.”

“I hear a guttural sound followed by a weak sigh and look back at the bodies. "I'm going to kill the kid," Barrons says faintly. Ryodan makes a burbling sound like a bloody laugh. I don't think he even has the parts left to laugh with. "Get in line.”

“He would be, she now knew, a whole lot dominant in bed and a little bit dirty.-Gabrielle about Adam”

“The Tuatha De do not speak of Tuatha De matter to"--he gave her an icy sneer--"mere mortals.""Well, mister-mere-mortal-yourself," she bristled right back at him, "maybe you'd better get used to it, because whether or not you like it, you need at least one of us 'mere mortals' to help you become a pompous-asshole-fairy-thing again."He tried to maintain his icy stare, but his lips curved despite his efforts and he shook with silent laughter. A pompous-asshole-fairy-thing. The indignity of it. Had any of his race ever been called such a thing? Nothing cowed the woman. Nothing. "Point made, ky-lyrra," he said dryly.-Gabrielle and Adam”

“She glanced pointedly at the flopping tadpole."What?""Take it back.""You're kidding, right?" he said disbelievingly."Do we have time?"He considered that. "Yes, but--""Then, no I'm not.""That lake was three hops ago," he said impatiently."If you don't take it back it's going to die, and while you may think it's just a pathetic little thing with an abbreviated little life that hardly even signifies in the fairy scheme of things, I'll bet in the tadpole scheme of things it's really looking forward to becoming a frog. Now take it back. A life is a life. I don't care how tiny an almighty fairy thinks it is."One dark brow arched and he inclined his head. "Yes, Gabrielle." Scooping up the tadpole in one big hand, gently enough that it gave her pause, he popped out.-Gabrielle and Adam Black”

“Mascara was dripping down her cheeks, splattering on her shirt. She backed away from him, eyes narrowing. Her shoes squished with the movement and, as she peered uncomprehendingly down at them, a tadpole emerged from the leg of her jeans and flopped about on the ground."Eem!She pointed a shaking finger at it. "A tadpole. I had a tadpole in my pants!""Lucky tadpole," he murmured.-Adam and Gabrielle”

“A comfort zone can be a mental state:Belief in God is a lot of peoples's comfort zone. Dont get me wrong, I'm not knocking faith; I just dont think you should have it because it makes you feel safe. I think you should have it because you do. Because somewhere deep inside you, you know beyond equivocating that something greater, wiser and infinitely more loving than we're capable of understanding has a vested interested in the universe, in the way things turn out. Because you can feel that, as much as the forces of darkness might try to gain the upper hand, there is an Upper Hand.”

“Who's the little girl?" Don't speak, Barrons had told me on the way there, no matter what anyone says. I don't care how pissed off you might get. Swallow it. His derisive "little girl" ringing in my ears, I bit down hard and didn’t say a word. "Just the latest piece of ass, McCabe." I no longer had to bite down. I was speechless.”

“Your race devotes itself to justifying its errors, not correcting them”

“So what's the big picture about our lust for sex?We're not trying to acquire something. We want to feel something: Alive. Electrically, intensely, blazingly alive. Good. Bad. Pleasure. Pain. Bring it on--all of it. For people who live small, I guess enough of that can be found in sex. But for those of us who live large, the most alive we ever feel is when we're punching air with a fist, uncurling our middle finger with a cool smile, and flipping Death the big old bird.”

“My breathing was shallow and my hands were fists. 'Oh, yes, I'm going to have to kill you Barrons.' I said coolly, Partly because, for the most miniscule sliver of an instant, while looking at those handcuffs, I'd imagined myself climbing back into bed and pretending I wasn't cured yet.”

“I've spent enough time behind a bar that I've formed a few opinions about what people wear and what it says about them. Guys who wear black from head to toe fall into two categories: they want to be trouble, or they are trouble.”

“I flash him number seventeen of my thirty-five Looks of Death.”

“It's funny the things people say when someone dies.He's in a better place.How do you know that?Life goes on.That's supposed to comfort me? I'm excruciatingly aware that life goes on. It hurts every damned second. How lovely to know it's going to continue like this. Thank you for reminding me.Time heals.No, it doesn't. At best, time is the great leveler, sweeping us all into coffins. We find ways to distract ourselves from the pain. Time is neither scalpel nor bandage. It is indifferent. Scar tissue isn't a good thing. It's merely the wound's other face.”

“I'm here. You're safe now. It's okay toremember. They can never hurt you again.”

“Life equaled love plus passion squared. Loving and being passionate about what one did was what made life so precious.”

“Grief shared was grief lessened.”

“Love hath no pride.”

“Dishonesty increases disorder exponentially. It's hard enough to communicate when you're telling the truth.”

“Emotion apparently made fools of even geniuses.”

“If you control the cause you own the effect. If you don't, events will unfold like dominoes toppling and you will have no one to blame but yourself.”

“There are no coincidences in this world... You must see with the eagle's eye. You must detach, lift above a conundrum, and map the terrain of it. Everything happens for a reason, if you can but discern the pattern.”

“You are what you are. Deal with it or change.”

“I don't make sonic booms. I want a whip. I like the idea of walking around making sonic booms everywhere.”

“Got to love a dude that says things like "kinetic" and "detritus.”

“I love music because it's so fecking brilliant. Music is math, and math is the structure of everything and pretty much perfect.”

“You believe in God?Dude. Only God could have created physics.”

“You're distressing Dani. No one distresses Dani but me.”

“Gah, some chicks should be shot. Put out of everyone else's reproduction pool.”

“I realized early in my career that precisely what one readerdoesn't like is what another reader loves. Collectively, any writer's audience presents a mishmash of expectations that can never all be met. What one-tenth of my readership may not be crazy about the other nine-tenths savors. The moment you start altering a book or a painting or any type of art as if it's a public collaborative, you crucify its soul. I'd rather irritate a few people and delight a lot than touch no one." ~ Karen Marie Moning”

“People treat you as badly as you let them treat you. Key word there: let.”

“At the very last moment, just before its lips claimed hers, its grip on her face relaxed slightly and she did the only thing she could think of: She head-butted it. Snapped her head back, then forward again, and bashed it square in the face as hard as she could. So hard, in fact, that it made her woozy and gave her an instant migraine, making her wonder how Jean-Claude Van Damme always managed to coolly continue fighting after such a stunt. Obviously, movies lied.”

“And after I act as your intermediary and he takes you back to Faery, then what?""Then all will be made right, and I'll be invincible again."She rolled her eyes. "I meant, what happens to me? While you may be the most important thing to your egotistical little self in your narcissistic little world, guess what— so am I in mine.”

“A smirk curved its sensual lips. "But then, women never have been able to keep their eyes off me.""Oh, you are so arrogant. I just couldn't figure out if you were a fairy or not," Gabby snapped.A dark eyebrow arched. "And you thought the answer to that question might be found in my pants? That's why you were looking there?" Its dark gaze shimmered with amusement."The only reason I looked there," she said, flushing, "was because I couldn't believe you would just so blatantly... re-rearrange your— your..." She trailed off, then hissed, "What is it with men? Women don't do things like that! Move their... their personal parts about in public.""Mores the pity. I, for one, would find it quite fascinating".Its gaze dropped to her breasts.”

“It leaned forward, elbows on its knees, all amusement vanishing from its features, leaving its chiseled visage quietly regal, dignified. "I give you my word, Gabrielle O'Callaghan," it said softly. "I will protect you.""Right. The word of the blackest fairy, the legendary liar, the great deceiver," she mocked. How dare it offer its word like it might actually mean something?A muscle leapt in its jaw. "That is not all I have been, Gabrielle. I have been, and am, many things.""Oh, of course, silly me, I left out consummate seducer and ravager of innocence.”

“I think sex with him might undo my essential cellular cohesion.”

“Goor or evil, right or wrong, he mattered to me.”

“His coworker was velvety-skinned, a sexy boy-on-the-cusp-of man.”