Sherrilyn Kenyon

“You have to sleep sometime. (Xypher)So do you. (Julian)Down, boys, down. Please, I just want to be free before I get testosterone poisoning. (Simone)”

“I don’t like being threatened, lied to, or manipulated. You’d do well to remember that. (Simone)Or what? You’re going to snivel at me? (Xypher)”

“What do you want with me? (Simone)Not a damn thing. All I want is an entrance into the Daimon hell so that I can visit and kill an old friend. You’re just the poor sap who got caught in the crossfire. (Xypher)”

“Do that again and, bracelet or no bracelet, I’ll tear your head off and use it for a doorstop. (Xypher)”

“Fine. I’m a Skotos (Xypher)That means what? You have toe jam? (Simone)”

“Zeus is the king, right? (Simone)He thinks he is most days. Personally, I think he’s a pompous ass who should be bitch-slapped by Hera at least once in his existence. (Xypher)”

“And you are? (Xypher)Pissed off. You wrecked my car, shoved me around, and are a complete and utter dickhead! (Simone)Dear God, what a mouthful – your mom must have really wanted a son. Mind if I call you ‘Pissed’ for short? The rest of that is just too much to say every time I want your attention. (Xypher)”

“Don’t be jealous, baby. We’ll get to you in a jiffy. (Daimon)Jiffy? What kind of pathetic wuss uses the word ‘jiffy’? (Xypher)”

“Was it like this? (Jesse)(Jesse made an inhuman ghost noise.)That sounds like Darth Vader choking on a chicken bone. (Gloria)”

“Are you sure it’s not one of the ghosts you see eyeballing you? (Tate)No. They’re never this subtle. They usually pop in, like ‘yo, she-bitch, do my bidding.’ This…this is something else. (Simone)”

“But for the last couple of weeks I’ve had this bizarre sensation that something is watching me. (Simone)You mean someONE, right? (Tate)I know it sounds crazy – (Simone)I just had a body walk off the table mid-autopsy and you think your story is nuts? (Tate)”

“That’s what I want you to tell me. See, I deal with…well, most days, bizarre paranormal crap. You are Queen Weird. I need the queen on this before I have to start hiring a new staff of medical examiners who don’t freak out when the dead move off their tables. You know where I can find some of these unusual people? I know you hang out with them. (Tate)Thanks, Tate. I always look forward to these ego-bolstering pep talks of ours. (Simone)”

“Want to come back to the morgue with me after lunch? (Tate)I shudder at the thought of the pickup line you must have used the night you met LaShonda. Come with me, baby, and see my collection of stiffs. (Simone)”

“You know it doesn’t work that way, T. I have to be touching the body or something that belonged to the victim. Photos only give me a paper cut…and the willies. (Simone)”

“I just love the gifts you bring me for lunch. Other girls get diamonds. Me? I get mayhem and blood – and all before noon. Thanks, Tate. (Simone)”

“But I have a gut feeling on this and it’s not the oh-look-it’s-a-bright-shiny-world kind. (Tate)”

“Have you ever wanted to put your head in a blender and turn on the liquefy switch? (Tate)”

“Hatred is a bitter, damaging emotion. It winds itself through the blood, infecting its host and driving it forward without any reason. Its view is jaundiced and it skews even the clearest of eye sights. Sacrifice is noble and tender. It’s the action of a host who values others above himself. Sacrifice is bought through love and decency. It is truly heroic. Vengeance is an act of violence. It allows those who have been wronged to take back some of what was lost to them. Unlike sacrifice, it gives back to the one who practices it. Love is deceitful and sublime. In its truest form, it brings out the best in all beings. At its worst, it’s a tool used to manipulate and ruin anyone who is stupid enough to hold it. Don’t be stupid. Sacrifice is for the weak. Hatred corrupts. Love destroys. Vengeance is the gift of the strong. Move forward, not with hatred, not with love. Move forward with purpose. Take back what was stolen. Make those who laughed at your pain pay. Not with hatred, but with calm, cold rationale. Hatred is your enemy. Vengeance is your friend. Hold it close and let it loose. May the gods have mercy on those who have wronged me because I will have no mercy for them. (Xypher)”

“The Simi is environmentally sound. Eat everything except for hooves”

“Did you get hungry and eat my colleagues?”

“I’d rather have my eyes gouged out. (Urian)If I do that, can the Simi eat them? (Simi)You have to share if you do! (Xirena)”

“It’s been a whole day since I last killed someone, and I’m getting antsy. (Maxis)”

“I don’t like being here with these people and animals. I’m going to retire, but remember, courage is doing what we know is dangerous. It’s risking our safety for a chance at something better. Don’t let your fears shape your reality because no matter how cautious you are, someone or something always sneaks in the back door to manifest that fear. Better to face it and defeat it than to let it attack you unawares. (Maxis)”

“You’re not worth the salt in my tears or the brain power it would take me to even conjure your face. (Aiden)”

“Jealousy can’t sour someone to this extreme, can it? (Aiden)It can and it does. Believe me. I’ve seen a lot worse than this in my billion or so years of existence – the first murder man committed was one brother against the other for no other reason than that one petty emotion. Jealousy turns to hatred which then turns to poison. It infects and it destroys until it eats someone alive. (Deimos)”

“It’s as if your kind needs adversity in order to achieve. (Leta)No, we don’t. That’s just a lie people tell themselves to feel better about all the people who kick them in their teeth when it’s just as easy to help a man up as it is to knock him to the ground. That’s why I’ve withdrawn from this world. I don’t want to have to watch my back all the time and I’m tired of trying to figure out if the loyalty someone professes is real and true, or just another lie that will crumble the instant they taste jealousy. (Aiden)”

“Humans are capable of so much creativity and goodness and at the same time they are destructive and cruel. (Leta)”

“Familiarity breeds contempt. By bringing them in close, they realize that you’re just as human as they are. That’s when the madness sets in. They can’t understand why you have more than they do when you’re just a regular human being the same as them. Then they hate you for it. (Leta)”

“But one thing I realized with my brother is that you can’t toss your pearls before the swine. I think that’s why my mother insisted you give anonymously. The instant anyone sees that you’re kind and giving, they immediately take advantage of it. They seem to mistake kindness for weakness and giving for stupidity. (Aiden)”

“If you betray me, Leta…Kill me. Be kind and don’t let me live in the shadow of your cruelty. I can’t take another blow like that. I’m not that strong. (Aiden)”

“Help is all they ever say,Even though it seldom stays.It’ll leave you too you’ll seeAnd then alone you will bleed. (Leta)”

“She’s special. We used to unleash her on ancient battlefields just to see soldiers chop their best friends into pieces before falling on their own swords. (Deimos)”

“I’m an executioner, Leta, hence my Demon nickname. They send me in to take the heads off people and gods who’ve stepped over the line, usually only because someone has PMS. You want justice, Themis’s office is down the hall on the left. You want death and dismemberment, I’m your man…or rather god. (Deimos)”

“Don’t. It’s like playing against a two-year-old who can blast your soul right out of your body. Last time Demon played a human who beat him, he sliced him open from asshole to appetite. (Phobos)”

“I don’t play with cheaters and I don’t care if you are three seconds older than me, you don’t tell me what to do. I’m not your bitch, boy.Then stop acting like one. Whoever heard of Fear being a cry-baby.The same people who made Dread a cheater. (Phobos)Oh, go cry to mama, you nancy-boy. (Deimos)”

“I can’t believe you cheated! (Phobos)I can’t believe you didn’t know it. Man, what kind of god are you? I never knew stupidity had a divine representative. Guess I was wrong, huh? (Deimos)”

“Because people are ever willing to believe the negative over the positive. It’s easier for you to think me corrupt and evil than it is for you to see me for what I really am. No one wants to believe that some people are willing to help others out of the goodness of their hearts because they can’t stand to see someone suffer. So few people are altruistic that they can’t understand or conceive that anyone else in the world could ever put someone else’s good above their own. (Leta)”

“Because I have nothing else to live for. You told me of your brother’s betrayal. Imagine your own father calling out his hounds to kill your infant daughter and husband. Imagine what it was like to watch them die and then be taken and punished for something you didn’t do. To be stripped of your dignity and emotions because your father was embarrassed by a stupid, insignificant dream he’d had and he blamed everyone who walks in the dreams for it. You feel your pain, Aiden. I feel mine. (Leta)”

“I know you did. It’s just that I wanted to see you for a few minutes and you were asleep. I didn’t want to disturb you. (Leta)So you slept at my feet like a puppy? No offense, but that’s creepy as hell. Next thing I know, you’ll be trying on my clothes and sleeping in my bed. (Aiden)”

“No. He’s the personification of human fear. (Leta)Oh, goody. Just what I wanted to add to my dream. Should we invite him over for tea? (Aiden)”

“Who the hell came up with this brilliant curse? (Aiden)It was the best I could manage in a hurry. (Leta)With those kinds of critical assessment skills you should consider running for political office. (Aiden)”

“Blood stopped binding us the instant he came at my throat. If this thing is stalking me because of him, then I’m more than ready to slash his throat and laugh while he bleeds to death at my feet. Give me the knife and stand back. (Aiden)”

“How did you learn to stop crying? (Leta)I nailed my heart shut and learned to stop caring about anyone except me. They can’t make you cry when you don’t give a shit about them or their opinions. You can only be hurt by the ones you love. (Aiden)”

“Note to self on waking. Lay off the beer on an empty stomach. This dream is even more screwed up than the time I had a donkey and a corkscrew. (Aiden)Donkey and a corkscrew? (Leta)I don’t know you well enough to fill you in on those details. (Aiden)”

“So you just randomly follow the god of pain around trying to protect his targets. What are you, the antipain fairy? (Aiden)”

“I’ve asked myself that a thousand times over and I’m no closer to an answer now than I was when it began. I think that’s why I always loved movies so much. In a movie, everything has to make sense. The characters always have to have motivation. Good, solid motivation for everything they do. They can’t be a dickhead without reason. If someone turns on a character, they have to have a hardcore, believable reason for it. Unfortunately, in real life you don’t. People turn on each other for anything from catching a constipated look on your face when you had gas and thinking it was directed at them, to not liking the brand of shoes you’re wearing. People are sick. (Aiden)”

“Just remember, sometimes people will put you ahead of themselves. It does happen. (Leta)Yeah, the whole world is just rainbows and puppies. Boy Scouts really do help old ladies cross the street without mugging them and no one ever ignores a trauma victim’s screams. (Aiden)”

“He’d had enough knifes planted in his spine to make a stegosaurus envious.’ – Aiden”

“Look, I admit you seem like a decent person. For all I know you stop and move turtles out of the road whenever you see one to keep someone from running it over. But this turtle is tired of having its guts spattered on the pavement while other people drive right over him. I just want to scrape myself up and hide in the woods, okay? (Aiden)”

“Everyone who’s ever been jealous because it’s my face in the magazines and not theirs. Every person who can’t believe or accept that someone can reach my level of success without being a total prick. Trust me, it’s not the lies that hurt people. It’s the willingness of everyone else to believe them. And then there are those who come out of the woodwork to back your accuser because it gives them the spotlight for three seconds. They can’t stand the fact that you’ve risen above your past and that they have no excuse for never rising above theirs. In their minds, you need to be taken down a notch and they need to be raised a few, off the lies they tell about you. Because in the end, they know you, they’ve seen the real you, and by backing your accusers, they make other people think that maybe they were close to you – at least that’s what they claim. It’s a sick world and I’m disgusted with it. (Aiden)”