“The world is one unending chess match, my dear, and I am the one playing it how I please. I poke and prod to move my pieces to places I find desirable. And the defiant ones who resist me I simply remove from the board." He pulled up his right sleeve, showing Laura a sheathed dagger strapped to his arm. "But you, Laura, are not of this chess match at all. You walked unexpectedly onto my board, scattering my pieces out of the way, the ones that I had worked on so tirelessly to arrange to perfection.”

“You broke a man today. Doesn't that affect you at all? These are lives, not pieces in a chess game with your uncle.' 'You're wrong. We are on my uncle's board and these men are all his pieces.' 'Then each time you move one of them, you can congratulate yourself on how much like him you are.”

“I learned to pick up each piece, one at a time, from my pile of potential matches and try to fit it from any angle into the socket, then discard it and move on. Each failure is meaningless. It's not me, it's the pieces, and I have to, absolutely must, try each and every piece every possible way until I find one that fits. They aren't failures, they're steps, small bits of progress.”

“I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.”

“The queen was my favorite chess piece. Unlike the women I knew in real life, she was powerful. Her job was to defend her husband at all costs, because while he was weak and practically defenseless—only allowed to move one square at a time—she was the strongest player on the board, hindered by no restrictions at all.”

“Cocky little king. You assume you're the only one that gives me satisfaction?"His smile widens as he lifts one of my arms and kisses the sensitive skin of my wrist. "If there is something in this world that can please you more than me," he says, his warm breath caressing my skin, "then I'll be extra diligent in my duties tonight, my queen. Indulge me with every sensation that gives you pleasure, and I will match it and more."Whatever retort was on my tongue vanishes, his heated words stealing all reason from my mind. Only one lingers: queen. Hearing him refer to me as his intended opens my heart like the sea opens to the sky, and I am his.”