Sometimes I could almost hate you because you don't understand how much you mean to me, how dark and empty I was before. Solnyshko moyo.

I shake my head, but I can’t change this. I can only bear the scars, as I have always done, as I ever do.

Sometimes the past needed to stay buried; it was the only way you could move on. And sometimes you had to dig it up, because that too was the only way.

. . . and I don’t expect him to suborn his life into mine any more than I would change my dreams for him. We’re not one soul, one being, however much we love each other.

My heart should be breaking, too, but there comes a point when you’re so inured to loss that you no longer feel the lash.

Mother Mary of Anabolic Grace, we got Teras incoming?” He levels angry blue eyes on me. “You’re a hex, lady, dark luck, powerful bad juju, ken?” “Only to people who try to kidnap me,” I tell him sweetly, and March snorts, so I feel obliged to add, “Or rescue me…” And then Dina makes a pfft sound. “Or who travel with me…” My gaze sweeps around the darkened interior, trying to find an ally, but nobody will hold my eyes more than two seconds, it seems. “Fine, frag you all, I’m dark juju, bad luck, and you’re all doomed.

We stood back-to-back, blocking and striking in harmony; sometimes it felt like his arms and legs were an extension of me. I could count on him to keep them off me from behind.