And when he did that, my hands curled into fists because I thought about touching his face like maybe I could catch joy in my hands and hold it.

Barrons had just given me the most carnal, sexually charged hungry look I'd ever seen in my life, and I was pretty sure he didn't even know he had done it.

Velvet looks horrified. “If you are fool enough to address King R’jan, you will do it thus and in no other manner! ‘My King, Liege, Lord, and Master, your servant begs you grant it leave to speak.’” “Wow. Totally delusionary there.” “Good luck with that,” Ryodan says. “She doesn't beg to speak, or do anything else. You can lock her up, down, and sideways and it’s never going to happen.” I beam at him. I had no idea he thought so highly of me.

He'd surely been spawned by some cataclysmic event of nature, not born.

You are what you are. Find a way to live with it.

They loved so intensely that moments of their life have been etched into the very fabric of the mansion. Some say the king designed it that way, so if one day he lost her he could come live with her residue.

The power of thought is far greater than most people ever realize.