I make a new discovery that totally blows; dying is the easy part. It's coming back to life that sucks.
Karen Marie MoningThe paranoid one's wards are still active. They keep me several feet from the building." "But not his car," I said, a smile tugging at my lips. Barrons would go nuts if he knew that V'lane had touched his Viper. And stretched out on it nude? He'd have an aneurysm.
Karen Marie MoningYou want to believe in black and white, good and evil, heroes that are truly heroic, villains that are just plain bad, but I've learned in the past year that things are rarely so simple. The good guys can do some truly awful things, and the bad guys can sometimes surprise the heck out of you.
Karen Marie MoningLife isn't always fair, lass, but that doesn't mean it can't still be sweet."- Dageus
Karen Marie MoningHe's trying not to laugh. I tell him I would have doomed mankind for him, and he's trying not to laugh.
Karen Marie MoningFor the record, Irish," he informed her tightly, just in case she got the wrong idea, "I kneel to no one.
Karen Marie MoningAlthough love could grow in times of peace, it tempered in battle. Daddy told me once - when I'd said something about how perfect his relationship with Mom was - that I should have seen the first five years of their marriage, that they'd fought like hellions, crashed into each other like two giant stones. That eventually they'd eroded each other into the perfect fit, become a single wall, nestled into each other's curves and hollows, her strengths chinking his weaknesses, her weaknesses reinforced by his strengths.
Karen Marie MoningIts our actions that define us. What we choose. What we resist. What we're willing to die for.
Karen Marie MoningBut it seems Ive got this set of scales inside me that I never used to have, or at least I wasnt aware of, and I cant shake the feeling that if I dont try to keep them balanced, Ill lose something I wont be able to get back.
Karen Marie MoningDon't accuse me of being morbid when I'm merely the product of a culture that buries the bones of the ones they love in pretty, manicured flower gardens so they can keep them nearby and go talk to them whenever they feel troubled or depressed. That's morbid. Not to mention bizarre. Dogs bury bones, too.
Karen Marie MoningIf I entered a tropical beach, would I end up in Nazi Germany with my highly inconvenient black hair?
Karen Marie MoningThen why was his tongue in your mouth? Was he conducting a clinical test of your gag reflex?" He smiled, but not nicely. "How is your gag reflex, Ms. Lane? Are you a hair trigger?" Barrons likes to use sexual innuendo to try to shut me up. I think he expects the well-raised southern belle in me will think eew and back off. Sometimes, I do think eew, but I don't back off. "I'm a spitter, if that's what you're asking." I flashed him a too-sweet smile. "Didn't look that way to me. I think you're a swallower. His tongue was halfway to China and you were still taking it." "Jealous?
Karen Marie MoningI was in Cancun, Mexico, sitting in a disappearing-edge swimming pool, on a bar stool that was actually under the water, watching palm trees sway in a sultry breeze against the unmistakable aqua splendor of the Caribbean Sea; drinking coconut, lime, and tequila from a scooped-out pineapple, with salt spray of breaking surf and sun kissing my skin. Translation: I'd died and gone to heaven.
Karen Marie MoningThen her eyes narrowed. The sun was spilling in the window behind her and Dageus's eyes were golden, dappled with darker flecks. Smoky and sensual, fringed by thick dark lashes, but gold nonetheless. "What is with your eyes?" she exclaimed. "Is it part of being a Druid?" "What color are they?" he asked warily. "Gold." He flashed her another unguarded smile. It was like basking in the sun, she thought, tracing her fingers over his beard-shadowed jaw, smiling helplessly back.
Karen Marie MoningI lock eyes with my reflection and don’t look away. The day you look away you start to lose yourself. I’m never going to lose myself. You are what you are. Deal with it or change.
Karen Marie MoningWhen Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying. Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.
Karen Marie MoningChurches crack me up. They're like money, a conspiracy of faith. Like everyone agreed to believe that not only is there a God, but he comes down and checks on folks, so long as they hang in certain places, put up alters, burn lots of candles and incense, and perform sit-stand-kneel and other wacky rituals that'd make a coven of witches not look OCD.
Karen Marie MoningI know part of what turns me on so hard, makes me so violent with lust, is that he's dangerous. I fell for the bad guy. I'm crazy about the one who's trouble. The alpha that doesn't play well with others and doesn't take orders from anyone.
Karen Marie MoningI didn’t say, You are such a stuffy asshole. And he didn’t say, If you ever burn one of my quarter-of-a-million dollar rugs again I’ll take it out of your hide, and I didn’t say, Oh, honey, wouldn’t you like to? And he didn’t say Grow up, Ms. Lane, I don’t take little girls to my bed, and I didn’t say I wouldn’t go there if it was the only safe place from the Lord Master in all of Dublin.
Karen Marie MoningI go inside my head and become that other me, the one I don't tell anybody about. The observer... I live in terror that one day I won't get to be Dani again.
Karen Marie MoningThen you will simply have to see for yourself. Touch me, lass. Feel my ...sock." His silver gaze sizzled with challenge, as he unzipped his zipper. Uh-uh." She shook her head for added emphasis. Then find me a pair of trews that doona threaten to sever my manparts.
Karen Marie MoningJust one time before I turn into the villain of this piece, just one time before I become the fourth and final Unseelie prince, I want to be her Highlander. And her hero.
Karen Marie MoningThe illusions it had woven for me had taken place only in my head. The battle had been invisible to the naked eye, but the hard ones are.
Karen Marie MoningI began to cry. Barrons looked horrified. "Stop that immediately, Ms. Lane." "I can't." I sniffeled into my cup pf cocoa so he couldn't see my face. "Try harder!" I gave a great sniff and shudder, and turned it off. "I have not been her lover for...some time," he offered, watching me carefully. "Oh, get over yourself!
Karen Marie MoningGood and evil are merely opposite sides of a coin. Get tossed in the air enough, it's easy to come down on the wrong side.
Karen Marie MoningHow will we get back up?" I worried. "I have a different route in mind for our return trip." "Does it involve stairs?" I asked hopefully. "No." "Of course not. How silly of me. And for our return adventure we will be scaling the side of Mount Everest, hiking boots to be provided by our trusty sponsor, Barrons Books and Baubles.
Karen Marie MoningLife's a choice: you can live in black and white, or you can live in colour. I'll take every shade of the rainbow and the gazillion in between!
Karen Marie MoningI felt the electricity of his body behind me as he reached around me and took the card from my hand. He didn't move away, and I battled the urge to lean back into him, seeking the comfort of his strength. Would he wrap his arms around me? Make me feel safe, if only for a moment, and if only a delusion?
Karen Marie MoningOch, Dani my darling, you're not giving me a single reason to wait for you to grow up. You're giving me a thousand reasons not to." It's Christian! I'm so glad it's him, not one of the other princes! I turn around in his arms and tip my head back. "Hi, Christian!" I beam at him. He's hotter than the other princes. I'm glad I got him. I'll take the others, too, but I want him first. "I want to grow up. Now. Hurry.
Karen Marie MoningThere are only shades of gray. Black and white are nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we try to judge things, and map out our place in the world in relevance to them. Good and evil, in their purest form, are as intangible and forever beyond our ability to hold in our hand as any Fae illusion. We can only aim at them, aspire to them, and hope not to get so lost in the shadows that we can no longer aim for the light.
Karen Marie MoningDishonesty increases disorder exponentially. It's hard enough to communicate when you're telling the truth.
Karen Marie MoningTime 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 is not a good thing. It is merely the wound's other face.
Karen Marie MoningI hope when I'm ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.
Karen Marie MoningKeep hoping to see the light in her eyes. Even knowing it'll mean she's saying good-bye.
Karen Marie MoningI moistened my lips. His gaze fixed on them. I think I stopped breathing. He jerked so sharply away that his long dark coat sliced air, and turned his back to me. “Was that an invitation, Ms.Lane?” “If it was?” I asked, astonishing myself. What did I think I was doing? “I don’t do hypotheticals. Little girl.
Karen Marie MoningWe see ourselves in other people’s eyes. It’s the nature of the human race; we are a species of reflection, hungry for it in every facet of our existence. Maybe that’s why vampires seem so monstrous to us—they cast no reflection. Parents, if they’re good ones, reflect the wonder of our existence and the success we can become. Friends, well chosen, show us pretty pictures of ourselves, and encourage us to grow into them. The Beast shows us the very worst in ourselves and makes us know it’s true .
Karen Marie Moning