Onyx Storm

“And it’s always the same fight. I’ll trust you if you stop keeping secrets! It’s my secretive nature that attracted you, and why can’t you just stay out of harm’s way for five fucking minutes.”

“My loyalty is to Violet first above everything, everyone else. Then Tyrrendor. Then Navarre in the moments when it’s worthy–usually when Violet is in residence.”

“Yes, love. I’m jealous. I’m jealous of the armor that holds you when I can’t, the sheets on your bed that caress your skin every night, and the blades that feel your hands. So when the prince of our realm walks into my classroom and starts talking to the woman I love with what can only be considered intense familiarity, and then has the audacity to ask her out right in front of me, naturally, I’m going to get jealous.”

“But ‘girlfriend’ is missing the permanent tone.”

“How do you want me to take you Violet? Here on your back with me above you? Before me on your hands and knees with your ass in the air? Against the wall so I can drive harder? Astride so you can control the pace? Tell me.

“I’ll use Tyrrendor to protect you, not you to protect Tyrrendor.”

“Lifetime. Anything less is unacceptable. And her full name for the papers is Violet Sorrengail. Two Rs.”

“The best leaders are the ones who never want the job. This is your mission because Andarna chose you. Tairn chose you. What they never tell us in the quadrant is that the rank is well and good, but you and I both know that the moment we fly into the battlefield, it isn’t the humans giving commands. I hate to break it to you, but you were selected by a general among dragons. You can choose to step into leadership, or he can drag you. Either way, you’re going to end up in the front.”

“Magic feels different when I change color. Maybe my use of power in that moment altered the venin, weakened her enough to blister.”

“Maybe this is who he could have been if his dad hadn’t led a whole rebellion and fucked him over by getting executed and having him thrown into the quadrant and making him responsible for all the marked ones at the age of what? Seventeen?”

“Let’s get three things straight, Your Highness. First, I have remarkable hearing thanks to the shadows at your very feet. Second, I don’t control Violet. Never have. Never will. But third, and most importantly–She really, honestly hasn’t thought about you. At least not since the second she set eyes on me.”

“I am in love with him. I haven’t so much as thought about you in years. Don’t chase just because you like a challenge. You’ll lose.”

“Telling me you’re capable of horrible things while still loving me is pretty much your idea of foreplay.”

“I could reach the rank of Maven, lead armies of dark wielders against everyone we care for, and watch every vein in my body turn red as I channeled all power in the Continent, and I would still love you. What I did doesn’t change that. I’m not sure anything can.”

“You get one chance to form your own squad, and you choose your ex, your current lover, the quadrant’s resident smart-ass, two people who have tried to kill you in the past year–one over your current lover–and whatever Dain is? These are your choices for the most important mission any rider could possibly undertake?”

“I live by you. When have I ever given a fuck about the Codex or the Code of Conduct? I am yours and you are mine, and there’s no law or rule in this world or the next that will change that.”

“My friends will continue to fight long after I meet Malek, and I’ll meet him with my soul intact. Do your worst.”

“I like our odds. The last time a shadow and lightning welder fought side by side, they managed to drive the venin back to the Barrens for a few hundred years. We’ll figure out how to do it again.”