Onyx Storm

“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.”

“I heard you saying you’d kill my grandson if he took another step towards your beloved, young man. How illogically, toxically romantic of you. Have to admit, that kind of confident violence isn’t what I pictured when Asher talked about you, but the brown hair, those…I guess they’re brown eyes, and how utterly smitten he predicted you two would eventually be for each other? Well, he described you almost perfectly, dain Aetos.

“You’re Xaden Riorson. Shadow wielder. Duke of Tyrrendor. Love of my life. You have nothing to be jealous of.”

“Tell me something, Violence. Why is it always you?”

“Because you’re the only one capable of killing me.”

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

“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.”

“You have to accept what I already have. The man you love no longer fully belongs to himself.”

“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.”

“Just you and me today, honeybear. Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.”

“Well-the-fuck-aware.”

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

“I can fuck you as many times as we want, as many times as you can take, and I can’t lose control.”

“With that speech? At least a duchess.”

“Xaden is mine. My heart, my soul, my everything. He channeled from the earth to save me, and I’ll scour the world until I find a way to save him right back.”

“There’s no magic here. No power. No lure. No taunting reminder that I can everyone if I just reach for it and take what’s offered. It’s only…peace.”

“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?”

“You might be angry when you realize I didn’t wake you to say goodbye. But it’s only because I no longer fully trust my ability to walk away.”