Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2)

by Laini Taylor

My misanthropy knows no bounds. Hate rises off me like cartoon heat waves.

I am priestess of a sandcastle in a land of dust and starlight.

Mercy, she had discovered, made mad alchemy: a drop of it could dilute a lake of hate.

Because of one thing she was certain, and it was that she could never love, not like that. Trust a stranger with her flesh? The closeness, the quiet. She couldn’t imagine it. Breathing someone else’s breath as they breathed yours, touching someone, opening for them? The vulnerability of it made her flush.

You’d think fighting could look like it does in movies: plenty of space to deliver elegant choreography, land clean kicks, and glare cool glares. Ha. There had been no space, only grappling and panic, and Thiago’s strength had counted for a hell of a lot more than her repertoire of fancy kicks.