Captured by the Fae Beast (Monsters of Faery, #1)

by Mallory Dunlin

Why have you killed four people for me? I don't recall asking for such a gift, and you haven't even presented me with skulls for verification."

"Wait, no, not true. I kill mosquitoes. But they started it by biting me, so that's different." "So I'm safe as long as I don't bite you, is it?" Dain practically purred the words into my ear, with that same dark amusement. "I've been told it's very pleasurable."

"It is as acceptable to be resilient and to mourn in the back of your heart as it is to be fragile and for that mourning to take everything you have. Some people are left breathless from pain, and others can walk on broken legs."

"And what," he said, with great care, "Do you want me to do instead?" "Put me on your lap and carry me like you like me, obviously," I said.

"To lose all hope is to die. When true despair has you in its teeth, the only option is to embrace death, and I have never been ready to die."

Things have bloomed to fill the empty space, like flowers in the sunlit patch of the woods where a tree has fallen. How could I come back and destroy the gardens they've grown? That's not love."

Zhiolas looked like perfection itself. Dain looked like he could and would fuck you until you forgot your name; then, while you laid sprawled across the furs of his bed with legs that no longer functioned, like he would go out, kill you a deer, and feed the fire-roasted haunch to you bite by bite. Give me the feral one any day, holy fuck.

"You have my scent on you, which combined with the fact that I would know your scent even if I lost my entire memory, makes me feel like there's a place in the world for me where I don't have to fight to keep my footing."

We dream about wounded men who love us passionately enough to do the hard work of healing.

If those Court of Mercy motherfuckers try, they will find out exactly how much of a match I am for the Beast of fucking Phazikai."

I wake up wet from dreams of you and would submit to the Bone Court's torturers for a year and a day to be your lover?'"

"Not even my yearning heart can trick me into believing you would abandon your beloved family for the poor comfort of my scaled arms."

"Thirty-four days, Leah. Are you ready to face them, knowing that I'd cut my own throat to know that you loved me?"

"Leah..." Dain took a few short, panting breaths. "Please go before I can't keep myself from begging."

"Can I just hold you?" he asked, not answering my question. He didn't need to. We both knew the answer. "Here, on this balcony, where no one will see. Can I pretend for a short while that you love me unconditionally, and I don't have to be alone?"

"Come to bed with me," he said. "Let me wash my blood off your face, and brush your beautiful dark hair for you. Wear my clothing to bed again, and run your hands over my body so your fingers can remember what they already know."

"But I have a tongue piercing and an excellent sense of smell, and I want to be on my knees for you."

"I would have loved you even if you shuddered at the sight of me. I would have loved you even if you found me detestable, and despised my friends and passions. I belong to you completely, and I have been yours ever since that moment."

"It doesn't matter how you were conceived, or why. We're so much more than our parentage, or the circumstances of our birth. You are a gifted, powerful, remarkable man, and you are going to be a beloved King. Stag Court is lucky beyond words to have you."

"The gods gave you a soulmate from another world to look at you without prejudice, and she sees the man you are."