Burned (Fever #7)

by Karen Marie Moning

He, who had once been whole, was halved, without hope of ever being complete again. And when you’ve known that kind of love, to endure the creeping passage of time without it is to live a half-life where nothing ever feels real.

Self-pity is wasted emotion. It merely prolongs whatever trauma you suffered by keeping it alive in your head. Dude, you survived it. Move on.

I want to tell her revenge is a devil you don’t want to worship. In destroying your enemy you become it.

Sometimes when really bad things happen, you put them in a box and never look at them again because they’ll cost you the rest of your life. Some wounds never heal. You excise the savaged flesh and become the next thing.

I want a man to look at me like one day and, as they continue to recover from the near-collision, their bodies move in a graceful dance of impeccable awareness of precisely where the other is at all times that is unity, symbiosis, partnership I only dream of, wolves that chose to pack up and hunt together, soldiers who will always have each other’s backs no matter what, no sin, no transgression too great,

once I got a little taste of what that was like, and it was heaven and they’re so beautiful standing there, the best of the best, the strongest of the strong, that they practically glow to me, on fire with all I ever wanted in my life—a place to belong and someone to belong there with.

I snort. I just thought of Jericho Barrons as my “boyfriend.” I doubt that cataclysm was ever a boy and he certainly can’t be called friendly. It’s official. I’m losing it.

Fear of the power you believe someone or something has over you is nothing but a jail cell you choose to walk into. By obsessing over freeing yourself from the Book, you become more certainly its prisoner.

I’m a moth to his flame and it frightens me how willingly I’d burn my wings off for him. Destroy the world. Follow him to Hell. It’s scary to feel like you can’t breathe without someone. That a man has so much power over you because you love him as much as, if not more than, you care for yourself.

“You’re not living anymore, Rainbow Girl.”

You never appreciate what you’ve got till it’s gone.

Barrons snorts. Barrons has reason to snort. I got the best one. I glance up and give him a charged look. Yes, you did.

“Jada,” Ryodan says tightly, “is. Dani.”

“Mine,” Barrons says flatly. “You will never go there. You have a problem with Mac, you work it out with me. I am her shield, I am her second fucking skin.”

unread. You keep waiting to feel like the person you were before that chapter ended. You never will.

Best fucking night of my existence.” He laughs and shakes his head. “And you couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. I didn’t want to hide the memory from you. I wanted to cram it down your goddamn throat. I wanted to force you to face it, to want it, to want me, to be willing to fight for what was possible between us

Fact: love is not perfect.

Fact: neither am I.

When I choose my place to stand, he supports me standing there.

“Where are you? Touch me.” I slip my hand into his, and for a moment he just stands there, looking down at where I am, then he closes his eyes and laces strong fingers with mine. I hear exactly what he’s not saying in them: You better bring your ass back to me, woman.