The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)

by Roshani Chokshi

If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.

To take such power from us would be, I daresay, the end of civilization.

There were so many wants inside him that he doubted there was room for blood in his body.

“The bored, the rich, and the enigmatic.” Enrique sighed. “All my life aspirations.”

They stole histories, swallowed cultures whole, smuggled evidence of illustrious antiquity onto large ships and spirited them into indifferent lands.

One should never drink champagne unhappy,

These days, it was considered nothing more than a rumor that time had smoothed down to the shape of a myth.

That boy looks like every dark corner of a fairy tale.

When the grand courtesan had trained her, she had told her the only rules to follow were instincts and color palettes.

‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’ ”

“If you get in the way of a woman’s battle, you’ll get in the way of her sword.”

But it didn’t matter how well one’s clothes fit if the skin didn’t.

“Fashion, my love, just like the universe, owes you neither explanation nor rationale.”

“Half of winning, my dear wallet, is simply looking victorious.”

He smiled. A tiny hurt was better than none.

the easiest way to go somewhere unnoticed is to tell everyone where you’re going.

Don’t capture their hearts. Steal their imagination. It’s far more useful.

fear grew in places unlit by knowledge.

although changed, I arise the same.”

“Take what the world owes you by any means necessary,” Pride had said. “The world has a shit memory. It will never pay its debts unless you force its hand.”

“Oh no, shiny things,” moaned Hypnos, clapping his hands to his heart. “My weakness.”

If he let her, she could lay waste to his heart.

“I’m not planning to walk into a trap,” he said. “I am, however, planning to set one.”

“But first, where’s the wine? I can’t discuss the end of civilization without wine.”

“Because, my dear, we are without armor. And beauty is its own armor.

Scars sculpted people into who they were. They were scuffs left by sorrow’s fists,

All of them. Stitches in a tapestry that had no horizon.

“Then by all means, phoenix. Light it up.”

I think the greatest power is belief, for what is a god without it?

Only Paris would rip out seraph wings and string them onto its buildings as if to say one thing: This was no place for angels.

Everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by gilded wolves.

Wolves were everywhere. In politics, on thrones, in beds. They cut their teeth on history and grew fat on war.

“Jealousy looks good on you, Laila,” he said, smiling.

She didn’t want the ghosts of thresholds not crossed hanging over her.

Lust taught him that a broken heart made a fine weapon, for its pieces were exceptionally sharp.

“Turning into ghosts is not what the dead deserve.”