Queens of Mist and Madness (Fae Isles, #4)

by Lisette Marshall

‘I’m fully fucking honest when I say no one has ever frightened me as much as you do. I’ve never had this much to lose before.’

‘I’m saying I love him to pieces,’ I pleasantly corrected. ‘Gods help me,’ he muttered, burying his face in his hands. ‘Because you’ve seen what he looks like?’ I scoffed. ‘No. Because he’s the only damn person in this world who’s never tried to make me more than I can be or less than I am. Because he makes me laugh when I’m frightened. Because he knows what it’s like to be everyone’s weapon. Because he stops me from doubting myself. Do I need to continue?’

‘You’re not too much. The place is too small. Very different problem, very different solution.’

But the future had to be more than a mere collection of things it wasn’t – more than a flight from all that had ever hurt me in the past.

How do you feel about those closets that are practically entire rooms to walk around in?’ ‘Utterly ridiculous,’ he said dryly. ‘Let’s get one.’

Love him!!

‘You’ll be the utter ruin of me, and hell take me, you’ll be worth every moment of it.’

I dont like this at all!!! Wtf is he planning...

‘Don’t you dare call my daughter a fae whore ever again, you fucking swine.’

How dare they get what I so desperately wanted and then handle it so poorly? How dare they refuse so heartlessly what I could hardly bear to give up?’

‘I'll think of something. I won't be stupid. I just need to—

She sounds like a whiny little bitch

‘I’m just trying to make the point that feelings are conditional.’ ‘Fine, they are – on the condition of you.’ An exasperated laugh escaped me. ‘If you never got out of bed again for no bloody reason at all, the problem wouldn’t be that you were useless – the problem would be that you were no longer behaving like yourself. Which is an entirely different point from … from …’ A bitter twist of his lips. ‘Me being unable to protect you the way I always have?’

‘You’re operating under the assumption that I love you because you keep me safe – do I understand that correctly? Because you are dangerous and powerful and you would do anything for me – you’re assuming those are the essential parts of you upon which my feelings hinge?’

‘First of all, you’re so far removed from the concept of uselessness that it never even occurred to me to think of you in any such way. You’ve been the only person keeping me sane for weeks. You forced Thysandra to see who the Mother really is. You prepared for her information and saved us hours of organisational trouble. None of that required a drop of magic, and all of it was invaluable for tomorrow’s fight, alright?’

‘However,’ I crisply interrupted, silencing him again, ‘none of that is even remotely relevant to the core of the matter, because I don’t care, Creon. It’s not your battle prowess that made me fall for you. It’s not your magic or your blades. If you lost your legs and your hands and your wings tomorrow, I would still love you to death – hell, if all you could do for the rest of your life was just look at me the way you look at me, that would be more than enough. Do you understand that?’

Did he understand? Was he even capable of seeing himself the way I saw him – of defining himself not as the merciless killer with an accidental heart, but as the fractured, many-faced male I’d found beneath that shield, gentle and ruthless and brilliant and brave and always, unerringly, mine?

‘I know she made you believe you were good for nothing but bloodshed,’ I whispered, stretching out a hand, cupping the smooth edge of his jaw. He sucked in a sharp breath at the touch. ‘Which isn’t a lie just because there’s so much else you do and do flawlessly. It’s a lie because you don’t need to be good for anything in the first place. You just need to be. You just need to love me and feel like home in this world I can never make sense of on my own, and that’ – I bent over to kiss his forehead, tipping up his face with my hand still below his chin – ‘that doesn’t have the faintest thing to do with anyone’s bindings, broken or otherwise. It doesn’t have anything to do with use.’ That last word, quiet and treacherous, hung in the air for one fragile moment. And then he was crying.

‘Legs, love,’ he interrupted sweetly. ‘You’ll scream exactly when I want you to.’

OMG