A Queen This Fierce and Deadly (Kingdom of Lies, #4)

by Stacia Stark

“I want you to feel how much I love you. I’ll always be with you, Prisca. It’s you and me.”

“In every life, wildcat. No matter what happens, you hold on to that. It’s you and me in every life.”

“I don’t know what you did,” I ground out. “But you don’t get to leave me here without you. You will fucking come back to me, or I will follow you and drag you back myself.”

“Listen to me, wildcat. Our story doesn’t end when this life does. You’ll be mine in the next life––and the life after that. If you hadn’t wielded time, I would have waited as long as it took to see you again.”

I reached for him, guiding his mouth to mine. “Love me,” I murmured against his lips. “Just love me.”

He caught my hand with his, brushing his lips against the sensitive skin of my wrist. I shivered, and he kissed his way up my arm, finding the spots that made me squirm.

Even my arm felt sensual when Lorian was the one paying it this kind of attention.

I wanted it written that while I might have been partially responsible for the start of this war, I was also responsible for ending it.

If you refuse to open your heart to those who would lay down their lives for you, you will not arrive on the eastern continent with just a purse full of coin. You will also carry with you a heart full of regret. And that heart will be much, much heavier than any coin you can imagine.”

“You think feelings are a weakness. And sometimes, they are. Sometimes, those feelings eat at everything you thought you were. But a life refusing to feel, to love? That is worse than a weakness. That is a travesty. To refuse to feel the full range of emotions, to deny yourself joy in an effort to protect yourself from the loss? I may not know much—may have no true glimpse of the future the way my mother does—but I know without a doubt that one day, the tiny moments of joy you keep turning your back on? They’re the moments that will keep you alive.”

I didn’t have to let my past determine my future.

“Like the ancient trees surrounding us, your love will endure times of storm and serenity, weathering the fiercest winds of adversity, and enjoying the gentle breezes of peace,” Galon said. “Your love will prevail through times of sun and frost, basking in our warmest, brightest days, and enduring the icy touches of our hardest nights. “And your love will stand strong through drought and abundance, through parched summers and bountiful springs, growing deeper with each passing year.”

“I vow to be the roots that ground you, the branches that help you reach for your dreams, and the shelter that forever keeps you safe. I will love you in every life.”

“I don’t think it’s the memories of your life that you see when you die. I think it’s the people you’ll miss the most. The people who made your life worth living. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you see the one person you would defy the fates and stay for—if you could.”

“I think that has to be the worst part about dying. Leaving the people you love and regretting.”