Anathema (The Eating Woods, #1)

by Keri Lake

I wanted to scream into the void. To throttle fate with both hands for having dipped its poison-tipped fingers into our lives.

Emotions I was forced to keep hidden for fear of looking possessed by evil, as girls were often perceived when they felt too much.

I’d learned at too early an age that the sound of a girl’s scream drew nothing more than apathy.

How tragic that a woman’s worth equated to the depth of a man’s pockets.

Behind my ribs stood a graveyard of empty caskets. A chest full of nameless tombstones. An emptiness which afforded me a small measure of clarity that she refused to acknowledge.

I wouldn’t consider reading books in solitary the worst scenario.”

I curse Rykaia for bringing you here. And yet, the thought of never seeing you in this dress is a torment in itself.”

The way she so innocently swept through a room, not even realizing the yearning that trailed in her wake. The eyes that watched her every move because looking away would’ve been a godsdamn tragedy.

She was chaos wrapped in fine silk. The embodiment of trouble that’d nearly brought him to his fucking knees when he’d first laid eyes on her across the ballroom. So achingly beautiful, his chest hurt.

“A thousand times I’ve fantasized this moment, and still, I failed to imagine you’d be this perfect.”

“I can’t fucking breathe. I ache for you, Maevyth. Believe me when I say this.”

He’d lived too long with the practicality of knowing the stars were too far out of reach, and yet, in his arms lay the brightest of them all.