Shadowfever (Fever #5)

by Karen Marie Moning

Yes, this was what I needed, what I’d needed since the day I woke up in that basement and left his bed. His tongue in my mouth, his hands on my skin. The burn of his body against mine.

I needed rough, hard, fast sex, followed by hours and hours of slow and intimately thorough fucking.

How long had it been since I’d had him inside me? Too long.

You’ll have to ask for it this time, spell it out in graphic detail. I’m done giving you everything you want without making you ask for it.”

You want me. You always do. You think I can’t smell it?”

“Leave me alone,” I snapped. “Over my dead body,” he said roughly. “You’ve got my dick in your hands.”

I needed him inside me so badly I hurt from it. I was hot and wet and nothing mattered but this moment, this man.

He was dead. Again.

Fear, not fact, impedes you.

Sadness overwhelmed me. I nearly choked on it.

Was that a black ceiling painted with stars so high above me or a night sky sliced from another world and brought here for my pleasure?

she was Stasis and he was Change.

All that the queen was at that very moment was all she would ever be.

What was existence without wonder, without joy? Meaningless. Empty.

He built a fortress on a world of black ice because it was the antithesis of all the queen had chosen. Here, in his dark, quiet castle, he could think.

Safety is a fence, and fences are for sheep,

Was it possible there were five Unseelie Princes?

“Where the fuck’ve you been? It’s been over a month. Pull a stunt like that again without telling me what you’re doing first, and I’m chaining you to my bed when you get back.” Was that supposed to be a deterrent or an incentive?

“Did you think we were star-crossed lovers, Ms, Lane? Did you need that excuse?”

I didn’t feel remotely paternal. I felt homicidal.

“Why’d you give me THE WORLD?” “Didn’t. Would you like me to?” “You flirting with me?” “If I was?” “Might run screaming.” “Smart girl.”

“I’d be a lot less cantankerous if you admitted you wanted to fuck me and we got down to it.” Lust ripped through me. Barrons said “fuck” and I was ready.

Barrons was one of the most complicated men I’d ever met and at the same time one of the simplest: You were with him, or you were against him. Period. End of story. You got only one chance with him. And if you betrayed him, you ceased to exist in his world until he got around to killing you.

“I must be dreaming. Bring that sweet ass over here and I’ll show you what God made women and well-hung Scotsmen for.”

“How does it feel to want someone more than they want you, Jericho?”

don’t be staring at me like I’m the freak du jour.

“Shall we spend tomorrow at the beach together?” Barrons moved beside me. “She’s busy tomorrow.” “Are you busy tomorrow, MacKayla?” “She’s working on old texts with me.” V’lane gave me a pitying look. “Ah. Old texts. A banner day at the bookstore.” “We’re translating the Kama Sutra,” Barrons said, “with interactive aids.”

I finally got what I came to Dublin for. I know who killed my sister. The girl I’d begun to think of as my sister.

I was lost in grief and fury and hated being alive.

Was that the sum total of my existence? I didn’t get the erudition of I think therefore I am. Instead, I got I am, therefore I want to fuck Jericho Barrons.

“Do you think love just goes away? Pops out of existence when it becomes too painful or inconvenient, as if you never felt it?”

What did Jericho Barrons know of love?

It’s not a faucet. Love’s a bloody river with le...

“She should have known better!” “Humans, in their infancy, tend to be infants.”

“Did she actually kill Alina? With her hands? A weapon?” “Why do you ask?” “Everything has degrees.” “You think some ways of killing are better?” “I know they are.” “Death is death!”

“You choose what you can live with. And what you can’t live without. That’s what.”

“I think you’d deal with it fine. You find places to put things. I know how you work. I’ve seen you kill. I think O’Bannion and his men were the hardest for you because they were your first humans, but after that, you took to it with a bit of stone cold. But this would be a chosen killing. Premeditated. It makes you breathe different. To swim in that sea, you have to grow gills.”

“You’re not going to tell me what to do, are you?” I wanted him to. I didn’t want any of the responsibility for this. I wanted someone to blame if I didn’t like how it turned out. “I respect you more than that.” I almost fell off the couch.

“I want the woman I think you are. But the longer you dissemble, the more I think I made a mistake. Saw things in you that weren’t there.”

“Some things are sacred. Until you act like they’re not. Then you lose them.”

I wanted blood. Crushed bones. Destruction.

I flew over Dublin with Death.

Will I be pretty, will I be rich?”

Barrons has been predictable in his treatment of me since the day I met him. Initially he used references to sex to shut me up. Then he used sex to wake me up.

“I want what I want and I take it.”

I would have destroyed the world for him.

“I’m not the hero, Mac. Never have been. Never will be. Let us be perfectly clear: I’m not the antihero, either, so quit waiting to discover my hidden potential. There’s nothing to redeem me.”

“Are you going to talk me to death or fuck me, Jericho Barrons?”

One day you do meet a man who kisses you and you can’t breathe around it and you realize you don’t need air.

I feel violent. I am unbreakable. I am elastic around him. Insatiable.