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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Renée Ahdieh
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March 29 - March 30, 2024
Such misplaced faith in a boy with a murderous past and a girl with treacherous intent.
For his children, he would move mountains.
Love is a force unto itself, sayyidi. For love, people consider the unthinkable . . . and often achieve the impossible. I would not sneer at its power.”
“No, you have not,” Khalid said in a low tone. The young man smirked back at him. “I am not having a conversation with you. I am having a conversation with the most beautiful girl I have seen in a long time.” “No. You are having a conversation with my wife. And you are quite close to having the last conversation of your life.” His voice was as cold as the edge of a dagger. Shahrzad glared at the young man. “And if you want to sell me fabric, being a lecherous bastard is not the way to go about doing it.” She shoved against his chest, hard. “Daughter of a whore,” he muttered. Khalid froze, his
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“How dare I imply you caused this mess?” “Me? This is not my fault! This is your fault!” “Mine?” “You and your temper, Khalid!” “No. You and your mouth, Shazi.” “Wrong, you wretched lout!” “See? That mouth.” He reached up and grazed his thumb across her lips. “That—magnificent mouth.”
“You are—remarkable. Every day, I think I am going to be surprised by how
remarkable you are, but I am not. Because this is what it means to be you. It means knowing no bounds. Being limitless in all that you do.”
“What are you doing to me, you plague of a girl?” he whispered. “If I’m a plague, then you should keep your distance, unless you plan on being destroyed.” The weapons still in her grasp, she shoved against his chest. “No.” His hands dropped to her waist. “Destroy me.”
In her ear, he whispered, “Do better than this, Shazi. My queen is without limitations. Boundless in all that she does. Show them.”
Khalid Ibn al-Rashid was not a madman from a line of murdering madmen, hell-bent on senseless brutality. He was a boy with secrets.
How could a boy with legions of secrets behind walls of ice and stone burn her with nothing more than his touch?
At last, she had discovered a real weakness. It was her.
“Strong enough to take on the world with our bare hands, yet we permit ridiculous boys to make fools of us.” “I am not a fool.” “No, you’re not. Not yet.” Despina grinned. “But it’s inevitable. When you meet the one who makes you smile as you’ve never smiled before, cry as you’ve never cried before . . . there is nothing to do but fall.”
You are a king worthy of their allegiance . . . with a queen full of fire and promise.”
She captivated him in the way she always did, with unguarded beauty and unassuming grace. Her hair rippled behind her in shimmering waves of ebony, and her pointed chin was turned high and proud in the rays of sun streaming from above. The light gold of her mantle cloaked the deep emerald of the silk beneath
I know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm . . .”
“People fall in and out of love with the rising and setting of the sun. Rather like a boy who loves the color green one day, only to discover on the morrow that he truly prefers blue.”
Shahrzad and the boy-king shared an understanding that did not require words.
“A shared history does not entitle you to a future, my friend.”
DANGGG WHAT THAT IS CRAZY THAT IS CRAZY MAN WHAT
“I do not have to lose my wife to understand the meaning of loss, Tariq. A child with a broken toy understands such things.”
“To know you? As if I could ever hope to achieve such a thing. Yet, like a fool, I’ve wanted to learn. To understand what pains you, what brings you joy. But I remain ignorant of even the most trivial of things. I don’t know your favorite color. What foods you detest. What scent brings to mind a treasured memory. I know nothing, because you fight me every step of the way.”
She was a dangerous, dangerous girl. A plague. A Mountain of Adamant who tore the iron from ships, sinking them to their watery graves without a second thought. With a mere smile and a wrinkle of her nose. But even knowing this, he surrendered to her pull. Succumbed to the simple need to be by her side. With a slow exhalation
This dangerous girl. This captivating beauty. This destroyer of worlds and creator of wonder.
“No,” Khalid rasped. He reached out a hand for her. “She stays.” “Khalid-jan—” Khalid forced opened his screaming eyes and stared up at his uncle. “My wife stays.”
“If you are just one girl, I am just one boy.”
He rested his brow against hers. “Just one boy and one girl.”
And he smiled a smile to shame the sun.
