The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow, #1)

by Casey Matthews

Yes, I am a bitch. You don’t get to be a program manager without being a bitch. It’s on my résumé. I underlined it twice.”

“I am from the black places and the Long Ago. I can kill anything that can die, and a few things that cannot.”

cute like a cat; like someone who thinks she’s apex predator, but also doesn’t mind when you bring her tuna.

As heady and intoxicating as the flesh could be for the pleasures it brought, they didn’t have tolerance for agony. Life granted that tolerance only to creatures who wore their skin each day.

Look now at me. The dark is terrible, surrounds you, and is never empty as it seems. Though monsters lurk, know this: none is hungrier than me.

“She’s not hard to get. Imagine a person without an evil bone in her body. Then make her stubborn, unyielding, and persuasive. An angel’s graces and the devil’s charisma.”

Walking into an emergency room after midnight was like wandering past a plot twist in other people’s lives.

“She’s dangerous.” “To Naomi?” Mark frowned. “To anyone who fucks with her, I’d say.”

She’s not hurting those men to get closer to the Bradford girl. Hate that pure and clean isn’t instrumental.” “You sound impressed.” “I tell people my idol’s Sherlock Holmes, but not really. I didn’t read Arthur Conan Doyle as a kid. I read Batman.” Kessler snorted. “You’re jealous of her.” “Incredibly.”

“Because nothing is cleaner than the heart of a shadow. It washes away their staring eyes and leaves nothing but me.”

I took a deity on a double date and—oh—I tried to make her wear heels.

“There is a chance… a small one… that I may be slightly less straight than I thought.”

“I think kids are always trying to save their parents. Trying to learn from their mistakes and do it differently; do it right. Or just, you know, avoid the same tragedies.