Angie's Gladiator (Icehome, #4)

by Ruby Dixon

"If friendship is the greatest lack you feel," he begins slowly, "then I would be honored to be your friend."

“If I cannot hunt a pickle, tell me how to be fast enough to get in her hole.”

Harlow stares at me, her eyes so wide they look like blue pools. She takes my arm and tucks her hand into it. “You and I are going to go for a walk, and you’re going to have to explain to me slowly what you mean. Very, very slowly. Because I’m pretty sure I’m misunderstanding.”

"You were thinking of me when you saw this?" "I always think of you." His voice grows in confidence and defiance.

“I mean that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Vordis murmurs. “I do not care that you have a child in your belly or that you cannot resonate. I know that my eyes have only ever seen you.”

“Strength does not always mean fists, my heart. Sometimes it means waking up to endure another day.”

Her bones are delicate, her cheeks full and rounded, and her closed eyes are large and slightly tilted. Long, pointed ears are folded back against an absolute wealth of silvery-purple hair that looks like wet corn silk. Her nose is tiny, her mouth a little rosebud, and her skin is a bright, solid red. She’s a clone.

"We are not fighting." I step away before Thrand can shove me again. "We are disagreeing…with our hands."

"She looks like her dad and is pissy like me," she says proudly. "Couldn't ask for a better combination in my darling little shit stirrer."

Vordis shakes his head. “I am a’ani. We are nothing to everyone.” “Not true. You’re everything to me,” I tell him softly.

All this time I have wanted to be my own person, and now I realize the truth of it. Being part of her whole is better than being all of myself.