Glow (The Plated Prisoner, #4)

by Raven Kennedy

As a woman in power, you can never let people see your true emotional reactions because they would only use them against you.

I won’t allow another storm to touch Auren. She has been flooded and wrung out, left to take the barrage without shelter. But so long as I’m here, I will be her shelter.

“You can’t contemplate or settle or thrive when you’re living like that. I was dead and running, just trying to keep up with survival. Just making it one day. People don’t get that, you know? If they’ve never lived like that. It’s one day. A whole slew of one-day-at-a-times, just getting through, squeezing by. Always running, never expecting anything else. Never having anyone or anything but that running and fighting and dying through it.”

“You took my belligerence and tossed a uniform in my face. You met Osrik’s kill drive and decided to give him your sword. You saw every jail cell that couldn’t hold Judd and, instead of tossing him in another one, let him keep the keys. This time, you found your goldfinch and watched her leave her cage. She’ll open her eyes, just like you got the rest of us to do.”

“You don’t have to be cruel to be strong. You don’t have to be mean to seem brave. You don’t have to look down on others in order to stand tall. Having emotions does not mean you’re weak. It means you’re smart enough to let yourself feel.”

Anyone else standing here would probably be pissing their pants. At the very least, trying to yank out of their boots and run. But me? I’m just turned on.

“You’re gorgeous when you’re unhinged,” I tell her.

“I will drive myself so far into you all you’ll feel is pleasure for how fucking glorious you are as you burn for me. But there will be no punishment.”

it’s these moments of surprising intimacy that burn into my heart. I’ve always been treated like treasure, but with Slade, I’m simply treasured.

That’s the thing with trauma to the body—it shows up instantly. In breaks and bruises, in burns and in blood. But the trauma on the inside, that’s harder to see. It creeps around your mind, poisons you with disquiet. It can hit you out of nowhere, debilitating and ruinous. There are no marks visible for those. None, save the shadows in your eyes.

This is the suffering of the silent. A hurt so deep it doesn’t show itself on a face.

Maybe none of us truly know our own strength. Not until the world has hacked away at us. But the point is, we aren’t strong because of our trauma. We were always strong to begin with. We just needed to figure it out for ourselves.

Because this isn’t for my job. This isn’t for coin. I’m not trying to seduce or put on a show. I’m just kissing him because I wanted to know...wanted to see.

They caught me. Defended me. They were my instincts. My unconscious impulse and sentiment. They made me more. And without them. I’m less. Less steady, less sure, less free. You never notice what’s keeping you balanced until you realize you’re not standing straight anymore.

“Am I sure that I want your body pressed against mine while I carry you so that you’re not in pain? Yes.”

Hes so daddy

It’s not safety with strings attached, it’s not comfort with conditions. He holds me like he wants nothing else in return, and it’s so foreign that I still find myself in awe at how this can be for me.

“Oh, Goldfinch, I’d follow you to the end of the world and tip right off the edge, all because of a crook of your finger.”

So if I can learn to use my anger in a way that moves me forward rather than keeps me here, pinned to a painful past, then that’s what I want to do.

“I want you to understand something, Goldfinch. I am not good. I will rot every person in my way, will bring a blight to every corner of the world if I have to.”

I shake my head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re good. You’re—” “No, Goldfinch,” he interrupts. “I’m good to you. But I am every bit the villain that I warned you I was.”

With the right person, there is power when you kneel. There is adoration with submission. There is balance with control.

“Now that I have your Divine-damned attention...” She places her fists on her waist, looking down at them like the captain she is. “I need you all to tuck your dicks in for a second and try to think rationally. Like a woman.”

But my song of home doesn’t come from the sun. Mine comes from her.

“Goldfinch, you could conquer the entire world with a single look, if only you’d open your eyes.”

“I think I’m starting to learn that you’re just as unhinged as some of the Orean rumors have claimed.” His devilish smirk only grows. “Oh, love, I’m worse.”

“Your desires are not to be staunched or controlled. I am not intimidated by your curiosities, because they’re natural—and because you have been restrained for far too long. I’m never going to clip your wings, Goldfinch.”

“You’re mine to protect. To adore. To hear. To see. To experience. To love.”

“You’re mine, Auren. As wholly as I am yours. If there’s something you crave, if there’s some freedom you want to try the taste of, then you will do it, and I will be right there with you. Watching you devour your wants. And then I will devour you.”

Is it hot in here or whatttttt? :ppp

“With gold and rot, we will protect what is ours. We will be our worst when we need to and be our best together. And at the end of the day, we will fucking destroy our enemies.”

“You are my equal. My female. My partner. But when it comes to your pussy, I’m in charge.”

“You will wake up, you stubborn woman. You can’t be fucking dead. Hear me, Yellow Bell? You can’t be fucking dead because we have mistakes to make.”

I don’t fucking care. I will not wait. Because they took her. But I won’t fucking stand for it. I don’t care how long it takes me to catch up to them. I will ride day and night until I get to Second Kingdom if I have to. And when I get there, they will all wish they’d never taken her away.

He walks toward me with a savage stride, making the ground crumble, making the square squelch into silence as he rots everyone in his path and lets his boots crush their decayed bodies into dust. Until there are no more screams. No more running. Only quiet death lies in his wake. I’ll be the villain for you.

So long as we’re together, everything is okay. Because I will fight for him, and he will kill for me, and if we need to be the villains, then so be it.

“Drop it,” King Merewen says, cutting off his wife. She looks shocked. “The ruling of the Conflux is holy.” “Shut your mouth, woman,” he seethes before he turns to his son. “Drop the barrier, boy.”

Fuck that BITCH