Queen and Conqueror (The Queen's Red Guard, #1)

by Isabelle Olmo

Gods help the man who challenged her. Even if he was her husband.

War did not allot time for broken hearts.

Her tears were crisp against her throat. Cracks marred the dam she’d built to keep them at bay.

“You raised me differently in a world unchanged.”

“Men will never be ready for women like us, and it is not our job to ready them.”

“A ruler that doesn’t have people to question them quickly becomes a tyrant. That is not your path,”

If one was brave enough to gut a man, one should be brave enough to speak their mind.

She wouldn't act like a child when she pleaded to be a woman.

His hair danced in the morning sun, and she admitted he was very handsome when he was not being an imbecile.

He was an abundant book and only let her peruse certain pages.

“His eyes were wild in horror. Then he held his brother, rocking him back and forth as he bled out. They crowned him two days later.”

I’d never been more afraid for you, of you, and proud of you all at once.”

He’s old and his roots in that city are deep and worm-eaten.

His cock, that unstable and unpredictable asshole, gave a tiny shiver. He tried to mentally explain to it that this was neither the time nor the place for such reactions.

Almira’s hands shook and she had to hold them against her stomach. Shame was burning a hole in it until it almost felt like hunger.

He pushed back his memories, those demons that constantly danced in the back of his eyes, in the pockets of his ears.

How he’d like to see her political persona crumble. Perhaps he’d find the real Almira in the ruins.

She didn’t like when he called her that–which meant he would continue to use the name.

He’d done it! Oh, she was angry now. Twitch, twitch, went his cock.

Then he turned, his emerald cape fluttered, the embroidered stallion galloping after him.

How often did he bleed for a cause he did not believe in?

Usually he enjoyed his solitude, but he got to enjoy activities such as hunting and annoying his wife.

“Death is not a pretty thing,” Almira said. M nodded. “No, it’s not, but neither is life.”

The thought of commanding an armada, an army, the nobles, the peasants, the court, it was all too much for her. It filled her hands until things fell through the cracks of her fingers.

“Heat from your dragon breath reaches me across the room,” he said.

“There’s now blood on my carpet, I’d hardly call that peaceful.”

He wanted to say he recalled all her words. Even the ones she threw on the ground like discarded petals. How he’d collected them and stuffed them in his pockets like a lunatic. How he replayed them as he fruitlessly sought sleep. How they haunted him as he drank heavily to tune out the noise of the world.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t attribute certain characteristics to men and women. We should allow each person to decide how they’d like to speak. Then we wouldn’t analyze what is proper.”

attachment of the heart was more troubling than attachment of the loins.

She was ridiculous. Absolutely theatrical, but it was theater she believed in.

He knew nothing of love, but he knew admiration, and when she was in the room, there was no one else he wanted to converse with.

“There’s days I must hold myself in a tight fist to not fall to my knees and beg you to care for me in the manner that I have desperately and uncontrollably grown to care for you. Everything I do is to get a reaction from you, to watch you smile or anger, I want to see the spectrum of your emotions, even the bad ones. I want to bask in them.”

Those who learn are never fools.

“I, too, can say cunt, my lord, for you are a prince of nothing. And from my cunt you didn’t slither, so that makes you a lord, not a prince,”

Damn this heart and its chosen attachment.

“I thought I lost you.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I’d come back and haunt you,” he smiled.

she felt her heart wrap itself tightly around him.

“You’ve been lucky in love. Some of us refuse to contemplate love because the pain of rejection might break us.”

Small are the minds of men who salivate at the thought of violence.

Sanaa warned her that men were not ready for such women. But why was it that she was the one who must keep herself in constant check for the benefit and comfort of men?

The blood spurted and painted her further in the colors of war.

Ivar looked at Delara, crossed his arms, and cocked his head. “I owe you a beat down, woman.” Delara rolled her eyes and crossed her arms to mirror his pose. “Need material for your dreams, Norrian? Or just something to whack off to?” Almira intercepted before the two destroyed the tower as they grappled or fucked.

His eyes had lost their brightness and shine. Taken the way the sea takes sandcastles from the shore.