Cruel Seduction (Dark Olympus, #5)

by Katee Robert

Love is a fairy tale, a fantasy built on lies as fine as gossamer wings.

“I would rather take a knife to his throat than slip his ring on my finger.”

Being heartbroken would require me to have a heart.

I didn’t anticipate that power would feel like a steel trap closing around my leg.

I have no doubt that he’d sacrifice Theseus at the altar of his ambition.

The hook in my gut is attached to a string of pure desire, and I’m terribly afraid she might hold the other end of it.

I love Adonis and I still cut out his heart to sacrifice to this city. I’ll do the same to this woman, even if it pains me to think of dimming the soft happiness in her dark eyes.

I am who I am. I can’t offer soft words and softer landings. I only know how to destroy.

I can’t be his soft landing…but maybe he can be mine. Just for tonight.

I don’t even want to throw his caring back in his face. I want to indulge it, to luxuriate in it. Unforgivable. I don’t give a fuck. I’m not going to stop.

I ignore the fact that those reassurances have the flavor of lies.

It might not be real… But it feels a whole lot like love.

She’s not even sure if she wants to watch a movie with me, and I’m standing here wondering if she’ll let me pay for her rent.

how can you want something you don’t even know the shape of?

“It’s not the heroes who slay monsters. They’re too honorable. Always giving second chances

It doesn’t matter what we’ve done to hurt each other or how desolate my future is without her in it. She needs me, so I’m here.

“Feels more complicated than hate these days. She’s a monster, maybe even my monster. I don’t like seeing her declawed.”

I need to be safe. I need to have one corner of this godsforsaken city where I’m able to rest and not have to worry about a knife in my back, literal or otherwise. I need to stop hurting the people I most care about with every move I make.

If I taste the possibility of both of them together, I don’t know if I’ll have a heart left to break.

I think their bodies might be an altar I could spend a lifetime worshipping at. Or a lifetime mourning the loss of.

We were kids. Too weak to do more than drown in the waves made by people more powerful than us.

Perhaps I’m finding religion right here, right now.

I’ve never been a fan of tragedies. I prefer romances with their guaranteed happily-ever-afters.

As if drawn by my attention, she shifts her gaze to mine in a moment of perfect understanding. We’re going to break this. We don’t want to. We will try very hard not to bring harm to this group. But we’re both loyal to greater forces.

We’re two soldiers trapped in a trench, and it won’t matter who’s firing the shots winging their way overhead. A bullet is a bullet.

I’ve never known fear like what I feel in the ten minutes it takes for the paramedics to arrive.

If I start bellowing, I’m going to annihilate this apartment. I want to rip into the walls, to smash and break whatever I can get my hands on and howl to the fucking moon. None of it will make a difference or ensure Eris lives.

Minos, god of my teenage years, flinches.

I haven’t wanted to strangle you in nearly a week. That’s love, don’t you think?”