A Court of Hearts and Hunger (Wicked Darlings, #2)

by Rebecca F. Kenney

Maybe love is simply reminding someone how wonderful they are, how strong they are. Showing them the shining potential you can see. Lifting them up to be the best of themselves.

Curiosity is the dagger on which we impale ourselves.

You are my entire realm, and I will commit any atrocity to secure your happiness.”

“But part of you loves that I’d fracture the world for you.”

Two beings of a different race, gender, and background, yet we are parallel hearts, matched souls, mirrored minds. Distinctly ourselves, and yet attuned to each other, almost from the moment we met.

“I beg your pardon.” I draw myself up to my full height. “I have no nasty bits. I’m a delight from tongue to taint.”

The new Queen of the Unseelie is far more intelligent than the Rat King. Of course she is—she’s a woman.”

“You need me, don’t you?” I whisper, stroking his cheek. “Poor sweet faerie. You need me to be the safe place for your heart.”

“If you don’t know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter whether you get there or not.”

“Do I love your face, your form? Oh yes.” I rock my hips, surging into her, concentrating on her reaction to keep myself from coming too soon because she feels—by the god-stars, she feels like honey and wine, like silk and velvet. “But what I love even more, dearest, is the part of you that I can never quite touch. The closer I am to you, the deeper I am inside you, the nearer I come to it—to pressing my whole self into your beautiful soul.”

Perhaps that’s what love is—the gradual disappearance of the walls between two souls. Some walls evaporate on their own; others have to be dismantled, brick by brick. Sometimes you reach out, thinking all the walls have been deconstructed, only to find a thick glass shield around the heart of the one you love. Only the heat of a persistent, intense devotion can ever soften it.

I will melt Fin’s final wall, if it takes me years. That sweet, wounded heart of his is worth it.

“My name is Riordan,” he says.

“Parents give us our existence,” I say quietly. “But they can also ruin us before we’ve even begun to live.”

No man—will ever—destroy me—”

A disorder of the mind does not prevent one from making a worthy contribution.”