‘Til All the Seas Run Dry Quotes

“Jory,” he said, his voice a hoarse rasp. “Jory, mo cridhe, I cannae forgive myself for that night. I never will. But I was blood-mad, a new vampire. I didnae have any control. I—” He pressed his forehead against her thigh. “I would never hurt you again. I would die before I hurt you again.” She allowed herself to look between her legs and behind her. Beneath the thick bands of his arms at her knees, she saw his muscled chest, his stomach, the dusting of blond hair that led down into his shorts, which were obscene. “I wouldnae bite you unless you asked me. And I wouldnae bite you unless you asked me sober, and not in the heat of the moment. I wouldnae bite you unless we talked about it,” he said in a rush. “I swear to you. I would never do anything you didnae want, or ask for.” He pushed his forehead against the back of her thighs, his head bowed. “I wouldnae bite you, mo cridhe. You have to believe me. You must believe me,” he begged.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“There had been a ship. There had been a captain who agreed to take her to the Americas if she would stay in his cabin and warm his bed on the journey. He’d been a bit lonely, and she’d been so desperately lonely that she’d agreed. He was kind enough and, she learned later that afternoon, a lynx shifter who loathed water but had needed a career with ever-changing personnel so that no one would discover the fact that he never seemed to age either.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Callum could hardly believe that she was here. In his arms. In his bed. He buried his nose in her hair and smelled deeply. The salt. The earthiness. The heather. For nearly a thousand years, he’d sifted through rosewater baths and heavy perfumes and those goddamn azaleas that surrounded his club to find this, the smell of her. If he closed his eyes, he could take them back to that heather-stuffed mattress in the little cottage by the sea, with nothing but the sound of her sleeping breath and a crackling fire, the delicate seashells clinking together in the rafters as the wind shook the house. He squeezed her tighter against his chest and let himself live in that memory, his eyes closed, at home in his mind with her in his arms. Callum didn’t know how long they lay there. Hours, at least. It was hard for him to grasp time. When a person was immortal, the difference between minutes and hours felt rather insignificant. He wondered, briefly, if it was the same for her. She seemed perfectly content to lie there. Let the night pass into day. Let the sun rise. Let the world crumble to dust around them. He would lie here with her in his arms until the very sun burned out. And then he’d hold her in the dark.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“He brushed a thumb under her eye, sweeping the moisture away. Another familiar gesture. It felt as natural to let him do it as it had to let him hold her. And so she let him. Just for a minute, she told herself. She let him wipe away her tears and take a half step closer. She let him cradle the back of her head with his other hand. She let him draw her closer to his empty chest. While that formidable, fighting side of her brain screamed that she should run, she let him lower his head and press his mouth against hers, shivering when he groaned like he’d found an oasis after days in the desert. She wrapped her arms around his neck. And she let herself kiss him back. Just for a minute, she told herself. Just for a moment she would let herself feel like she had before. The emptiness, the anger, the despair would all be there in a minute.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“He was too close. Too familiar, and yet too foreign. And with that hollow, affective breath, she felt her own chest begin to rise and fall with rapid, necessary, actual breath. “You owe me an explanation, Marjory,” he said quietly. “You owe me the same,” she snapped. “You first.” “You’re dead,” she said again, her voice thick with threatening tears. “But I’m here. I’m right here.” A small sob escaped her, and she found herself instantly surrounded. Her face was pressed into the broad strength of his chest as his arms wrapped tightly around her. And because she was a masochist, she allowed him.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Jory picked her way through the circle of chairs and across the yard. She felt Callum at her back before she heard him. She didn’t want to talk tonight. She didn’t really want to talk to him at all. She was too raw, too in shock. And while her heart was broken and her anger fresh and bloody, she could also admit that the relief at him being alive was so tangible, so visceral, that she was just as likely to kiss him as she was to shout at him. Or something equally stupid. She shivered, though not from the cold as she took a sharp turn to the right and into the shadows behind Hank’s shed. She spun around, and he was right there, so close that the nylon of her coat brushed against his. His big chest rose and fell with breathing, but no clouds of air puffed from his mouth. He wasn’t actually breathing. He was imitating breathing. An affectation. The truth knocked her back. She almost lost her feet. “You’re dead,” she croaked. He stood, watching her, his hands at his sides. His voice was soft when he answered, like he was comforting a scared animal. “In a manner of speaking, I suppose. In another, I’m verra much alive.” “But you’re not,” she said, feeling strangled by her own tears, sudden and unwanted. “Not really.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Alive. The improbability—hell, the impossibility—was staggering. Marjory had died in his arms. He had held her in the dark on that beach while the moon climbed the sky and her heart shuddered to a stop. And then he’d held her longer, clutching her to his chest until the dawn had threatened. Only then had he gone. But there she’d stood, her black hair like a wild tumble of seaweed around her shoulders and her green eyes flashing in the yellow glow of the kitchen’s overhead light. Joy and relief and shock and—godsdamnit, was that hope?—had all swirled in his brain like a cyclone. They were feelings he hadn’t felt in a very long time, almost long enough to forget them entirely.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“She felt him getting closer still, and her heart pounded ungovernable in her chest again. The moon shone brightly, and she could feel her own joy and hope slicking out of every single pore. All would be well. All would be perfect. She heard a rustle, the fast thudding of racing feet, too fast to be his, but before she could turn, she felt a shocking slice against her throat, a tearing of muscle and artery and sinew, a sharp, blinding pain that stole her breath. She felt her body slide into shock, her limbs leaden and impossible to move, as she bled onto the beach. She was immortal. She was stronger than ten men, faster than any of them, and yet the pain was so consuming, so sharp and bright, that she couldn’t muster any of her strength or speed. She couldn’t even cry out. She felt her lips, thick with tears and pain, shaping around her love’s name though no sound came from her ravaged throat, as if she could summon him and his help, his weapon of a body with only a word. And then, all of a sudden, he was there. She heard his hoarse shout from behind her before he dragged her body into his lap. “Marjory. Marjory, mo cridhe. Nay, nay, nay, nay. You cannae—I didnae—You cannae leave me alone,” he’d whispered against her hair, clutching her against his chest. She wanted to tell him what she was, that she would survive this. She only needed to sleep.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“He wondered what she saw in his eyes when the door flew open and a husky voice barked, “If you harm one hair on either of their heads, Callum MacLeod, I’ll gut you like a fish and then stake you to the floor.” Callum froze. It was impossible. She was dead. He’d seen her. He’d held her lifeless body in his arms as the waves lapped at his feet, sliding away from them and taking her blood with them. But as Callum whipped his head around, as he saw her slide out of Robbie’s reach as deftly as if she’d evaporated and reappeared, as he looked into her brilliant, jade-green eyes, he felt as if his heart could almost start beating again, pounding in his chest for the first time in nearly a thousand years. Because inexplicably, impossibly, she was here. “Marjory. Mo cridhe,” Callum whispered as he beheld a ghost. “Is it really you?” “No thanks to you, you son of a bitch.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“The azaleas were so different, foreign creatures entirely, to the Scottish heather and bluebells of his life before. But he was haunted by visions of a black-haired beauty with skin the color of clay and strong, calloused hands bending her nose to the heather, gathering up heaping armfuls of bluebells and putting them in earthen pots around a tiny, seaside cottage. Of that same woman stuffing a mattress with heather so that whenever he’d rolled over, whenever she’d shifted closer, whenever he’d thrust deeply into her body, into her heat, he’d smelled heather. She would love the azaleas. She would love the magnolias and camellias and dogwoods. She would love the sticky heat and the way the air always smelled—Spanish moss and flowers and, underneath it all, decay. She would smell everything—things that no one else could smell. He used to tease her that he needn’t bother with dogs because she could scent dinner for them. And she’d laughed but would go out and come back with a fat rabbit dangling by the ears just the same.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“He’d hoarded it, not spending a penny. Because what need had he had for money when he’d had her? She’d been a miracle, a marvel, a gift to him from the gods. And he had worshipped her. They had lived in a small cottage by the sea, on an island in Scotland where the sheep had outnumbered the people several times over. They had eaten what could be gotten from the land and sea, worn what could be gotten from the sheep, and burned driftwood in their hearth. He’d buried that money and not dug it up until after she’d been gone. When the idea of living in a now-empty cottage by the sea had been unbearable because no matter how many times the tide had washed them away, he would still see her bloodstains on the sand.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Come back,” her father had said. She would. For just a moment. Not home to her family, but home to the sea, to feel the cold surf against her skin, the thick, heavy water surrounding her. It would be cold in a way it never had been with her sealskin, but it was better than nothing. Sixty years at most, she’d said while her father had looked at her sadly. A blink, she had said. He had wept. Instead, it had been lifetimes. Lifetimes of struggling and fighting, of fleeing and never knowing how long she’d be able to stay in one place. Never putting down roots. A lifetime of never having a real home, never feeling safe. It had only been in the last fifty years that she’d been able to settle in any kind of comfort or safety.”
― Eliza MacArthur, ‘Til All the Seas Run Dry