The Queen Quotes

“he loves me in that abstract, unobtainable way that says we’ll never be together. That he can love me only from afar.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Because as long as you’re with me, I’m safe. And as long as I’m with you, you are safe. It’s only when we split up that he’s been able to hurt us. Don’t you see? He wants to divide us. This is how we stop him. This is how we survive. Together.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“What did he do to you?” And this time I’m not asking about iron pokers or knives. I don’t need to understand the details of his pain. I need to understand the goal. “He made me into him,” Damon says, more resigned than angry.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Is that what we are—lovers? Friends? Enemies? Everything about Damon Scott is undefinable. He’s a mystery that can’t be solved. A puzzle with limitless layers. A living, breathing Escher painting with stairs folding into stairs for eternity.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Does he hurt you?” Daddy asks when I finish bandaging him. Leaning back on my heels I consider the question. The emotional ache is almost unbearable, but can that really be on Damon’s shoulders? Is it his fault if I want more of him than he can give? He doesn’t owe me anything. Not like the man in front of me. “You hurt me,” I say gently. He looks away, a familiar expression of shame on his ruddy face. “I’m sorry.” “Daddy.” I wait until he looks at me. “Don’t come back.” The words come out as tender as I can make them, as soft as I feel them. There’s no victory in this moment, only resignation. “You aren’t happy in this city. And you aren’t safe. Leave and don’t come back.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“You know the answer to that, baby genius. Because it was the only way I could help you. And you don’t just mean something to me. You mean everything. Understand? Every goddamn thing.” As if he didn’t just shatter my world and put it back together, he heads upstairs.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Don’t you get it, Penny? I would give you a thousand of those. I’d give you every dollar I have, and then steal even more if that’s what you wanted.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“My life would be so much simpler if I could just fuck one of those women down there. If I could just stop thinking about you for a single goddamn breath. Instead I’ve spent years taking over the fucking city so that I could give it you.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“You keep trying to keep me safe, Damon Scott. No matter what it costs you.” “That’s right. My life means nothing. It hasn’t meant anything since I met a little girl who stole a hundred-dollar bill from my backpack because she was hungry.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I’m not the only person Jonathan Scott has hurt,” I whisper. “You’re the only one he shouldn’t have touched,” he says, voice thick with remorse. “I don’t understand.” “He wanted to create a monster. And he’s good at what he does.” I shake my head. “You did what you had to do to survive.” “I didn’t just survive what he did to me. I thrived in it, understand? I became what he wanted me to be. Fuck, I was already a monster. Coming from that man. Being his son. I can’t escape that.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Let me make this very clear. No other woman has been in this bed. You’re the only one here. The only one I’ve ever wanted here.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“It’s like I’ve been waiting for him my entire life, since I was that six-year-old girl.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“He doesn’t want me. Or he doesn’t want to want me, which almost feels worse.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Damon’s hand on my back doesn’t feel good. It feels like a warning and a prayer. It feels like a thousand volts of lust. There’s no breaking this connection. I can’t imagine wanting to.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Don’t do that,” he says. “What?” “Don’t want me.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I can do whatever I want to her, but that’s nothing compared to what I’ll do to someone who tries to take her away from me.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I realize how sometimes you end up in a web. Not through traps and trickery, but walking right through the front door.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“It’s too unnerving, the way he looks at me. Taking me apart, uncovering every secret with methodical determination. That’s supposed to be my job. It would be better if he yelled at me. This subtle understanding is too much to take.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Does everyone listen to what you say?” “Usually,” he says, his expression wry. “You’re an exception to the rule.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“He studies me as if he can see under my skin, beneath the college student and even the mathematician, all the way to the scared little girl who’s never trusted anyone but him.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Presidents run for office. Dictators steal it. Kings are born, and that’s why it’s the perfect way to describe Damon Scott. He commands any room he enters. He owns the very ground he walks on. And he wears that invisible crown with both pride and resignation, because it’s a bittersweet birthright.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I have been waiting for this man, the illusion of him. Someone who doesn’t exist.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Don’t come back,” he says, his voice grim. “You made it out of here. Let that be enough.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“What did I do to you?” I ask, quiet, in a voice like I’m six years old again. Like I’m speaking to the wild boy I found by the lake, one I lured into my trailer like a wolf. He answers the same way, a surly teenage boy, fierce and vulnerable at once. “You made me care. You made me want, when I needed to leave. You made me feel, when I would have preferred to die. You brought me back to life.” And I condemned him to torture. That’s what happened when he sacrificed himself so that I could stay safe. Two children with so few choices. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“Stop playing with me.” “Why should I?” he says with a soft laugh. “It’s so much fun.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I used to think I understood numbers but not people, logic but not emotions. I know better now. We’re really just equations longing for that other half of us.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“People aren’t equations. I thought I was the one who misunderstood, but it’s Damon who thinks people are the sum of their past.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I’m partial to the chair that Damon Scott used as his throne. And when I sit here, Damon tends not to sit at all. Instead he stands beside me, both above me and below, owning me and owned.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“He leans against the side of the chair, casual and alert. There’s a peace he’s found since Jonathan Scott died in that asylum, but he’s still more wary than normal people. More dangerous and cunning and powerful than normal people. Normalcy is overrated, anyway.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen

“I didn’t save my virginity for him. I saved it for myself. To experience this with a man who loved me, who had the courage to prove it. The way he thrusts inside me is both worship and possession. A private altar at which he can pray.”
― Skye Warren, The Queen