Taming the Wolves Quotes

“She is both things. The terrifying goddess and the uncertain, frightened girl. How can a woman manage to be both? How does she manage it in her head?”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“She hurts me now as a girl who hurts the boy she lead on with smiles and kisses. I will hurt her as a conqueror might.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“I never wanted to use you,” she insists through a tight throat. “The nights we spent together… I wanted to share myself with you. I wanted to take care of you. That’s how I saw it.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Somewhere along the way, I must’ve let myself nurture some foolish hope. I let myself get lulled by the impression that there was something more between us. That’s why it hurt when she ran. I thought I was being strict and orderly, when in actual fact I started believing she was mine in more ways than just my ward. I started believing she cared for me.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“But I must remain seated. The custom is for my closest kin to dance with her, have her enjoy the ceremony before I take her for myself. And my role is to watch. Sit and watch. No touching. What utter cruelty. Who thought of this, anyway?”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“I’m growing steadily more panicked as we follow my Cathalain guardians. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. I’m just going out to the gardens, where Thrain awaits me with his brothers and the Dubliners. Our pack. Then, after some dancing and drink and merriment… we will be led naturally into the claiming. That’s all. It’s going to be like a ritual ceremony. Not a mindless orgy. A ceremony.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Ivar scoffs at that. “I for one cannot wait to see you propose this to him,” he says. “Prince Olaf, the apple of his father’s eye… absolutely shitting on all his plans.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“But this will complicate your siege,” she insists. “Why aren’t you angry with me?” Her defensiveness makes me want to take her hand, let the shimmer reassure her, let her know that I am on her side. Truly on her side, this time. The enormity of this realisation has been sitting in me, weighing on my guts. “You claimed us as pack, princess,” I tell her. “Pack protects their own.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Ivar ignores his elder brother and turns to me. “Were you lucid, Thrain? Did she command you to go riding out into the forest at midnight?” “She did not need to command me,” I grunt. “I do all manner of stupid things whilst being perfectly lucid, as you know.” Ivar laughs at that. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“They shout now to recover their pride: “Go back to your cursed men, whore!” “Only the devil would have you anyway!” She yells right back, “When you die I will shit on your graves!”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Gradually the perimetre collapses now that Alsvithr has been tamed, the Vikings going back to their own preparations. The Alban captains call sarcastically from their side of the courtyard – what’s the body count over there? – and the Vikings call back in good cheer.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Tamsin.” God, the sound of my name in his mouth, the way he makes a wanton sigh of it – “You only asked me for release.” “Well I was an idiot.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“You are the ones who came looking for us,” I hiss at him. “Now that you’ve found us, are you regretting that we have mouths and hands that can grasp you as you grasp us?” That growl is building to bestial ferocity in his chest as I hold onto his wrists, fingers digging into his warm skin, displacing the beaded bracelets he wears.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“I push myself up. It must be approaching midnight if I’m getting this mad and desperate and groggy. But it’s such a relief to consider getting out of here and going where the people are. Maybe I could just… just take a look.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“I’m your guardian,” I tell her instead. “It would be best if we did not complicate the relationship.” She affords me a wry smile. “You say that as if it weren’t complicated already.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Never thought I’d hear those words from Thrain Mordsson,” she says. I stand a little straighter still. “I never thought I’d speak them to a Briton princess. But here we are.” “Yes,” she murmurs wonderingly. “Here we are.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Why not? You said it yourself. Tamsin is your ward. You aren’t courting her.” He asks it as though he already knows the answer, as though he just wants to wheedle it out of me. The admittance that I want her with every fibre of my being. I stare up at the stars, wishing sleep would take me so I could stop thinking about this. Even with my rut crushed to naught by the drink, my mind keeps coming back around to her. I mutter the words into my horn as I drain the last drops: “I don’t want to dull the memory of her.” Olaf says nothing. Then he lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it in companionable silence. CHAPTER EIGHT THRAIN”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves

“Looking up, I find a wooden cross set high on the far wall of the chapel. The words from countless catechisms press into my mind as though God Himself were reminding me of them. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee. Except my husband lies underneath the cross, his innards strewn hither and thither in buckets and pots, because I willed it so.”
― Lyx Robinson, Taming the Wolves