Fortune's Pawn

Never shame your comrades by letting their death get you killed

Cotter leaned forward. "Where do you get off being such a bossy bitch?" I looked him dead in the eyes. "I was born a bossy birch, so you can either roll with it or get rolled over.

Did I pick safety or ambition? The slow and steady or the gamble? I smiled. Put like that, it wasn’t even a question.

But fair warning, being drunk doesn’t slow down my head shots.

Pride, lust, and whiskey are a potent combination.

But at the bottom of the bridge, the seat at the ship’s nose where the pilot usually sat was gone. In its place was what looked like a nest of bright-colored fabric, and sitting in this nest was a very large bird wearing a headset.

If it makes you feel better, though, Basil is the first on my list if we’re ever stranded in deep space and forced to eat one another. Aeons are most delicious.

I am a huge, huge fan of in-your-face, make-no-apologies female badasses.

The day I accepted the symbiont, I thought the only thing left for me in life was my duty, but I was wrong.” He kissed my cheek. “I found you. You’re the bravest, craziest, most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen. When I look at you, I forget that my soul is sold already, that I have no right to feel the happiness I feel around you, to love you like I do.

I was born a bossy bitch, so you can either roll with it or get rolled over.

I tried a few more arguments but eventually gave up. Arguing with Hyrek was like arguing with a dead apple tree—fruitless.

It wasn't just that he was a good kisser (he was), it was everything. The way his fingers clung to mine like I was the only thing holding him down, the way his mouth slid over my body like every inch of me was the most important inch in the universe, the way he whispered my name against my skin like a prayer, his lovely accent rolling the word into something so beautiful I barely recognized it.