Heaven's Queen

​"If I was afraid of dying, I couldn't do half the shit I do." I told him.

I didn’t often get to take the moral high ground. I was a mercenary, a killer for hire, and I made no apologies or excuses for how I lived my life. But while my hands would never be clean, I had honor.

But if you think there’s a man anywhere who can make me do anything I don’t want to do, you haven’t been paying attention.

The place had clearly been terraformed within an inch of its life; there was just no other way continents ended up perfectly square.

If we bend and adapt, work with rather than against, we might discover that the wall we perceive at our backs is actually a foundation for something else entirely

For it is only through surrender to that which we cannot change that we free ourselves from the illusion of control and, in doing so, find true peace.

The weakness he’d opened in me was here to stay no matter what, so why not enjoy the fall?

The feel of his lips sent a chill through me, because this was the second time today that a man had kissed my fingers and asked for something. Unlike Anthony’s, though, Rupert’s plea got through to me, because he wasn’t asking for something I couldn’t give. Where Anthony had demanded I come home and come to my senses, Rupert had admitted he had no control over my decisions and was simply asking for the chance to help. In those few words, he’d proven he understood me better than my lover of seven years, and after so long fighting alone in unknown territory, the idea of having someone at my back who just wanted to support me, even if he didn’t agree, sounded very nice indeed.

That's why I love you, brave girl," he whispered. "Because I know without a doubt that your path is the right one, and now that you've given me the courage to walk it with you, no one, not the Eyes or Caldswell or the Sacred King himself, will ever put me from it. Or from you, Devi Morris" - he smiled wide against my hair - "the one who gave me back my life.

From the moment you found out the truth, you've been fighting for everything I always knew I should but was too afraid to reach for before I met you. That's how I know you're the one who can stop the abuse we perpetrated over seventy years of well-intentioned cruelty. Not because of the virus, but because you are too stubborn and proud to settle for anything else.

You want to protect me?" I said sharply. "Then stay here and help me see this through. That's what I need from you, not some self-sacrificing bull about leaving me for my own safety. You were the one who promised I wouldn't have to do this alone, right? So prove it. Stay with me." I tilted my head back, smiling at him. "Please?

Let me help you," he whispered, leaning down to kiss my fingers. "Do it out of pity for a worry-prone man who goes out of his mind when you're not with him. Just please, for my sake, let me be of service. Let me help you.

Because I love you...And even though you drive me mad with worry, I wouldn't change a thing. I can't anyway. Anyone who thinks they can push you around is either stupid or crazy.