“What is it with you and girls, Adrian, dear? Why do they either mean nothing to you or everything? It's always an extreme."
"Because I don't do things in halves, mom. Especially when it comes to love.”
“Ivashkov," she repeated, her face the picture of serenity. "My name is Sydney Ivashkov.”
“Are you in a suit?' I managed at last, my voice choking up. 'You didn’t have to dress up for me.'
'Quiet, Sage,' he said. 'I’ll make the hilarious one-liners during this daring rescue.”
“Sydney Katherine Sage,” he said, his green eyes full of love and earnestness. “Would you do a brooding, deadbeat Moroi the honor of being his wife?”
“Out of old habit, I put my hand on my collarbone, touching a cross that was no longer there.
Don't let them change me, I prayed silently.Let me keep my mind. Let me endure whatever there is to come.”
“Dad,” I said quietly, “I’ve always made it a rule in my life not to pick fights with children, cute animals, or ignorant old men. I will, however, make an exception for you if you ever touch or insult my wife again.”
“I know what love is, Mom. I’ve had love that burns in every fiber of my being, that drives me to be a better person and empowers me through each moment of the day. If you’d ever had something like that, you’d hold on to it with every bit of strength you had.”
“I took a deep breath and said: “I fell in love with a vampire.”
And like that, I was blinded by light.”
“Until now, you have always lived your life alone. Every decision you’ve made has been for you and you alone. Now, and for the rest of your days, your life will be tied to another’s. Every decision you make will be for both of you. What one does affects the other. You are a family, a team … inseparable and unbreakable.”
“Everything I’d fought for, every challenge, every victory … all of it was empty if anything happened to him. Without him, I wouldn’t have had the courage to become the person I was. Without him, I wouldn’t have realized what it truly was to live and love life. Centrum permanebit. He was my center, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do, nothing I wouldn’t give up, to keep him safe.”
“I followed along because really, it was hard to say no to Dimitri Belikov about anything.”
“You’re better than this, Adrian. Whatever the reason, you’re better than it. Don’t trick yourself into thinking you’re weaker than you are”
“But with Sydney... with Sydney, I'd had it all- And lost it all. Love, understanding, respect. The sense that we'd both become better people because of each other and could take on anything so long as we were together. Only we weren't together anymore. They'd ripped us apart, and I didn't know what was going to happen now.”
“Not what you expected, huh?” she asked in a sad voice.
I wrapped a towel around her and drew her close to me. “I expected to see the most beautiful woman in the world, to feel my heart skip a beat in her presence, and to want to carry her off to bed for a night neither of us will forget. So to answer your question, I got exactly what I expected.”
A smile split her face, and she leaned into me. “Oh, Adrian.”
“It's a fact that people are afraid of what they don't understand. And most are too lazy or ignorant to find out more.”
“Oh, man. You’re him. The cute and brooding vampire boyfriend.”
“She said I was cute and brooding?” I asked. “Never mind. Why can’t I reach her? Where is she?”
“I knew I sounded hysterical, and Adrian’s calmness only drove that home. “I think I have an idea,” he said. “An idea that’ll get us some hardcore protection … but I don’t know how you’ll feel about it.”
“I’m open to anything,” I assured him.
He hesitated a moment and gave a decisive nod. Then, to my complete and utter astonishment, he got down on his knees before me and clasped my hands in his. “Sydney Katherine Sage,” he said, his green eyes full of love and earnestness. “Would you do a brooding, deadbeat Moroi the honor of being his wife?”
“Do you know where to find a party or something?”
“I’m Adrian Ivashkov,” I declared. “The parties find me.”
“Adrian, we hashed this out! Everything's gone perfectly until now. Why would you even think about deviating from the plan?'
'Um, because that's how we roll?”
“As amusing as it was to see him lovestruck, we had to stay on track. I snapped my fingers in front of Marcus's face. "Focus," I said.”
“He is really cute,” I admitted, curious as to how many girls like me this guy had met.
He shook his head in amusement as he worked on his painting. “Of course. I guess he’d have to be for you to risk so much, huh? Alchemists never fall for the Moroi who aren’t cute and brooding.”
“I never said he was brooding.”
“He’s a ‘really cute’ vampire who paints. Are you saying he doesn’t brood?”
I felt my cheeks flush a little. “He broods a little. Okay … a lot.”
“Because I don’t do things in halves, Mom. Especially when it comes to love.”
“Insane is such an ugly word, a voice in my head said. Think of it as obtaining a new look at reality.”
“What in the world is this abomination?”
Lissa, only slightly more tactful, asked, “Adrian, is this some kind of joke?”
“Darling" she said with a small laugh "Love doesn’t have anything to do with this."
"It has very thing to do with it!" I exclaimed.”
“Lissa looked taken aback, but Jared Sage—my father-in-law now, I realized―showed nothing but contempt. 'This is ridiculous. Humans and Moroi can't be married. That's your way, as well as ours. This isn’t a real marriage.'
'Not according to the state of Nevada,' I said cheerfully. 'We’ve got the paperwork to prove it. Get us a laptop, and we can all look at the wedding pictures together.”
“Adrian.
He was the reason I was able to survive in this prison.
And he was also the reason I was here in the first place.”
“Plus it'll give you a chance to get us a wedding present. We're not registered anywhere, but we could seriously use some china and a blender.”
“We fell into silence, both of us keeping our own secrets of what we'd suffered in the other's absence. I wondered if we were trying to protect each other or simply didn't want to admit to our own fears and weaknesses.”
“You picked a lemon, throw it away lemonade is overrated. Freaks should remain at the circus, not in your apartment. You already have one asshole. You don’t need another. Make a space in your life for the glorious things you deserve. Have faith.”
“Her expression is from Page 18 of the Victoria's Secret catalogue.”
“Dogs can never speak the language of humans, and humans can never speak the language of dogs. But many dogs can understand almost every word humans say, while humans seldom learn to recognize more than half a dozen barks, if that. And barks are only a small part of the dog language. A wagging tail can mean so many things. Humans know that it means a dog is pleased, but not what a dog is saying about his pleasedness. (Really, it is very clever of humans to understand a wagging tail at all, as they have no tails of their own.) Then there are the snufflings and sniffings, the pricking of ears—all meaning different things. And many, many words are expressed by a dog’s eyes.”
“My beloved, you have chosen me. You have been courted by my adversary, and you have chosen me. You have answered my call to the Circle, and today I call you my bride.”
“You are missing a key element to the story. Maybe the moral of the legend is that we are all carved, created, and formed by a master hand. Maybe we are all works of art.”
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