Karen Chance Quotes

And then I got to my feet and stumbled toward the door again. And got halfway there before I realized I was naked. Of course I am, I thought angrily, and went back to the bed for a sheet. God forbid I actually wake up dressed anymore.

Once upon a time, when I was a child reading fairy tales, I'd ached to have my own adventures. Not that I'd wanted to be some dippy heroine languishing in a tower, awaiting rescue. No, I'd wanted to be the knight, charging into battle against overwhelming odds, or the plucky country lass who gets taken on as an apprentice to a great wizard. As I got older, I'd found out the hard way that adventures are rarely anything like the books say. Half the time you are scared out of your mind, and the rest you're bored and your feet hurt. I was beginning to believe that maybe I wasn't the adventurous type.

I looked up to find a slim blond figure standing in the doorway to the kitchen. For a frozen second, I looked at him and he looked at me, and then I screamed and threw my coffee, which hit him square in the groin.

He didn't take his eyes off me, as if he'd like to see my head mounted on his wall over a sign reading PROBLEM SOLVED.

They were too cold and there was no lime, but today was obviously about hardships.

There are a thousand ways to die," he told me quietly. "There are so few really to live. I would gladly risk the former for the latter, and it is my choice, is it not? To risk whatever I must, my heart, my body, my soul, in order to be with you. Is that not what love is? – Louis-Cesare

Thank you, Captain Obvious."
"I'm on the Senate," he reminded me. "It's Lord Obvious.

"I'm on" title="Karen Chance Quotes: Thank you, Captain Obvious."
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When we'd started working together, I'd assumed it would be a question of putting up with Pritkin; then suddenly the stupid hair was making me smile, and the sporadic heroics were making my heart jump and the constant bitching had me wanting to kiss him quiet.

This was Dante's. Crazy was what we had for breakfast when we ran out of Corn Flakes

Then why are you getting dressed?" "Maybe I don't like being the only naked one in the room," I said sarcastically. And immediately regretted it. "That is easily remedied," he told me, and pulled off his sweater.

I don't know. Just pick one." "Well, there's a lot of choice. I mean, you got your flavored, your ridged, your pre-lubed, your thin, your super-ultra-thin, your super-ultra-thin-pre-lubed, your ... Huh."
"Huh what?" "Would you look at this?" he asked, examining a small box.
"It says it glows in the dark.

Look," I said, trying to reason with him despite extensive experience that this rarely worked. "This isn't a great time. I have my inauguration - "
"Coronation."
" - coming up,

Can we just do this?" Ray asked tightly, clinging to Zheng's already slightly elongated arm. Because Louis-Cesare wasn't the only one with a master power around here.
"Let go," Zheng told him. "I'm the rubber band; you're the spitball. And spitballs don't hold on to rubber bands."
"Die in a fire," Ray told him savagely. But he let go.

No, Miss Palmer. What is bizarre is that I currently have a vagina.

For once, fate us taking a problem off our hands gratis. Let's smile, say thank you and stay the hell out of it!

Any day that starts off in a demon-filled bar in a casino designed to look like Hell isn't likely to turn out well.

Aw, fudge,' floated down to me, as a couple of golden eyes peered over a third-floor window ledge. 'You're a freaking dhampir. Why are you reading Tolkien?'
I shrugged, then had to dodge the potted geranium he threw at me. 'After five hundred years, you've read just about everything. Besides, he had hella world-building skills.

I quote Tolkien because he puts it better. But I can still open a can of whup ass all over you."
You're right," I told him. "He does put it better.

I have to fix this," I told him, as clearly and calmly as I could. "If you want to help me, then help me. Don't shield me, don't protect me, don't bury me alive. Help me .

Start ringing things up then. This won't take long."
"Which ones?"
"I don't care." I push some at her. "These."
"These?" She looked dubious.
"Why not these?"
She glanced at Ray. "'Cause if that's your man, I'd say you can leave these off."
"Oh, no, you didn't." Ray said.
"What's this shit?" Ray demanded, looking at the saleclerk.
"Honey, truth hurts, but ain't no way you're a Magnum."
"Well, I ain't no medium!"
The clerk smiled. "Yeah, but I was being generous."
"What are you doing?" The clerk demanded as Ray grabbed another box. "I ain't rung those up yet."
Ray pulled out a foil package and tossed the box back on the counter. "So ring it up."
She arched an eyebrow, but didn't bother, maybe because she was watching him unbutton his fly. I caught his wrist. "What are you doing?"
"Proving a point."
"Not in the middle of the store, you're not."
"Ain't nobody here," the cashier reminded me. "And ain't no way he's filling that thing out.

Where. Is. He?" Alphonse repeated, although it sounded more like "Don't make me eat your face.

I leaned back in my chair, stretching luxuriantly, delibrately letting my jacket fall open. Predictably, his eyes moved down my body-some things outlast even the change. I grinned and he looked away, a rueful smile twitching at his lips. I finished breakfast in peace.

I'm trying to remember all the reasons you are indispensable and can't be killed slowly and painfully.

Mr. Complete Lack of Sympathy

They don't eat that much."
"In comparison to what? Starving marines?

We're going jogging."
"I don't run for recreation. I run when someone's after me with a weapon."
"That can be arranged,

"I don't run" title="Karen Chance Quotes: We're going jogging."
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Kiss me....Cassie....Like you mean it.

Country is based on folk music, which has been around for centuries - "
"So has the plague.

My sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, all the time pain in the ass.

You'll be all right, Cassie."
"No! I won't be! I need you-"
"Why? What can I give you that others can't?"
"What?"
Green eyes suddenly burned into mine. "It's a simple question. You said you need me. Why?"
"I-I told you. This job-"
"Which you're handling admirably."
"I am not! I couldn't even get to my parents without help!"
"There are other demon experts-Jonas for one."
"But I need you!"
(...)
"Then give me a reason."
"I...there's so many-"
"Name one."
"I can name a hundred-"
"I didn't ask for a hundred; I asked for one. And you can't give it to me."
"Yes, I can!"
"Then do it!"
"I..." I stared at him, because he looked like there was a lot riding on my answer. Maybe everything.

I didn't really want to talk. I'd wanted him there, but I asn't sure why. Maybe just to have someone to drink with. Actually, that sounded pretty good at the moment. I sat on the seat of the chaise and he sat on the foot, and we just drank at each other for a while.
After a few minutes, he leaned back against the railing, like maybe he wanted a backrest, and I shifted my feet over to make room. But I guess I didn't shift far enough, because a large, warm hand covered my right foot, adjusting it slightly. And then it just stayed there, like he'd forgotten to remove it.
I looked at it. Pritkin's hands were oddly refined compared to the rest of him: strong but long fingered, with elegant bones and short-clipped nails. They always looked like they'd wandered off from some fine gentleman, one they'd probably like to get back to, because God knew they weren't getting a manicure while attached to him.

They'll have to eat first. And by the time they're finished, you'll be back."
"With the condoms." "Right." "For the giant orgy you're convinced we're about to have in the backyard."
"Dory! Just go!" "I'll go with," Ray said, getting up. "I need a snack." Which was how I ended up condom shopping with a vampire.

We were obviously going to have to have a talk about the difference between "maintaining security" and "being a dick.

A courteous war mage. The world really was coming to an end.
And then Pritkin ran back around the corner followed by half a dozen groggy people. He glanced at the cells that still had to be emptied. "You aren't done yet?" he demanded.
The world righted itself.

You love me?"
He just looked at me for a moment. And then he reared back his head and laughed, a rich, mellow sound, unreserved and unashamed. " No, not at all. I regularly battle gods for women I dislike!

He just looked" title="Karen Chance Quotes: You love me?"
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You can take him!" Ray whispered in my ear.
"Damn straight."
The next thing I remember, Ray was fishing me out from under the table. Or, at least, he was trying to, but Scarface's foot was in the way. "On. Her. Ass," Scarface said proudly.
"She just slipped," Ray said, sounding frantic. "Anybody could slip. She's fine!

Pritkin muttered something that sounded fairly vicious. "My clothes are warded! Even if I wished to accede to your demand, it would not work on them."
"Then strip."
"I beg your pardon?" He sounded almost polite suddenly, as if he believed he couldn't possibly have heard right.

I didn't eat."
"What difference does that make?"
"I'm not like you. I can't recharge by feeding off someone. I need food."
"I know that! When was the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday."
"Yester
why the hell didn't you eat?"
"We had to go buy condoms, remember?"
"And you couldn't grab a sandwich on the way out?" he said hysterically. "I'm gonna die because you couldn't grab a sandwich?

"What difference does" title="Karen Chance Quotes: I didn't eat."
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And even then, it's not like you did all that much," I said, talking over him, because it was the only way to get a word in edgeways with Pritkin sometimes.
He had filched the bottle back to take a drink, but at that he lowered it and looked at me, his eyes very green next to the amber liquor. "What?"
"I just meant, it wasn't all that and a bag of chips. You know?"
He blinked at me.
"No offense," I added, because he was looking kind of poleaxed. Like maybe he hadn't had a whole lot of complaints before. Which was, frankly, pretty damn understandable. But I feigned indifference. "I mean, it couldn't have been that bad if -"
"Bad?"
"Well, not bad bad."
He just looked at me.
"I mean, I came and everything, so that has to count for some -"
I cut off because I was suddenly enveloped in a strong pair of arms, and my head was crushed to a hard chest. A chest that appeared to be vibrating. It took me a few moments to get it, and even then I wasn't so sure, because Pritkin's face was buried in my hair. But I kind of thought - as impossible as it seemed - that he might be ... laughing?

A legend is merely a history man decided to bugger.

Mircea must have heard us come in, but he continued what he was doing.
He stood with his back to us, the candlelight on his bare skin causing his muscles to fall into sharp relief. He'd washed the river gunk out of his hair and now he threw it back, the water droplets shimmering in the light. The scene looked for all the world like a really good romance novel cover.

I see you.
You always did, I thought, watching sparks dance in his eyes.

I hadn't realized how much I'd relied on his scowls or his shrugs or his grudging looks of approval to help me figure something out-until they weren't there anymore. Or how I could talk to some people about a lot of things but only to him about everything. And how unbelievably valuable that was.

So I guess this makes me your sidekick, right?" he asked. "Like I could be ... " "Robin?"
He scowled. "I ain't no Robin."
"What's wrong with Robin?"
"What's wrong?" Ray rolled his eyes. "Two words: green Speedo. And he was lame. Batman was always having to save his ass." I didn't say anything.

Believe me, dulceață, the advent of the mini is forever emblazoned on my mind.

And I just couldn't take it anymore. I closed the distance between us, slammed him back against the chair and kissed him, holding his head still with both my hands buried in that stupid, stupid hair. I half expected more resistance, because Pritkin had never met an argument he didn't like. So it was a shock when he ran his hands down my sides, cupped my hips and slid us both to the floor.
"I'm going straight to hell for this," he muttered.
"At least you'll know a lot of people," I said breathlessly.

And that was despite the fact that she wasn't really here. I could see stars through her on the other side, although she wasn't a ghost. I knew ghosts. It was more like she was on an intertemporal version of Skype.

How did you hear about that?' 'Are you kidding me? So far, I had that runt Kyle-' 'I hate him. I hate all vamps. That complete toad, Michael-' '-tell me you were pregnant by a vamp-' 'kidnnaped me and-Kyle said WHAT?' 'and then a member of the Domi shows up and informs me-' 'The Domi sent someone HERE?' '-that you're actually pregnant by the late king of the Fey.' 'Late?!' Heidar squeaked.

What bug crawled up your ass?" I demanded.
"If you mean, why I am upset? I should think that would be obvious!"
It took me a second, but I got it. "Oh, come on. You're not still pissed about–you did the same damn thing to me!"
He had the utter gall to look offended. "I did nothing of the sort–"
I stared at him. "And just how do you figure that? You stripped me butt naked, diddled me over a desk and stole my duffel bag. And my clothes!"
Somebody made a choking sound. I glanced up to find the door to the study open, and the old vamp looking scandalized. "Diddled?" Anthony asked, apparently delighted. Mircea closed his eyes.

Louis-Cesare looked pained. Ray was even dirtier than I was, and his bright red briefs had gotten a tear across the butt at some point, flashing a glimpse of hairy cheek whenever he moved. An awesome trophy he was not.

Tony wanted to kill me, the Senate wanted to make me their stooge, and, oh, yeah, I'd also managed to piss off the mages. What can I say? I'm an overachiever.

Louis-Cesare and Ray were in trouble.
I could tell because I could see them, not clearly, but in fits and starts, little glimmers like a couple of ghosts, if ghosts made "oh shit" faces on the one hand agitated French gestures on the other. And that sort of shit wasn't going to go unnoticed for long.
Aaaaand it didn't.

But you were Mine. My child. And I would not give you up.

I wasn't entirely sure, but a polite John Pritkin might be a sign of the apocalypse.

Because the next moment, when I was hauled out from under the bed and up to a pair of so-familiar green eyes, I just hung there limply. And stared. At a face that was hard to look at. Not that it was unattractive. There had been a time when I'd thought so-the overlarge nose, the hard-as-glass eyes, the I-couldn't-be-bothered-to-shave-today-and-possibly-not-yesterday-either stubble didn't exactly spell out movie-star good looks. But there was a lot more to John Pritkin than looks, although even there I'd started to come around recently. The strong, stubborn jawline, the rock-hard body, and the flashes of humor behind the taciturn expression-hell, even the rigid blond spikes he called hair might not add up to handsome, but they added up to something. Something that might have been disturbing if I hadn't had plenty of other things to disturb me right now.

Is there anyone in this apartment who hasn't seen me naked?" I demanded, grabbing the sheet and the phone.
"I genuinely hope so, Cassandra.

This is getting surreal," Marlowe murmured. "Even for this place."
"Cassie is here-mentally," Mircea told him.
"I gathered that."
"She seems to find it difficult to understand why I do not wish to have her in my head, unannounced, any time she pleases
"
Marlowe gave a bark of a laugh. "Oh this should be fun.

You know, I was gutting this loser the other day, and I thought, It'd be more fun fighting that little dhampir. I wonder if she's recovered yet. And here you are."
"Lucky me," I said.
Scarface grinned. "You know, I might even let you live. You're funny.

There are things we want, and things we may have ... Sanity lies in knowing the difference.

I keep hitting [Escape], but I'm still here!
Unknown, but used by Karen Chance in Hunt the Moon

Forgive me, Cassie, but Jonas Marsden is hardly an example of well-adjusted behavior!

Pritkin and Mircea mixed like oil and water, only not so well.

There was a time when you trusted me with your life!"
"And there was a time when you used your brain instead of blindly following orders,

How the hell do you think I feel?" I don't want to end up inside a woman!" He paused. "Well, at least not that way

I did have regrets these past six months," he told me quietly. "I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you ...

It's about time! It's supposed to be a ritual, not a marathon.

I looked up, but had to crane my head back, leaving the features above me wrong-side up. The clear green eyes were the same, and, unfortunately, so was the spiky blond hair. It didn't look any better from this angle, I decided.

Prevarication, how divine! I always did get along better with sinners.

He's stupid about you," Ray said, glaring at me. "And you're stupid about him. You're both stupid about each other, which would be great if you weren't also really fucking stupid - " "Ray."
" - and can't see it. That's all. That's all I'm saying.

He had all the self-preservation instincts of a bug near a shiny windshield.

Round-the-clock security meant that some of them got stuck on the day shift, which was hard on vampires. At least I assumed that was why, after a week or two, they started looking a little peaked.

Nobody said anything that time. Or maybe I just wasn't listening. After all, someone had to keep an eye on the fridge.

I tossed it on a pile with the coat, my stiff-with-cold jeans and the expensive scrap of silk that had been wedged up my ass for the past half hour.

You look furious," Pritkin said, watching me.
"I just - I can't understand not fighting for your life - for what you want. Just giving up - "
A corner of his mouth quirked. "No. You would not understand that. You never stop trying, do you?"
"What else is there?"
"Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. Depression."
"But those don't get you anywhere."
He huffed out something that might have been a laugh, only it didn't sound happy. "No. They don't.

I lay there, no longer fighting, since my head was spinning too much. And because I wasn't going to win anyway. And because I kind of liked the feeling of sensual captivity, at least by this particular jailer.

Alejandro, who thought he was a wit. And he was, if you put a "nit" in front of it,

I looked him over for a second and suddenly it clicked. "Still want me to be mean to you?"
His eyes widened. "Yeah?"
"Well, come on then."
A minute later I had an oversized T-shirt that worked as a dress, a belt to shove my weapons into and a too-large leather jacket to toss over it all. I slammed out into the hall, leaving the guy tied to the desk chair by his underwear. Judging by his expression, he'd just leaned a valuable lesson about screwing with strange women.

Think you can maybe not die for five minutes?"
"I'll try,"I told him seriously.
"You know, if anyone else said that, it would be funny.

I couldn't see Pritkin's face very well, just a pale blur against the shadows, but he didn't sound happy. Some people thought he had only one mode ... pissed off. In reality, he had plenty of them. Over the past few weeks, I'd learned to tell the difference between real pissed off, impatient pissed off and scared pissed off. I suspected that this was the last kind. If so, that made two of us.

My tried-and-true philosophy of keeping people at a distance was taking a beating lately. It wasn't working so well with Mircea, and Pritkin had somehow bulldozed past every defense I had before I'd even noticed. I still wasn't sure how he'd done it.
He wasn't that good-looking, he had the social skills of a wet cat and the patience of a caffeinated hummingbird. In between crazy stunts and, okay, saving my life, he was just really annoying. When we'd started working together, I'd assumed it would be a question of putting up with Pritkin; then suddenly the stupid hair was making me smile, and the sporadic heroics were making my heart jump and the constant bitching had me wanting to kiss him quiet. And now I cared more than was good for me.

Pemphredo had been about to crawl off, but at that she came back and settled down, brushing off her filthy shorts. Deino crossed her legs. Enyo stopped picking at her fingernails with a knife and put it politely away. I kind of felt like I should be serving tea.

You know, dulceata, there are times when I truly believe you are the most frightening person I know.
Thank you?

The result was enough noise to wake the dead, one of whom started hammering on the bathroom door.
Miss Palmer. Are you all right?

Don't give me some stupid lecture about war when the person we're talking about losing is you!" I said, surprised by the savagery in my tone. At least my voice didn't shake.
His face blurred and I tasted salt on my lips. It was warm, warm like Pritkin's hands coming up and framing my face, his thumbs brushing over my eyelids, soft as his fingers in my hair. "One person is not so important in the scheme of things", he said, and his voice was gentle, gentle when it never was, and that almost broke me.
But you are important, I thought. And yet he couldn't see that. In Pritkin's mind, he was an experiment gone wrong, a child cast out, a man valued by his peers only for his ability to kill the things they feared. Just once, I wished he could see what I did.
"Then neither is this", I said, leaning in and pressing my mouth to his, the kiss lightened by desperation and weighted down by everything he meant to me.

I was the kind of gal who thought the nightgown drawer was where old T-shirts went to die and

The getup, sort of mad scientist meets Rambo, would have made me smile, except that I believe in showing respect for someone carrying that much hardware.

Pritkin might be a hostile son of a bitch, but he was a damn good guy to have in a fight.

Great. I'd been dumped in Hell's waiting room.

All I want to know is why a party of Fey wanted to kill me," I said
heatedly.
The beetle's lips twisted enough to show fang. "Doesn't everyone?"
Radu hustled me out the door before I could find out if the vamp's plump
little carcass would fit into his overstuffed desk.

My nerves needed a break, not a reminder of how much trouble we were in. I prowled around, but it didn't help. I still felt like my skin was on too tight.

Mircea leaned over to refill my wineglass, and a section of his bare chest showed under the robe, along with a hint of dusky nipple. It's a good thing I'm too stuffed to move, I thought hazily. I would so have jumped that.

I'm beginning to sense a theme," Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. "I believe there is only one thing to say at this point."
What's that?"
Yee haw," he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf.

I lay in the middle of an orgy-sized bed without the orgy, or anybody for company except a butterfly flirting with the sheers over the window.

I'm driving," Louis-Cesare said, sliding into the low seat as easily as if he'd done it a hundred times. "You're drunk."
I wished. "I had all of two beers, mostly for the water content."
"If you needed water, why didn't you drink water?"
"I don't like water.

Pritkin looked surprised, the way he always did at the idea that anyone might actually care about him.

Dory mentally added another grand to the tally sheet for this job as a heat tax. And then another for the mosquitoes. And what the hell, a third for the freaking smell,

Huh."
"Huh what?"
"Would you look at this?" he asked, examining a small box. "It says it glows in the dark."
"So?"
"So, what use is that to anybody? I mean, what am I supposed to do? Write her name in
the air with it?

"Huh what?"
"Would you look at" title="Karen Chance Quotes: Huh."
"Huh what?"
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I glanced at Radu. "What, exactly is Louis-Cesare's problem?'. [..]
Suddenly a speculative gleam lit his eyes. It made me nervous. 'He tends to be very protective of women,"he said thoughtfully. "You're a woman Dory."
"Thank you for pointing that out. But I didn't think dhampirs qualified."
Radu smirked. "It appears you've been upgraded.

There was some sort of commotion going on outside, and I decided I'd had enough. I went to the door and stuck my head out. Marco was gasping for breath on the sofa, and two of the guards were bent over a cell phone.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"Trying to record this," the smart-ass from the shopping trip told me. "Nobody is going to believe us otherwise."
"Well, cut it out. It isn't funny!"
"On what planet?"
I glared at him, which did no good,because he simply went back to to tinkering with the phone. So I looked at Marco. "Can't you do anything with them?"
Marco flopped a hand at me, tears streaming down his reddened cheeks, and tried to say something. But all that came out for several moments were asthmatic wheezes. I bent over his prone form, starting to worry about him, and he put a hand on my neck and pulled me down.
" It ... is ... funny," he gasped.

I'd been declared - over my loud and sustained protests - Pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world.