Brenna Quotes

Then I almost pity Judd." Leaning in, she whispered, "Make him uncomfortable. Don't take no for an answer. Push. Push him until he loses control. Remember, fire melts ice."
Brenna looked into those eerie night-sky eyes as Faith drew back. "Could be a dangerous game."
"You don't seem to be the kind of woman content with safe and easy."
"No." She also wasn't the kind of woman who gave up at the first obstacle. Judd might be categorically Psy, but she was a SnowDancer. ~ Nalini Singh

I had only to remember that centuries before, men fell in battle for the daughter of Troy, that passions carried greater weight than decorum. It took so little to prove that human life and property are devastatingly temporary. All she had to do was lie down for a prince. They burned the city to the ground. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

You're terribly selfish, you know. I've loved you so long, and it was never dear or precious to you. I might as well have not loved you at all. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

You asked me about love. I don't know about love, Daphne. I just know I don't want anything but you. I don't want to be anywhere but with you. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

just so you remember
trauma knows exactly where you live --
who do you think built the house? ~ Brenna Twohy

They never see what you are." Shocked, Jude glanced around to see who'd spoken, then realized she had.
"Don't they?" Brenna wanted to know, lifting her brow as she topped off Jude's glass yet again.
"They see a reflection of their own perception. Whore or angel, mother or child. Depending on their view, they're compelled to protect or conquer or exploit. Or you're a convenience," she murmured.
"Easily discarded. ~ Nora Roberts

A tear streaked down her face. I love you.
You're mine.
She laughed at the possessive tone. I've always been yours ... ~ Nalini Singh

Brenna Kelly, meet Alice Price-Healy. Grandma, meet Breanna. No one is shooting, stabbing or immolating anyone in this hotel room."
"Please," added Dominic. "I have to sleep here."
"HAIL!" Rejoiced the mice. "HAIL THE LACK OF STABBING, SHOOTING AND FLAME! ~ Seanan McGuire

Sweetheart, you have to get some sleep. The doctor said you needed to rest, that your body was still flushing that drug out of your system."
Eli said nothing for a moment. "You called me 'sweetheart.'"
"I did?"
"Did you mean it? Cause here's the thing, sugar. You turned my world upside down. I've never been so scared in my life as when I realized Scarlett Group had taken you. I was afraid I wouldn't have the chance to tell you how much I love you."
"Oh, Eli." Tears filled her eyes. Her handsome Navy SEAL loved her enough that he was laying his heart on the line without having a clue she felt the same way about him.. An act of courage from the man staring at her with a wary gaze.
"We haven't known each other long. If it's too soon for you to know how you feel about me, I'll wait. Just know you own my heart, Brenna. I want to marry you and someday watch you rock my children."
She laid her hand over his mouth, stemming the tidal wave of words. "Eli, you don't have to wait."
"I don't?"
"I'm a romance writer, my love. Happy endings are my stock in trade. Without you in my life, I wouldn't have a happy ending because I love you, too, Eli. And, yes, I will marry you." "Soon?"
"The sooner, the better. ~ Rebecca Deel

Thinking of this friend I had. This friend I loved and keep loving
dead, but never really gone. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Our whole lives, it was like we were always trying so hard to be perfect - for our families and our friends, for each other - when the funny thing was, we didn't have to. In the end, we were better than that. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

What if I still don't like you?"
"You don't have to like me. You just have to like what I want to do to you. ~ Brenna Aubrey

When I was your age, I would go to plays all the time, just sit in the darkness and try to take it all in inside me. Contain everything in some corner of my heart so that when I had my shot, it could all come pouring out - all the lights and moments and colour. ~ Brenna Ehrlich

What's up?' he said, like the church was always burning down and I always called him on a school night, telling him to come over after dark and bring a shovel. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Love isn't perfect, it isn't always beautiful, and most times it just flat out hurts like hell. But if you're lucky enough to find someone to share in that level of pain with you, then you should count yourself a lucky girl. ~ Brenna Aubrey

Sometimes it doesn't matter how dark the world gets. You can be saved by the smallest thing. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I was too little to think a miracle could be anything but good. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

As always, when she needed God most, He chose to ignore her. ~ Cynthia Wicklund

Sid rolled her eyes. "You need to see more movies, Apes. You read too much." "There's no such thing as reading too much! ~ Brenna Aubrey

We lay on the grass beside the cemetery fence, kissing and shivering. Her teeth started to chatter and I pulled her against me, which made me feel like a superhero for no apparent reason. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Golden tongues of fire licked the night-sky, lighting up Brenna's ancient sky-line in terrible beauty. The wizard and his young companion watched the flames devour the city like a hungry beast. The knowledge they had only barely escaped from the Morg's clutches did not fill them with relief but a sense of burgeoning panic – the sacking of Brenna was only a taste of what was to come. ~ Sam J. Charlton

She was so much better than normal life," I say. "She made me better."
Autumn glances over and shakes her head. "Don't. That's not how it works. Nobody makes you be anything. You just are that, whether you like it or not."
She doesn't sound angry, but like she's explaining the world.
"That, then," I say, looking at the empty baseball diamond. "That's what I meant. Just that when I was with her, I was allowed to be better. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I continue pondering this great mystery called love. Who'd have thought that something you can't see, hear or touch, much less even define, could rule your life so completely? ~ Brenna Aubrey

Your arms around me ... the prescription for all that ails me. ~ Brenna Aubrey

Brenna jumped to her feet the second Father Sinclair entered the chamber. "I'm so happy to see you," she cried out.
"Be happy sitting down," Jamie ordered, hovering over her patient like a mother hen. ~ Julie Garwood

The new mythology of love was that it bent to the fashion of the day, obligated to take the shape of doves, lilies, jewels. This is a lie. Love is sometimes as passionate as war. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?
And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible.
-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I'm not about love, but in this moment, I wish that I were. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

The Cutter leaned toward me, resting his forehead against mine. 'Fool me once,' he whispered, 'shame on you.' He pressed the bridge of his nose against mine, his breath burning the back of my throat. His voice was rough and furious. 'Fool me twice, and I will cut out your fucking throat. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I walk the three blocks to the school slowly, like if I'm not careful of every step, every tiny movement, I will lose my grip on gravity and go flying up into the stratosphere. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I don't do anything I'm not good at. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

It's nice being around someone without always having to think about who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to do and think and say. It's nice to just concentrate on being the person you are - whoever you are. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

The world is full of unused corners. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

They?" he said, sounding apprehensive.
"Me. They're like me."
"Don't be a jackass," Roswell said, but not meanly. "No one's like you. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Aren't you going to get up?"

He put a hand on the curve of her hip, a possessive gesture that had already become
familiar.

"No. Let's have more sex. ~ Nalini Singh

When I press my forehead to his back, the shape of his pain is alluring, almost visible. It forms him, tells him to protect himself, makes him everything he is. He needs to keep it. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Did you ever think about boys?' I say, staring up into the dark.
'There wasn't room,' she whispers, and her voice is unbelievably sad. 'At first, after Connor, I was just waiting. I was going to get a new boyfriend soon- as soon as I was prettier or better, more perfect. But after a while there was no room for anything else. If I though about kissing or sex, I just started feeling ugly, too awful for anything good. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Can I ... " He stopped and his jaw flexed. "Can I kiss you?"
I didn't answer, and he didn't wait for me to. His hands caught me gently behind the neck and he pressed his mouth to mine, softly but firmly. Then he moved one arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him. ~ Liz Reinhardt

Let me tell you a little bit about demons. They love pain and other people's misery. They lie when it suits them and don't see anything wrong with it. They corrupt and kill and destroy, all without conscience. You just don't have the capacity for something as honorable as loving another person. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Tender," she said again. "Tender is kind and gentle. It's also sore, like the skin around an injury. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I'm so fucking real that it hurts. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

If we were having this conversation, that meant something was either wrong with me, or it was wrong with everybody else, and I had a basic enough understanding of probability to know that the odds did not rest with an entire planet. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Havoc on my emotions like this. Just when I thought I ~ Brenna Aubrey

Truman Flynn is a piece of paper in my coat pocket. He is a memory of water and of loss, his hand sliding free from mine, no way to hold on. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

There's a ton you can learn about a person from how they deal with the absence of sound. ~ Katie McGarry

There are things I want, too. Things I want to change. I'm tired of only being there for a good time, Brenna. I'm tired of being a corrupter of the people I love. I no one wants to be the perpetual fuck up. ~ Liz Reinhardt

I just want that, the way I feel when you kiss me. Just having it makes all the bad things better. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I don't think you realise how much you like him Brenna. I think it's ridiculous and irritating, especially considering what you could have right here, but I'm not judging. ~ Liz Reinhardt

You don't fix a man the way you do a fault in a pipe or a leak in a roof. You take him as he is, Mary Brenna, or you don't take him at all ... adjustments can't be all made on one side, darling, else the balance goes off and what's being built just falls down. ~ Nora Roberts

You don't have to lie to me to be nice, Jake. You can just say, 'Wow, your nails look crappy.'" I did my best boy voice.
"Well, I will tell you that's a crappy imitation of my voice." He smiled so wide I could see his eyetooth from across the table. "But you've got to know you're totally hot, chipped nails and all." He burned beet red all the way to the roots of his hair. "Man, you get me to say some embarrassing stuff, Brenna." He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.
"Hey, don't blame me when you feel moved to make strange declarations. ~ Liz Reinhardt

I'd laughed this high-pitched, witchy laugh, and looked right at him. Mostly, I remember feeling vital and untouchable, like I was free and separate from him. I would never be him, and because of that, I would never be lonely or laughed at, and I would never have to worry about anything. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

She nodded, lower lip trembling for an instant before she got it under control. "I'm such a baby. I was fine as long as I was cleaning up, but as soon as I stopped, I got so angry. Almost as if I was picking up everyone else's anger, too."
He matched her smaller strides as they walked, choosing to focus on the lighter aspect of her comment - they'd discuss the other later. "You might be a baby, but you're mine. And I like babysitting. ~ Nalini Singh

My father's answer was revenge-has always been revenge-and the outcome was just, but not better. Nothing is fixed. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

She'd been told time and again that it was rude stare, but she didn't obey her mother's rule now. The giant mesmerized her and she wanted to remember everything she could about him.
He must have felt her staring at him, though because he suddenly turned and looked directly her.
Brenna decided to make her papa proud of her and behave like a proper young lady. She grabbed a fistful of her skirt, hiked it up to her knees, and bent down to curtsy. She promptly lost her balance and almost hit her head against the floor, but she was quick enough to lean back so she could land on her
bottom.
She stood back up, remembered to let go of her skirts, and peeked up at the stranger to see what he thought about her newly acquired skill.
The giant smiled at her.
As soon as he looked away, she squeezed herself up against Rachel's backside again.
"I'm going to marry him," she whispered. ~ Julie Garwood

Why?" I say, so quietly that it comes out sounding like a tiny, tired sigh.
"Nobody wants to be mediocre." Her shadow on the ceiling is monstrous, a witch in profile. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Their lead guitar sounded like what would happen if someone wedged a traffic accident into a blender. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

No conflicting loyalties?"
"Not yet." But if it came to that, he had already made his choice. Her name was Brenna and she was his heartbeat. ~ Nalini Singh

All I want is for you to stand here and watch the people you love be horribly mutilated. Is that too much to ask? ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Why would you introduce me to your family? Won't they wonder what happened, when we finally ... ?"
His eyes fixed on mine, serious, sincere. "Because you asked me and I wanted to show you."
"Asked you what?"
"You asked me who I love. They're who I love. ~ Brenna Aubrey

before turning out of my ~ Brenna Aubrey

The things I had were mine and some of them were broken, but they were real. They were so very far from nothing. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I held up my Gray's Anatomy by way of answering. She huffed. Why don't you just watch the TV show instead of reading that big fat book? ~ Brenna Aubrey

how awful to never be allowed to fail ~ Brenna Yovanoff

History was a tangled thing, people were resilient, and the one constant law of the world was that it would heal. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

We sat on the picnic bench, not talking, not looking at each other, but being quiet and okay. The rain was almost gone, nothing but a thin chilly fog. For now, I just wanted to sit on the picnic bench with him and not be anything but fine and uncomplicated. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Are you going to kiss me?" I blabbered stupidly.
"I'm working up the nerve," he said softly. ~ Liz Reinhardt

I'm thinking that my best friend killed herself so slow it was almost like a magic trick, and other people let her do it. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

You two should do the next partner project together," she said as she flipped through our portfolios. "You both have excellent designs, and you have polar opposite strengths. You'd do well together." Jake and I nodded respectfully, but under the table, he rubbed my leg. "I guess we're pretty good together," he whispered against my ear later in the hall. "Is that what she said? I thought she said you could learn a lot from me."
Reinhardt, Liz (2011-09-06). Double Clutch (A Brenna Blixen Novel) (p. 206). Kindle Edition. ~ Liz Reinhardt

On the opposite page, there was a poem. It described how beauty and truth mattered more than anything else. They were the same thing.
But it didn't matter how pretty you painted the world. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

But how do you stop being afraid?" He asked, and his hands made little jerks up and down.

"I guess you don't really ever stop," I said, "But you just have to go on. Like Stanly. You just have to get up in the morning and see what happens. Even though it is hard. ~ Beverley Brenna

But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Can I bite you here, too? ~ Nalini Singh

When you are missing something you've left behind, it could be dead or lost so that you never find it again. You never really know, when you don't have something, what its condition is. That's why you grieve about it to the same degree- because you just don't know. ~ Beverley Brenna

This is aeons older than you or your family. Older than the town. Blood makes the sun shine and the crops grow. This is the truth of the world."
Tate stared down at her, then said in a soft, deadly voice that was almost a whisper, "Fuck the world. I just want my sister back. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Oh my God, I can't believe I actually said that out aloud.
Neither could he. The fact that she saw him as so sexually appealing was enough of a surprise to render him speechless. He was numb. Even the dissonance cut off - likely reading his reaction as one of complete unemotionality. ~ Nalini Singh

Intent matters. If you believe you're charmed, capable, likable, popular, then you are. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I'd been living on dreams so long it was hard to know if any one of the fifteen things happening inside my head was real. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Kissing him is like the wildest, most thrilling thing that has ever happened to me. It's like diving into the deep end over and over. He touches the curve of my lip with his tongue, just once, so softly, and I think the whole world is ending, the sudden warmth of his mouth jolting through me like a shock. I hold on like I'm falling off the top of a tall cliff or I'm lost at sea, like he's the only thing solid in the whole tilting world. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

That had been her plan, he decided. The devious witch. She'd planted the seed in his brain, stirred up his loins, as he was only a man, after all, and now she could torment him just by being in the same vicinity.
Well, two could play this game.
Rather than waiting for Darcy to pick up the orders, he carried them out himself. Just to show Brenna O'Toole that she didn't trouble him in the least.
The perverse creature didn't even glance his way as he swung into the pub and wound his way through the crowd to the tables. ~ Nora Roberts

It seemed to me that some things were ugly enough that fixing them was worth trespassing. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Your trying to take them away from me, and I can't let you do that.I'm not ready to let go."
"Exactly what am I taking away?"
"My family."
"Brenna ... "
She wouldn't let him continue. "You are trying to take them away, aren't you? And if you succeed, what will I have left?"
"Me. ~ Julie Garwood

His eyes fixed on hers, the gold flecks darkening to amber. An assassin who looks after his own skin? That's exactly what I am, Brenna. I would rather die than harm you, but anyone else? I could kill them without blinking. It's what I was born to do. ~ Nalini Singh

Lillian is humming to herself, stretched out on top of my bookcase like she doesn't mind the heat, and of course she doesn't. Even when she was alive, she could never seem to get warm. The tune she's humming is thin and tight with anxiety. It's the opposite of carefree. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I want to be William Shakespeare and Galileo and Robert Frost. I want to be Sappho. I want to be Jane Austen. I want to be Holden Caulfield and Marilyn Monroe and Joan of Arc. I'm sad to think they came before me in history, they made their mark without me.
But they were there.
They happened. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

They've called us a lot of things-- the good neighbors, the fair folk. The gray ones, the old ones, the other ones. Spirits and haunts and demons. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Countries are forged by war; perhaps girls are, too. New England and I will be reborn together in this war between the witches and the Brothers. Between Maura and me.
I am newly wrought
a girl of steel and snow and heartrending good-byes.
My magic is renewed by my heartbreak. It spills out my fingertips, swirling around me. The wind picks up, bitter cold now. The rain turns abruptly to snow, haloing the gas streetlamps like iron angels. Enormous snowflakes begin to fall
fast, faster
obscuring my sister, hiding her and Brenna and the carriage and the gray stone building that has become my home.
I am all alone in a sea of whirling white.
It feels right that it should be so. ~ Jessica Spotswood

The fact is, the contest has always been invulnerability, and even when you win, you still lose. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Running is like music. It requires rhythm and focus. It requires dedication. It requires a dogged ability to shut out everything else. The herd is strung out below me, keeping time with the thump and slap of their cross-trainers. I hold the sound in my head and subtract cars, trucks, motorcycles, voices until it's nothing but a song. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Maybe it's just PEBCAK." "What the hell is that?" Kat asked. Heath and I answered at the same time. "Problem exists between chair and keyboard." "It's a common term in IT," I added. ~ Brenna Aubrey

She had stayed home and worked hard and a posthumous recognition had eventually followed. Not that Buck hadn't worked hard, sure he did, but in the end the body won't hold up as a work of art. ~ Duff Brenna

When you name something, you take away some of it's power. It becomes known ~ Brenna Yovanoff

What do you ask from Judd in exchange for giving sanctuary to the kids?'
His pale eyes iced over. 'Judd is a fully trained Psy assassin with experience in covert wet work. I'd be a fool if I didn't utilize his skills.' She choked back a cry. 'How can you ask that of him?' An alpha looked after his own.
He didn't destroy them. But maybe Hawke didn't consider the Laurens his own. After all, and for reasons she'd never known, he hated the Psy as much as her brothers did.
His face gentled, an unexpected softening of harsh masculine lines. Closing the distance between them, he cupped her cheek. 'He is who and what he is, Brenna. If you want something different, you shouldn't be with him.'
'He's the only one I want to be with.'
'Then accept his beast like you do your own. ~ Nalini Singh

Sometimes being who you are - whoever you are - is hard. Sometimes, you can have it all together and still drive yourself crazy. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I see that you have a knife behind your back... You will drop your knife. - Ewen, to Brenna ~ Erika Johansen

That person, I can't remember who it was right now, who said the pen was mightier that the sword-I thnk they were wrong. I think the eraser is actually the most powerful tool. I wish there was an eraser that could erase the things a person did. And erase other people. Writing things down doesn't erase anything. What's done is done, and that really sucks. ~ Beverley Brenna

He smiles an honest smile for the first time, and the difference is hard to describe but easy to recognize. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

...the bad thing was that Ollie started crying. It was this basic rule of middle school that if someone messed with you, you were supposed to just take it like a psychopath. Only Ollie wasn't one. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

The way he's looking at me is like I'm the only beating heart in the world. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Once, my mother told a whole host of angels that she'd rather die than go back to a man she didn't love. ~ Brenna Yovanoff