The Tiger's Bride Quotes

And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.

I drew the curtains to conceal the sight of my father's farewell; my spite was sharp as broken glass.

Dating takes too much time. I wanted you. I took you. You’re mine.” She shivered. Women’s lib could say what it wanted. Being claimed by a sexy male still held loads of seductive charm.

Just what does a virgin wife have to do to get debauched? Teena really wanted to know. Offering herself hadn’t worked. Telling her husband he would be her one and only seemed to set off a state of panic. Would she have to tie Dmitri down and have her way with him?

If I could see not one single soul in that wilderness of desolation all around me, then the six of us - mounts and riders, both - could boast amongst us not one soul, either, since all the best religions in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things when the good Lord opened the gates of Eden and let Eve and her familiars thumble out.

There's a special madness strikes travellers from the North when they reach the lovely land where the lemon trees grow. We come from countries of cold weather; at home, we are at war with nature but here, ah! you think you've come to the blessed plot where the lion lies down with the lamb. Everything flowers; no harsh wind stirs the voluptuous air. The sun spills fruit for you. And the deathly, sensual lethargy of the sweet South infects the starved brain; it gasps: 'Luxury! more luxury!' But then the snow comes, you cannot escape it, it followed us from Russia as if it ran behind our carriage, and in this dark, bitter city has caught up with us at last, flocking against the windowpanes to mock my father's expectations of perpetual pleasure as the veins in his forehead stand out and throb, his hands shake as he deals the Devil's picture books.

The size doesn’t matter.” The imp in her, the one that had obviously heard her sister one too many times, retorted, “Funny, I was always told by the girls that it’s all about the size. The bigger, the better.” While her own words didn’t make her blush, his reply did. “I assure you, I have more than enough size to please you, little kitten. And my oral skills are to scream for.

You can’t control how people will perceive you or how they think about you . . . but you can certainly control how you feel about it.

The tiger sat still as a heraldic beast, in the pact he had made with his ferocity to do me no harm. He was far larger than I could have imagined, from the poor, shabby things I'd seen once, in the Czar's menagerie at Petersburg, the golden fruit of their eyes dimming, withering in the far North of captivity. Nothing about him reminded me of humanity.

Your father is waiting, so fly up that mountain and through the alomb. Find Nardukha and tell him I have upheld my end of the bargain. Now it is his turn.” He stares at me, a dangerous light in his eye, and then his gaze travels beyond me, in the direction of the funeral. My hand moves to his muscled forearm, and I squeeze it hard. “ No. ” He sneers, his hand moving quickly to catch mine. He yanks me close, his head bending to look down at me. “Zahra,” he murmurs, his voice like falling rocks. “Why do you care for these humans? For thousands of years they have enslaved you, forced you to bend and bow to their silly whims. They have mistreated you, abused you, and yet you defend them still?” He drops his morning star to cradle my head in his other hand, and he licks his lips. His fangs flash. “Come with me to Ambadya. Be my bride, as you were always meant to be.” Revulsion choking my throat, I pull away, slapping him hard across the jaw, but he barely registers the blow. “I’m not anything to you, Zhian. I never will be. You should have abandoned that notion long ago.” “I did not bargain for your life so that you could play servant to these mortals! My father would have killed you thousands of years ago, like all the other Shaitan, if I hadn’t intervened!” “I never asked you to.” He roars, and I clap my hands over my ears at the terrible sound. Somewhere behind me, a horn blasts twice. “They heard you, you fool!” I snap. “The Eristrati are coming, and their charmers will bottle you up again! Go, go !” He snarls, his hand grabbing for me, but I shift into a tiger and snarl back at him, my hackles on end. Get out of here, Zhian! Go find Nardukha and tell him I have set you free! Now he must free me. The horn blasts again. At last Zhian comes to his senses, and he pulls back, scowling. I’ll be back for you, he promises. And you and I will be joined at last, the jinn prince and his princess, unstoppable and undisputed!

Across the road from the lighted window and the slender figure, two pairs of eyes looked on avidly as she moved. One set of eyes was a pale, piercing blue that was almost white and the other set was a warm amber-gold that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the face of a tiger. Neither pair of eyes was human. “Mine.” The low rumbling growl came from the owner of the amber eyes. He was tall, six foot seven at least, with shoulders so broad he would have to turn sidewise to go through most doorways, but he moved silently, with a feral grace that belied his muscular physique. Dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin and matched the thick black hair on his head. “Not

He felt he was knowing less and less, and it was more and more beautiful to do so. Why had he been alarmed? He was sitting on a stool, and around him in the stall sat, almost preternaturally near, a man in a black masque, an Asp he hadn’t noticed before, the Tiger whose breath ran hot and meaty on his neck, a beautiful schoolgirl, or was that the bride on her honeymoon? Did the whole stall then tilt forward, like a gently swung bucket? Anyway, they leaned together toward the central dais, an altar of veils and sacrifices. Boq loosened his collar and then his belt, felt the gingery appetite between heart and stomach and the resulting stiffening apparatus below that. The music of pipes and whistles was slowing, or was it that as he watched and waited and breathed so, so slowly, that the secret area inside himself uncloaked itself, where nothing mattered?