Top 400 C.S. Pacat Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “There was a man I was supposed to meet. He’s got all these ideas about honour and fair play, and he tries to keep me from doing the wrong thing. But he’s not here right now. Unfortunately for you.”

— C.S. Pacat

102. “Isn’t there? I wonder how my uncle is going to react when he finds out that you killed Govart and helped me to escape.’ And then, in the same dreamy voice, ‘Do you think he’ll hurt your family?’ Guion’s hands were fists, like he still had them wrapped around bars. ‘I didn’t help you escape.’ ‘Didn’t you? I don’t know how these rumours get started.’ Laurent.”

— C.S. Pacat

103. “It’s me,’ said Damen. ‘It’s me, here with you. Say my name.’ ‘Damianos.’ He.”

— C.S. Pacat

104. “Laurent entered, an edge to his grace, like a leopard with a headache, around whom one must tread very, very carefully. ‘Good morning,’ said Damen. ‘Good morning,’ said Laurent. This.”

— C.S. Pacat

105. “Nikandros was shaking his head. ‘Or do you really think he’s forgiven you for killing his brother?’ ‘No. He hates me for it.’ He said it steadily, without flinching. ‘But he hates his uncle more. He needs us. And we need him.’ ‘You.”

— C.S. Pacat

106. “You have sent Damianos’s son to my uncle.’ She said, ‘You see? I am an opponent. I will not be left in a cell to rot. You will tell Damen that I will see him as I require, and I think you will find that he will not send in a bed boy this time.”

— C.S. Pacat

107. “There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ said Laurent, turning his head towards the sound. Damen said, ‘Laurent,’ shocked and on full display as the door swung open. Pallas entered. Laurent greeted him with no self-consciousness at all. ‘Yes?’ Laurent’s voice was matter-of-fact. Pallas’s.”

— C.S. Pacat

108. “Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white as though in reaction to a slap, or an insult.”

— C.S. Pacat

109. “Damen thought privately that princes needed seasoning not protection. Laurent in particular. He had seen Laurent open his mouth and strip paint from the walls. He had seen Laurent lift a knife and in cold blood slit open a man’s throat without so much as a flicker of his golden lashes. Laurent didn’t need to be protected from anything.”

— C.S. Pacat

110. “He won’t hurt the child,’ said Laurent. ‘Whether it is your son or Kastor’s, it is leverage. It is leverage against you, against your armies, and against your men.’ ‘You mean that it hurts me more that my son is alive and whole than it would if he were maimed or dead.’ ‘Yes,’ said Laurent. He.”

— C.S. Pacat

111. “It was what Laurent had been holding in his right hand when Damen entered. The blue sapphires of Nicaise’s earring. The.”

— C.S. Pacat

112. “Laurent whirled his horse to face Damen. ‘I need you to captain the men. Take the command from Jord. It’s yours. It should have been you,’ said Laurent, ‘from the start.’ The words were hard as he spoke of Touars: ‘He is going to fight.’ ‘He.”

— C.S. Pacat

113. “Laurent finished the morsel, then rested a hand on Damen’s thigh, and slowly slid it upward. ‘Control yourself,’ said Laurent. And.”

— C.S. Pacat

114. “Laurent flushed. The colour hit his cheeks hard, and a muscle tightened in his jaw as whatever he felt was forcibly repressed. It was not like any reaction that Damen had ever seen from him before, and he couldn’t resist pushing it a little further. ‘Why? Do you want to spar? We can keep it friendly,’ Damen said. ‘No,’ said Laurent. Whatever.”

— C.S. Pacat

115. “Nikandros – ’ He was staring at Nikandros in confusion, with his clothing hanging from his waist, and Nikandros was staring back at him. Nikandros said, ‘Your back.’ Damen.”

— C.S. Pacat

116. “It couldn’t carry a rider. Damen brought his own horse over, then paused. ‘My proportions are better suited to riding pillion than yours are,’ said Laurent. ‘Mount. I will mount behind.’ So Damen swung into the saddle. A moment later he felt Laurent’s hand on his thigh. Laurent’s toe nudged into the stirrup. Laurent pushed up behind him, shifting until he was snug in position.”

— C.S. Pacat

117. “If you stay with us, you will find the answers you seek... though you will have much to learn, and you may come to wish you had never sought the truth. Dark times lie ahead.” And then, after another long look, her eyes warmed. “But even in the darkest night, there is a star.”

— C.S. Pacat

118. “No,’ said Jokaste. ‘ – Exalted. You are merciful. I have a son of my own. Spare my life, Exalted – ’ ‘No,’ said Jokaste. ‘He will not kill a roomful of women for loyalty to their mistress, Kyrina.’ ‘ – spare my life, I swear, I will tell you all I know – ’ ‘No,’ said Jokaste. ‘Tell.”

— C.S. Pacat

119. “Damen said, ‘You have every other man working until dawn to prepare for tomorrow’s departure. What am I doing here?’ Another pause, and then Laurent indicated once again to the chair. This time Damen followed his prompt and sat. Laurent took the chair opposite. Between them, unfurled on the table, was all the intricate detail of the map. ‘You said you knew the territory,’ Laurent said.”

— C.S. Pacat

120. “It hurt so much it took the breath from his throat. ‘You’re lying.’ Damen’s heart was pounding. ‘You’re lying.’ The words were too loud. ‘You thought I was leaving. You practically threw me out.’ He said it, as the realisation blossomed inside him. ‘You knew who I was. You knew who I was the night we made love.’ He.”

— C.S. Pacat

121. “Let me tell you what is going to happen. You are going to be executed. You are going to be executed whatever you say or do. But I will spare your women, if they agree to answer my questions.’ Silence.”

— C.S. Pacat

122. “LAURENT,’ HE SAID, ‘what have you done?’ ‘Does it bother you to think of him hurting your country?’ ‘You know it does. Are we playing now with the fate of nations? It won’t bring your brother back.’ There.”

— C.S. Pacat

123. “She was everything I could have asked for in a woman. But she was a king maker. She wanted power. She must have thought her only path to the throne was through Kastor.’ ‘My.”

— C.S. Pacat

124. “He was a prince,’ said Damen. ‘He was a prince and I was just – ’ He.”

— C.S. Pacat

125. “Everything was calculated. Laurent didn’t trust anyone. Damen.”

— C.S. Pacat

126. “Never had he wanted something this badly, and held it in his hands knowing that tomorrow it would be gone, traded for the high cliffs of Ios, and the uncertain future across the border, the chance to stand before his brother, to ask him for all the answers that no longer seemed important. A kingdom, or this.”

— C.S. Pacat

127. “His father got exactly what he deserved, to die like the animal he was, and there was nothing any of them could do to stop it happening. Then again,’ said Laurent, ‘maybe if Theomedes had kept his cock in his wife instead of sticking it in his mistress – ’ That.”

— C.S. Pacat

128. “Say it,’ said Damen. ‘I yield.’ It was gritted out. Laurent’s head turned away to one side. ‘I want you to know,’ he said, the words thick and heavy as they pushed out of him, ’that I could have done this any time when I was a slave.”

— C.S. Pacat

129. “Laurent said, ‘What do you think of Jord?’ ‘I like him,’ said Damen. ‘You should be pleased with him. He was the right choice for Captain.’ There was an unhurried pause. Aside from the sounds Damen made when he picked up a vambrace, the tent was quiet. ‘No,’ said Laurent. ‘You were.’ ‘What?”

— C.S. Pacat

130. “Instead of leaning in, Damen took Laurent’s hand, brought it towards himself, and kissed his palm, once. He had learned in the course of their one night together to tell when Laurent was taken unawares – taken aback. It wasn’t easy to anticipate, the gaps in Laurent’s experience not mapping to anything that he understood. He felt it now, Laurent’s eyes very dark, uncertain of what he should do. ‘I meant – ’ ‘Don’t.”

— C.S. Pacat

131. “Aquello era Vere, hedonista y decadente, tierra de dulce veneno.”

— C.S. Pacat

132. “It wasn’t going to work. Physicality was an obstacle to desire, and he groaned into Laurent’s neck, slid his hands down over Laurent’s body. In a burst of explicit fantasy, he wished Laurent were a pet, or a slave, wished him a body that was not going to require extensive, coaxing preparation before it could be penetrated. He felt like he was right on the edge of control, felt like he had been that way for days, months. He.”

— C.S. Pacat

133. “He didn’t try to hide it. He had discarded his wrist gauntlets. He wore the Akielon breastplate, the short leather skirt, the high Akielon sandals strapped to his knee. His arms were bare, as were his legs from knee to mid-thigh. The short red cape was pinned to his shoulder by the golden lion. Armoured.”

— C.S. Pacat

134. “I think what people were is less important than what they are. And what people are is less important than what they could be.”

— C.S. Pacat

135. “With a clear moment of insight, Charls saw that Lamen was not a cloth merchant’s assistant. He was the prince’s private companion, and had no real skills whatsoever.”

— C.S. Pacat

136. “It was like watching a boar try to take on the endless blue of the sky.”

— C.S. Pacat

137. “My father’s dead.’ The words had a finality to them. His father was buried in Akielos beneath the columned halls of the silent, where the pain and confusion of his last days would never trouble him again. He looked up at Laurent. ‘You.”

— C.S. Pacat

138. “A fourth son, thought Damen, waiting for someone to notice him. When he wasn’t trying to please, he was baiting authority, as though negative attention could substitute for the approval that he sought – that he had been given, once, by Laurent’s uncle. I’m sorry, Jord. They were the last words anyone would have from him. He had killed himself.”

— C.S. Pacat

139. “You want to hear the truth about my uncle? I’ll tell you,’ said Laurent, a new light in his eyes. ‘I’ll tell you what you couldn’t stop. What you were too blind to see. You were in chains while Kastor was cutting down your royal family. Kastor and my uncle.’ He.”

— C.S. Pacat

140. “Laurent answered in a hard, unyielding voice, ‘The slave lies in no bed but mine.”

— C.S. Pacat

141. “Beneath it he wore some kind of Vaskian bedclothes, a tunic and pants of very fine white linen, with a series of loose ties in front. ‘Mine has a little more fabric. Are you disappointed?’ ‘I would be,’ said Damen, rearranging his legs again, ‘if the lamp weren’t behind you.’ It.”

— C.S. Pacat

142. “I want you to fight with me,’ said Damen. ‘Akielos is here to stand by your side.’ Guymar let out a shaky breath. ‘Fight with you? You will use our cooperation to take the fort.’ ‘I already have the fort,’ said Damen. He said it calmly. ‘You know the manner of man we face in the Regent,’ said Damen.”

— C.S. Pacat

143. “Laurent entered, an edge to his grace, like a leopard with a headache.”

— C.S. Pacat

144. “Laurent. Why must you always defy me? I hate it when we are at odds, yet you force me to chastise you. You seem determined to wreck everything in your path. Blessed with gifts, you squander them. Given opportunities, you waste them. I hate to see you grown up like this,” said the Regent, “when you were such a lovely boy.”

— C.S. Pacat

145. “Slaves are trained to obey in all things, but their submission is a pact: They give up free will in exchange for perfect treatment. To abuse someone who cannot resist – isn’t that monstrous?” Damen.”

— C.S. Pacat

146. “Damen could see Laurent’s shallow breath. He could see his dark-eyed intention. Laurent was undressing for him, one lace after another, the jacket’s fabric opening, revealing the fine white shirt beneath. Heat.”

— C.S. Pacat

147. “His father’s words had been made of breath, nothing left of his deep-timbered voice. ‘Tell the physicians I will be well,’ his father had said. ‘I wish to see all my son will accomplish when he takes the throne.’ In.”

— C.S. Pacat

148. “Take her away,’ he said. ‘We have the fort.”

— C.S. Pacat

149. “It was like watching a man smile as he surrendered himself to drown in deep water.”

— C.S. Pacat

150. “Auguste was like you,’ said Laurent. ‘He had no instinct for deception; it meant he couldn’t recognise it in other people.”

— C.S. Pacat