You want to be free. You also want to be mine. You can't be both.

Heritage was everything: it was a golden skeleton key, gleaming with power, able to get the wielder through any number of locked doors; it was the christening of the marriage bed with virgin blood on snow-white sheets; it was the benediction of a pristine pedigree, refined through ages of selective breeding and the occasional mercy culling.It was life, and death, and all that spanned between.It was his birthright.

If the witches wanted a beast, she’d give them teeth and claws.She just hoped that they were ready to bleed for it.

Can you really crush stone?” Angel asked. “Or was that a lie?”Without looking behind him, David slammed his fist into one of the marble columns. It cracked, and several chunks immediately crumbled loose to scatter to the tiled floor like crumbs of flaking pastry. “Elevators,” he said. “This way.”“Jesus Christ,” Angel said to Cassandra. “He doesn’t look scary, but he’s fucking terrifying.

I was supposed to be powerless, and as a result they failed to see that I possessed claws.

I am the rightful ruler of this world And now that I, too, have awakened, like my dragons, I have come to take back what is mine.

Subjugation requires vigilance; if you relax your brutality even for a moment, the people you're oppressing will revolt at the first sign of weakness. That's why dictatorial regimes are always a slippery slope of cruelty doomed to end in failure.

Power is a fickle mistress, easy to seduce, but even easier to lose. That's how it works. One moment she is your closest confidant, whispering the secrets of the universe into your ear; the next, she is your vilest oppressor—and once her ears close to your plights you are well and truly screwed.