From Blood and Ash

I just wanted to be special to someone. Anyone.

“Because everyone should be able to live a little, even for a few hours.”

Purity?

I hated that word, the meaning behind it. As if my virginity determined my goodness, my innocence, and its presence or lack thereof was somehow more important than the hundred choices I made every day.

There was even a part of me that wondered what the gods would do if I went to them no longer an actual maiden. Would they overlook everything else I did or didn’t do simply because I was no longer a virgin?

“We go home to marry, my Princess.”

“He would be annoyed to find me in here.”

“But you smell of Casteel.”
I jolted at the sound of his name. His real name. “I am wearing his shirt.”
“That’s not the kind of smell I’m talking about.”

Because Hawke wasn’t his name.
And we hadn’t made love. He’d fucked me.

“Was any of it true?”

“Poppy. Stop—”
“I hate you!”

my head doesn’t…go quiet. It replays things over and over,”