I cannot afford to lose you, too""You cannot lose something you do not own. Take me with you

On our wedding night," she said, "I will cut out your tongue and swallow it. Then both tongues that spoke our marriage vows will belong to me, and I will be wed only to myself. You will most likely choke to death on your own blood, which will be unfortunate, but I will be both husband and wife and therefore not a widow to be pitied.

So the question becomes, Daughter of the Dragon, what will you sacrifice? What will you let be taken away so that you, too, can have power?

Lada had a sense for power--the fine threads that connected everyone around her, the way those threads could be pulled, tightened, wrapped around someone until they cut off the blood supply.Or snapped entirely.

I should have titled it "Diet Like Your Life Depended On It!" because it's about so much more than just beating Diabetes.

And so she cut out her heart and offered it as a sacrifice. She would pay whatever price her mother Wallachia demanded.“Make me prince,” she said without feeling.

Marry me, Lada. It is the perfect solution." Lada laughed. Mehmed's smile grew, until he realized her laugh was not a sweet breeze of delight, but a brutal desert wind carrying stinging sand in its wake. "I will never marry.