A world apart (uma terra distante [Portuguese])

By Nora Roberts:

Troca-se.pt. (2016). [online] Available at: http://troca-se.pt/uploads/items/2015/06/20/21/1305776/115585c9140b19c.jpg [Accessed 17 Oct. 2016].

I bought these six books "Once upon a time", by Nora Roberts, in a shop selling second-hand products. The six books have cost 2 euros. I won because this author delighted my afternoons with wonderful and beautiful stories, that melt the hearts of those who know what love is. This short story was first published in December 2002. Some quotes:

• «[Kadra] (...) You would be weak and foolish if you didn't question, and the weak and foolish would be of no use to me.»
• «[Kadra] Is your world so perfect, so important, that you believe it stands alone in the vastness of time and space? Harper Doyle, can you have lived and still believe you are alone? (...).»
• «[Harper] I recognized you, (...). I pushed that aside, clicked back into what made sense so I could deny it. But I recognized you, somehow, the minute I saw you.»
• «[Kadra] It was the same for me. This is not something I understand, but only feel. I do not know the meaning.»
• «[Kadra, at the zoo] It is not right to look them up. They are not born for this. (...) This is a cruel thing you do here. This is a sorry place, this zoo. Is this what you teach your young? (...) That one species can be locked away for the amusement of another?»
• «[Harper] (...) Civilization has encroached. There isn't as much room as there once was. In captivity,  they're safe, I guess, and tended. They can't be hunted or taken as trophies.»
• «[Kadra] They are not free, (...).»
• «[Kadra] No joining had ever been so intense or (...). Nor to find herself both conquered and victorious. (...) the intimacy of the kiss that had been like... feeding each other. (...).»
• «[Harper] Kissing isn't just for joining. (...) after making love... (...). Sometimes, after, while a couple is still tuned to each other, they kiss to show how much pleasure they were giving. (...).»
• «[Kadra] You make me want (...) in ways I have never wanted.»
• «[Harper] You make me need. (...). In ways I've never needed.»
• «(...) With him, a joy she hadn't known was locked inside her could be free.»
• «You're magnificent, Kadra. "Beautiful" is too ordinary, too simple a word (...).»
• «[Kadra] Don't speak of death, even as an expression. Not before battle. (...). It is bad luck. (...).»
• «The thing about New York, Harper thought, (...), was there was always someone dressed weirder than you were.»
• «[Kadra] We are born for a purpose. How we live, how we treat others who live with us forms our spirit and determines if we will fulfill that purpose or fail. (...).»
• «[Kadra] Your people have so many colors of skin. It's beautiful. You are blessed to have such richness of person, such variety. (...)».
• «(...) When this is over, Kadra, we'll find a way. That's what people do when they love each other. They find a way.»
• «[Kadra] (...) when they feed on us, they hope to consume what it is that makes us human. Our heart, our soul. But they cannot. All they can take and transform is the body. The heart and soul live on in another place. And that place is locked to them.»