Curl Escape Quotes

Say something in Mandarin,” said Tessa, with a smile. Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels and consonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: “Ni hen piao liang.” “What did you say?” Tessa was curious. “I said your hair is coming undone — here,” he said, and reached out and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood spill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of the carriage. “You have to be careful with it,” he said, taking his hand back, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek.

There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

There was no one color that could paint Lena Duchannes. She was a red sweater and a blue sky, a gray wind and a silver sparrow, a black curl escaping from behind her ear.

There. What do you think?" he takes half a step back and i look at myself in the mirror again. Somehow, he has managed where i failed to roll my hair an pin it low on my neck. The curl that keeps escaping has now been positioned behind my ear. "Not bad," i say. "You know if the musician thing doesn't work out, you could always be a-" Behind me Gabriel makes a stabbing motion over his heart.

This darkness is for sleeping, for escape; it's where I go when the other places ache with light; this is where I curl up and close my eyes and darkness flows like lava, and I dissapear into what, into nothing, into pure dark, into what there is before there is anything else.

She wears the braid every day and always, by lunchtime, the curls and ringlets of her thick mane have managed to escape in rebellious little tendrils. But she refuses to surrender to that hair of hers, and every morning, it goes back into the braid.

And this time it’s different. This time our bodies slide together like they were made to fit. This time Tyson doesn’t have to tell me to look at him, because I can’t stop. He is all that I see, every inch of dark skin, every curl of hair, every scar or tiny imperfection that all combine to make him seem…perfect. No, not perfect, but perfect for me. This time it’s not about needing an escape. This time it’s about wanting a connection.

In times of struggle, there are as many reasons not to read as there are to breathe. Don’t you have bigger things to do? Reading, let alone re-reading, is the terrain of milquetoasts and mopey spinsters. At life’s ugliest junctures the very act of opening a book can smack of cowardly escapism. Who chooses to read when there’s work to be done? Call me a coward if you will, but when the line between duty and sanity blurs, you can usually find me curled up with a battered book, reading as if my mental health depended on it. And it does, for inside the books I love I find food, respite, escape, and perspective.

All she wanted now was to eat her leftover pasta and curl up with a good book. She needed to escape to a different world because she wasn’t overly fond of the one she was living in now.

Pip winds his arms up around Lindsay's neck and kisses him back, and this time he's the one to close his eyes and escape into darkness so there's nothing in the world except the soft curls under his fingers and the touch of Lindsay's breath on his mouth and the slow, sliding friction. "Lindsay, do you still hate me?" "I do when I remember to," Lindsay says quietly, but he doesn't stop moving and he doesn't stop kissing him for a long time, on his trembling mouth and his sweaty forehead and his wet, closed eyes.

We didn't finish that dance." "Here?" "Why not?" Echo's high heel tapped against the sidewalk, the telltale sign of nerves. I took a deliberate step forward and caught her waist before she coud back away from me. My siren had sung to me for way too long, capturing my heart, tempting me with her body, driving me slowly insane. Now, I expected her to pay up. "Do you hear that?" I aked. Echo raised an eyebrow when she heard nothing but the sound of water trickling in the fountain. "Hear what?" I slid my right hand down her arm, cradled her hand against my chest and swayed us from side to side. "The music." Her eyes danced. "Maybe if you could tell me what i'm supposed to be hearing." "Slow drum beat." With one finger i tapped the beat into the small of her back. "Acoustic quitar." I leaned down and hummed my favorite song in her ear. Her sweet cinnamon smell intoxicated me. She relaxed, fitting perfectly into my body. In the crisp, cold February air, we swayed together, moving to our own personal beat. For one moment, we escaped hell. No teachers, no therapist, no well-meaning friends, no nightmares-just the two of us, dancing. My song ended, my finger stopped tapping the beat, and we ceased swaying from side to side. She held perfectly still, keeping her hand in mine, her head resting on my shoulder. I nuzzled into the warmth of her silky curls, tightening my hold on her. Echo was becoming essential, like air. I eased my hand to her chin, lifting her face toward me. My thumb caressed her warm, smooth cheek. My heart beat faster. A ghost of that siren smile graced her lips as she tilted her head closer to mine, creating the undeniable pull of the sailor lost to the sea to the beautiful goddess calling him home. I kissed her lips. Soft, full, warm-everything i'd fantasized it would be and more, so much more. Echo hesitantly pressed back, a curious question for which i had a response. I parted my lips and teased her bottom one, begging, praying, for permission. Her smooth hands inched up my neck and pulled at my hair, bringing me closer. She opened her mouth, her tongue seductively touching mine, almost bringing me to my knees. Flames licked through me as our kiss deepened. Her hands massaged my scalp and neck, only stoking the heat of the fire. Forgetting every rule i'd created for this moment, my hands wandered up her back, twining in her hair, bringing her closer to me. I wanted Echo. I needed Echo. Her eyes met mine again. "So what does this mean for us?" I lowered my forehead to hers. "It means you 're mine.

Beehive" Within this black hive to-night There swarm a million bees; Bees passing in and out the moon, Bees escaping out the moon, Bees returning through the moon, Silver bees intently buzzing, Silver honey dripping from the swarm of bees. Earth is a waxen cell of the world comb, And I, a drone, Lying on my back, Lipping honey, Getting drunk with silver honey, Wish that I might fly out past the moon And curl forever in some far-off farmyard flower.

A Faint Music by Robert Hass Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing

Thomas looked like someone's painting of the forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was wearing jeans and no shirt--his standard household uniform. I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been interesting.

Man,” said a thoughtless, ungodly English traveller to a North American Indian convert, “Man, what is the reason that you make so much of Christ, and talk so much about Him? What has this Christ done for you, that you should make so much ado about Him?” The converted Indian did not answer him in words. He gathered together some dry leaves and moss and made a ring with them on the ground. He picked up a live worm and put it in the middle of the ring. He struck a light and set the moss and leaves on fire. The flame soon rose and the heat scorched the worm. It writhed in agony, and after trying in vain to escape on every side, curled itself up in the middle, as if about to die in despair. At that moment the Indian reached forth his hand, took up the worm gently and placed it on his bosom. “Stranger,” he said to the Englishman, “Do you see that worm? I was that perishing creature. I was dying in my sins, hopeless, helpless, and on the brink of eternal fire. It was Jesus Christ who put forth the arm of His power. It was Jesus Christ who delivered me with the hand of His grace, and plucked me from everlasting burnings. It was Jesus Christ who placed me, a poor sinful worm, near the heart of His love. Stranger, that is the reason why I talk of Jesus Christ and make much of Him. I am not ashamed of it, because I love Him.” If

I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw. The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn’t be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike. I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn’t feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror’s reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus. These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall. The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. ‘Who are you?’ I’d ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn’t me. I’d watch my lips moving and say it again, ‘Who are you?

You know how when you ask someone what they'd do if the sun was headed for Earth and they had twenty-four hours left to live? And everyone always says they'd be with family, eat their favorite food, go someplace they've always wanted to go? Nobody ever says they'd spend the last day curled up in bed crying- because they wouldn't. That's not what anyone wants to do with their final hours. I mean, yeah, you'd cry. And you'd be scared because you're gonna die. And you'd find yourself looking at the sky throughout the day, knowing what's coming because that's just human nature. But for the most part, you'd just enjoy the time you had left. Especially because there's nothing you can do about it. There's no escape, nowhere to hide. So why bother? Obsessing over the end is pointless. If you spend your life dwelling on the worst possible thing, when it finally happens, you've lived it twice. I don't want to live the worst things twice. I try really hard not to think about the bad stuff. But every once in a while I'm human and I look up. Yesterday was just one of those days that I looked at the sun.

He had not stopped looking into her eyes, and she showed no signs of faltering. He gave a deep sigh and recited: "O sweet treasures, discovered to my sorrow." She did not understand. "It is a verse by the grandfather of my great-great-grandmother," he explained. "He wrote three eclogues, two elegies, five songs, and forty sonnets. Most of them for a Portuguese lady of very ordinary charms who was never his, first because he was married, and then because she married another man and died before he did." "Was he a priest too?" "A soldier," he said. Something stirred in the heart of Sierva María, for she wanted to hear the verse again. He repeated it, and this time he continued, in an intense, well-articulated voice, until he had recited the last of the forty sonnets by the cavalier of amours and arms Don Garcilaso de la Vega, killed in his prime by a stone hurled in battle.When he had finished, Cayetano took Sierva María's hand and placed it over his heart. She felt the internal clamor of his suffering. "I am always in this state," he said. And without giving his panic an opportunity, he unburdened himself of the dark truth that did not permit him to live. He confessed that every moment was filled with thoughts of her, that everything he ate and drank tasted of her, that she was his life, always and everywhere, as only God had the right and power to be, and that the supreme joy of his heart would be to die with her. He continued to speak without looking at her, with the same fluidity and passion as when he recited poetry, until it seemed to him that Sierva María was sleeping. But she was awake, her eyes, like those of a startled deer, fixed on him. She almost did not dare to ask: "And now?" "And now nothing," he said. "It is enough for me that you know." He could not go on. Weeping in silence, he slipped his arm beneath her head to serve as a pillow, and she curled up at his side. And so they remained, not sleeping, not talking, until the roosters began to crow and he had to hurry to arrive in time for five-o'clock Mass. Before he left, Sierva María gave him the beautiful necklace of Oddúa: eighteen inches of mother-of-pearl and coral beads. Panic had been replaced by the yearning in his heart. Delaura knew no peace, he carried out his tasks in a haphazard way, he floated until the joyous hour when he escaped the hospital to see Sierva María. He would reach the cell gasping for breath, soaked by the perpetual rains, and she would wait for him with so much longing that only his smile allowed her to breathe again. One night she took the initiative with the verses she had learned after hearing them so often. 'When I stand and contemplate my fate and see the path along which you have led me," she recited. And asked with a certain slyness: "What's the rest of it?" "I reach my end, for artless I surrendered to one who is my undoing and my end," he said. She repeated the lines with the same tenderness, and so they continued until the end of the book, omitting verses, corrupting and twisting the sonnets to suit themselves, toying with them with the skill of masters. They fell asleep exhausted. At five the warder brought in breakfast, to the uproarious crowing of the roosters, and they awoke in alarm. Life stopped for them.

A bitter laugh escaped her. "You didn't offer to help me until you knew I has something you wanted. You were using me and I was happy to whore for you for the right price, so let's not pretend there was something noble in that transaction." Anselm's lip curled. "You don't belong here. You never have. Crass. Uncouth. Uneducated. You are a blight on Lethe.

Oh, it's you," Sebastian said in a tone of mild surprise, seeming to ponder how he had ended up kneeling on a bathroom rug with his wife in his arms. "I was prepared to debauch a resisting servant girl, but you're a more difficult case." "You can debauch me," Evie offered cheerfully. Her husband smiled, his glowing gaze moving gently over her face. He smoothed back a few escaping curls that had lightened from ruby to soft apricot. "My love, I've tried for thirty years. But despite my dedicated efforts..." A sweetly erotic kiss grazed her lips. "...you still have the innocent eyes of that shy wallflower I eloped with. Can't you try to look at least a little bit jaded? Disillusioned?" He laughed quietly at her efforts and kissed her again, this time with a teasing, sensuous pressure that caused her pulse to quicken.

She smiled, lifted her arm, and tugged on a couple of his pain-in-the-ass curls, her expression tender enough to bring him back to cold reality. He was an ex-cop. She was the president’s daughter. He was scrap metal. She was pure gold. Beyond all that, he had a dead zone a mile wide inside him, while she bubbled with life. “Lucy …” “Oh lord …” She rolled her eyes and flopped to her back. “Here we go. The speech.” She deepened her voice in exaggerated imitation of him. “Before this goes any further, Lucy, I need to make sure you don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a cowboy, wild and free. No little filly can ever tame a man like me.” She sneered. “As if I’d want to.

Mr. Kadam bowed and said, “Miss Kelsey, I will leave you to your dining companion. Enjoy your dinner.” Then he walked out of the restaurant. “Mr. Kadam, wait. I don’t understand.” Dining companion? What is he talking about? Maybe he’s confused. Just then, a deep, all-too-familiar voice behind me said, “Hello, Kells.” I froze, and my heart dropped into my stomach, stirring up about a billion butterflies. A few seconds passed. Or was it a few minutes? I couldn’t tell. I heard a sigh of frustration. “Are you still not talking to me? Turn around, please.” A warm hand slid under my elbow and gently turned me around. I raised my eyes and gasped softly. He was breathtaking! So handsome, I wanted to cry. “Ren.” He smiled. “Who else?” He was dressed in an elegant black suit and he’d had his hair cut. Glossy black hair was swept back away from his face in tousled layers that tapered to a slight curl at the nape of his neck. The white shirt he wore was unbuttoned at the collar. It set off his golden-bronze skin and his brilliant white smile, making him positively lethal to any woman who might cross his path. I groaned inwardly. He’s like…like James Bond, Antonio Banderas, and Brad Pitt all rolled into one. I decided the safest thing to do would be to look at his shoes. Shoes were boring, right? Not attractive at all. Ah. Much better. His shoes were nice, of course-polished and black, just like I would expect. I smiled wryly when I realized that this was the first time I’d ever seen Ren in shoes. He cupped my chin and made me look at his face. The jerk. Then it was his turn to appraise me. He looked me up and down. And not a quick look. He took it all in slowly. The kind of slow that made a girl’s face feel hot. I got mad at myself for blushing and glared at him. Nervous and impatient, I asked, “Are you finished?” “Almost.” He was now staring at my strappy shoes. “Well, hurry up!” His eyes drifted leisurely back up to my face and he smiled at me appreciatively, “Kelsey, when a man spends time with a beautiful woman, he needs to pace himself.” I quirked an eyebrow at him and laughed. “Yeah, I’m a regular marathon alright.” He kissed my fingers. “Exactly. A wise man never sprints…in a marathon.” “I was being sarcastic, Ren.” He ignored me and tucked my hand under his arm then led me over to a beautifully lit table. Pulling the chair out for me, he invited me to sit. I stood there wondering if I could sprint for the nearest exit. Stupid strappy shoes, I’d never make it. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not going to let you escape again. You can either take a seat and have dinner with me like a normal date,” he grinned at his word choice, “or,” he paused thoughtfully then threatened, “you can sit on my lap while I force-feed you.” I hissed, “You wouldn’t dare. You’re too much of a gentleman to force me to do anything. It’s an empty bluff, Mr. Asks-For-Permission.” “Even a gentleman has his limits. One way or another, we’re going to have a civil conversation. I’m hoping I get to feed you from my lap, but it’s your choice.” He straightened up again and waited. I unceremoniously plunked down in my chair and scooted in noisily to the table. He laughed softly and took the chair across from me. I felt guilty because of the dress and readjusted my skirt so it wouldn’t wrinkle.

You keep saying you instead of we.” Jak’ri closed the incinerator. A whoosh sounded. “I’m not coming with you.” She stared up at him. “What?” “I’m staying here. Keep me apprised of everything telepathically as you go. If you run into any trouble, I’ll start blasting things in here, then run and draw their fire.” “Oh, hell no!” she blurted. “We leave together or we don’t leave at all.” “Ava, you have a much higher chance of escaping if I keep them distracted long enough to—” Closing the distance between them, she rose onto her toes, curled her free hand around the nape of his neck, and pressed a fervent kiss to his lips. Startled into silence, he stared down at her. “I’m not going without you, Jak’ri. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me. We either escape together or we die together. Those are your two options. Time is ticking. What’s it going to be?

Unlike the curled shoe tongues that are consumed in Britain or the boringly crisp, regimented strips we go for in America, Australian bacon has a rough, meaty, fair dinkum heartiness. It looks as if it was taken off the pig while it was trying to escape. You can almost hear the squeal in every bite. Lovely.

The papers were always talking about the debt owed to society. According to them, it had to be paid . But that doesn't speak to the imagination. What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. .. Despite my willingness to understand, I just couldn't accept such arrogant certainty. Because, after all, there really was something ridiculously out of proportion between the verdict such certainty was based on and the imperturbable march of events from the moment the verdict was announced. .. How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could truly be interested in? If I ever got out of this prison I would go and watch every execution there was. But I think it was a mistake even to consider the possibility. .. But I wasn't being reasonable. It was a mistake to let myself get carried away by such imaginings, because the next minute I would get so cold that I would curl up into a ball under my blanket and my teeth would be chattering and I couldn't make them stop. .. So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time. And I say that’s wrong . And in a way I was right. But in another way I was forced to admit that that was the whole secret of good organization. In other words, the condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch.

I took the jar of weed from its hiding place and started rolling a joint. I’d been smoking marijuana since university. I first encountered it during my first term, alone and friendless at a fresher party, too paralyzed with fear to initiate a conversation with any of the good-looking and confident young people around me. I was planning my escape when the girl standing next to me offered me something. I thought it was a cigarette until I smelled the spicy, pungent, curling black smoke. Too shy to refuse, I accepted it and brought the joint to my lips. It was badly rolled and coming unstuck, unraveling at the end. The tip was wet and stained red from her lipstick. It tasted different from a cigarette; it was richer, rawer, more exotic.

Homewrecker" Every boyfriend is the one Until otherwise proven The good are never easy The easy never good And love it never happens like you think it really should Deception and perfection are wonderful traits One will breed love The other hate You'll find me in the lonely hearts Under 'I'm after a brand new start' And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker Girls and their curls and their gourmet vomit Boys and their toys and their six inch rockets We're all very lovely 'til we get to know each other As we stop becoming friends and we start becoming lovers And I don't belong to anyone They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) They call me Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) I'm only happy when I'm on the run I break a million hearts just for fun I don't belong to anyone I guess you could say that my life's a mess But I'm still looking pretty in this dress I'm the image of deception When everything is life and death You may feel like there's nothing left Instead of love and trust and laughter What you get is happy never after But deep down all you want is love The pure kind we all dream of But we cannot escape the past So you and I will never last 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I'm only happy when I'm on the run) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker (I broke a million hearts just for fun) 'Cause I'm a Homewrecker Homewrecker

After Evie had finished her plate, Sebastian tugged her to the billiards table and handed her a cue stick with a leather tip. Ignoring her attempts to refuse him, he proceeded to instruct her in the basics of the game. “Don’t try to claim this is too scandalous for you,” he told her with mock severity. “After running off with me to Gretna Green, nothing is beyond you. Certainly not one little billiards game. Bend over the table.” She complied awkwardly, flushing as she felt him lean over her, his body forming an exciting masculine cage as his hands arranged hers on the cue stick. “Now,” she heard him say, “curl your index finger around the tip of the shaft. That’s right. Don’t grip so tightly, sweet…let your hand relax. Perfect.” His head was close to hers, the light scent of sandalwood cologne rising from his warm skin. “Try to imagine a path between the cue ball—that’s the white one—and the colored ball. You’ll want to strike right about there”—he pointed to a place just above center on the cue ball—“to send the object ball into the side pocket. It’s a straight-on shot, you see? Lower your head a bit. Draw the cue stick back and try to strike in a smooth motion.” Attempting the shot, Evie felt the tip of the cue stick fail to make proper contact with the white ball, sending it spinning clumsily off to the side of the table. “A miscue,” Sebastian remarked, deftly catching the cue ball in his hand and repositioning it. “Whenever that happens, reach for more chalk, and apply it to the tip of the cue stick while looking thoughtful. Always imply that your equipment is to blame, rather than your skills.” Evie felt a smile rising to her lips, and she leaned over the table once more. Perhaps it was wrong, with her father having passed away so recently, but for the first time in a long while, she was having fun. Sebastian covered her from behind again, sliding his hands over hers. “Let me show you the proper motion of the cue stick—keep it level—like this.” Together they concentrated on the steady, even slide of the cue stick through the little circle Evie had made of her fingers. The sexual entendre of the motion could hardly escape her, and she felt a flush rise up from the neck of her gown. “Shame on you,” she heard him murmur. “No proper young woman would have such thoughts.” A helpless giggle escaped Evie’s lips, and Sebastian moved to the side, watching her with a lazy smile. “Try again.

That was your forest. Where you hunted.” He came closer to the painting, gazing at the bleak, empty cold, the white and gray and brown and black. “This was your life,” he clarified. I was too mortified, too stunned, to reply. He walked to the next painting I’d left against the wall. Darkness and dense brown, flickers of ruby red and orange squeezing out between them. “Your cottage at night.” I tried to move, to tell him to stop looking at those ones and look at the others I’d laid out, but I couldn’t—couldn’t even breathe properly as he moved to the next painting. A tanned, sturdy male hand fisted in the hay, the pale pieces of it entwined among strands of brown coated with gold—my hair. My gut twisted. “The man you used to see—in your village.” He cocked his head again as he studied the picture, and a low growl slipped out. “While you made love.” He stepped back, looking at the row of pictures. “This is the only one with any brightness." Was that … jealousy? “It was the only escape I had.” Truth. I wouldn’t apologize for Isaac. Not when Tamlin had just been in the Great Rite. I didn’t hold that against him—but if he was going to be jealous of Isaac— Tamlin must have realized it, too, for he loosed a long, controlled breath before moving to the next painting. Tall shadows of men, bright red dripping off their fists, off their wooden clubs, hovering and filling the edges of the painting as they towered over the curled figure on the floor, the blood leaking from him, the leg at a wrong angle. Tamlin swore. “You were there when they wrecked your father’s leg.” “Someone had to beg them to stop.” Tamlin threw a too-knowing glance in my direction and turned to look at the rest of the paintings. There they were, all the wounds I’d slowly been leeching these few months. I blinked. A few months. Did my family believe that I would be forever away with this so-called dying aunt? At last, Tamlin looked at the painting of the glen and the starlight. He nodded in appreciation. But he pointed to the painting of the snow-veiled woods. “That one. I want that one.

All that day and all that night there sat an awful gladness in my heart,—nay, blame me not if I see the world thus darkly through the Veil,—and my soul whispers ever to me saying, “Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free.” No bitter meanness now shall sicken his baby heart till it die a living death, no taunt shall madden his happy boyhood. Fool that I was to think or wish that this little soul should grow choked and deformed within the Veil! I might have known that yonder deep unworldly look that ever and anon floated past his eyes was peering far beyond this narrow Now. In the poise of his little curl-crowned head did there not sit all that wild pride of being which his father had hardly crushed in his own heart? For what, forsooth, shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you.

He wouldn’t have understood. He wouldn’t have been able to understand in the least the desire, the pure quintessential need of my readers for escape, a thing I myself understood only too well. Life had been hard on them and they had not fought back, they’d collapsed like soufflés in a high wind. Escape wasn’t a luxury for them, it was a necessity. They had to get it somehow. And when they were too tired to invent escapes of their own, mine were available for them at the corner drugstore, neatly packaged like the other painkillers. They could be taken in capsule form, quickly and discreetly, during those moments when the hair-dryer was stiffening the curls around their plastic rollers or the bath oil in the bath was turning their skins to pink velvet, leaving a ring in the tub to be removed later with Ajax Cleanser, which would make their hands smell like a hospital and cause their husbands to remark that they were about as sexy as a dishcloth. Then they would mourn their lack of beauty, their departing youth.… I knew all about escape, I was brought up on it.

Darius, please. You’re hurting me.” He opened his eyes at once. “Nicole?” She lay draped across his chest, her face angled up to his, her dark braid curling beneath her chin. A ragged breath escaped him. She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld. Until she winced, and he realized he was holding her tight enough to crack her ribs. He released her immediately. She wiggled against him as she struggled to sit up, finally bracing a hand upon his chest to lever herself upward. His pulse reacted to her touch, and he had to close his eyes to keep from clutching her to himself again. The haze of sleep was clearing, but his control hadn’t yet been fully restored. A small groan vibrated in his throat. Cool fingers stroked his brow, his face, his hair. “Darius, it’s all right. It was just a dream. I’m here, now. Safe. We’re both safe.” He opened his eyes and turned his face toward her voice. She had slid from atop him but knelt by the side of the sofa near his head. His gaze roamed her face, her shoulders, the area around her ribs. “Did I hurt you?” She shook her head, and he expelled a heavy breath in relief.

I love you,” he starts with the phrase he loves to repeat at least a hundred times a day. “I love you so much, and I know it’s soon, but fuck, Ollie, I just really love you. When I’m gone, all I can think about is cuddling you on the couch, or falling asleep with you in my arms, or you walking around the house in the morning wearing nothing but my T-shirt with your sleepy smile, your curls trying to escape from your messy bun. When I get off the plane, you’re the first person I want to see. And when I’m home…I want you to be home too. I want us to be home together.

Where the hell did the Pack find you two? At a beach volleyball tournament? Great tan. Love those curls.” LeBlanc shook his head. “He’s not even as big as I am. He’s what, six foot nothing? Two hundred pounds in steel-toed boots? Christ. I’m expecting some ugly bruiser bigger than Cain and what do I find? The next Baywatch star. Looks like his IQ would be low enough. Can he chew gum and tie his shoes at the same time?” Clay stopped playing with his chair and turned to face the mirror. He got up, crossed the room, and stood in front of me. I was leaning forward, one hand pressed against the glass. Clay touched his fingertips to mine and smiled. LeBlanc jumped back. “Fuck,” he said. “I thought that was one-way glass.” “It is.” Clay turned his head toward LeBlanc and mouthed three words. Then the door to his room opened and one of the officers called him out. Clay grinned at me, then sauntered out with the officer. As he left, a surge of renewed confidence ran through me. “What did he say?” LeBlanc asked. “Wait for me.” “What?” “It’s a challenge,” Marsten murmured from across the room. He didn’t look up from his magazine. “He’s inviting you to stick around and get to know him better.” “Are you going to?” LeBlanc asked. Marsten’s lips curved in a smile. “He didn’t invite me.” LeBlanc snorted. “For a bunch of killer monsters, the whole lot of you are nothing but hot air. All your rules and challenges and false bravado.” He waved a hand at me. “Like you. Standing there so nonchalantly, pretending you aren’t the least bit concerned about having the two of us in the room.” “I’m not.” “You should be. Do you know how fast I could kill you? You’re standing two feet away from me. If I had a gun or knife in my pocket, you’d be dead before you had time to scream.” “Really? Huh.” LeBlanc’s cheek twitched. “You don’t believe me, do you? How do you know I’m not packing a gun? There’s no metal detector at the door. I could pull one out now, kill you, and escape in thirty seconds.” “Then do it. I know, you don’t like our little games, but humor me. If you have a gun or a knife, pull it out. If not, pretend to. Prove you could do it." “I don’t need to prove anything. Certainly not to a smart-mouthed—” He whipped his hand up in mid-sentence. I grabbed it and snapped his wrist. The sound cracked through the room. The receptionist glanced over, but LeBlanc had his back to her. I smiled at her and she turned away. “You—fucking—bitch,” LeBlanc gasped, cradling his arm. “You broke my wrist.” “So I win.” His face purpled. “You smug—” “Nobody likes a sore loser,” I said. “Grit your teeth and bear it. There’s no crying in werewolf games. Didn’t Daniel teach you that?

(Hadley and Mary in the Garden at Blanchard House) He laughed, a harsh sound, all sign of humor leaving his eyes. “Don’t let any of it fool you, my dear, for even the most tarnished silver can acquire a fine and gleaming polish. And believe me, there is far more tarnish here than an innocent and unschooled eye such as yours can discern.” “Why would you speak so of yourself?” Mary protested. He reached for a red-gold curl that had escaped her lace cap and coiled it around his !nger. “I would forewarn you, Miss Edwardes that I am a man, and men in general are not to be trusted…” He held her gaze as he slowly released the ringlet, allowing his fingers to skim her cheek. “…especially not by pretty young virgins.

Sin spied a straw-covered head peeping over the side of the wagon. Once the man disappeared from sight, the woman scrambled from the cart, with the boy one step behind. No one seemed to notice her peculiar activity, or if they did, they ignored it. She took a moment to dust the straw off them, but somehow she missed a piece that hung in the midst of one coppery curl. It bobbed as she moved. Simon laughed as she took the boy's hand and led him through the crowd. "Why was she hiding?" "She seeks to escape royal custody." The mirth faded from Simon's eyes. "Should we notify the guards?" "Nay, I think we can manage to retake her." "Then what are we waiting for?" "I have no idea. I simply like watching her maneuver." -Simon, Sin, Callie & Jamie

Tell me what to do," she said, the words blowing against him. Whatever sanity Ross had left promptly burned to cinders. He gasped out instructions, his hands trembling as he clasped her head. "Use your tongue on the tip... yes... now take as much as you can in your... oh, God..." Sophia's fervor more than made up for her lack of experience. She did things that Eleanor would never have tried, tugging at his aching flesh, her velvety tongue swirling and lapping. Ross sank to his knees and pulled at her clothes, tearing them, and she gave a breathless laugh at his roughness. His mouth caught greedily at hers, while she wriggled to help him strip the shredded gown down her legs. A primal sound of satisfaction escaped him when Sophia's naked body was finally revealed. He lifted her to the bed, pausing only to remove his trousers before he joined her. Eagerly she slid between his legs and took his sex into her mouth once more, resisting his efforts to bring her face up to his. Groaning repeatedly, he surrendered to her ministrations, his fingers tangling in the locks of her hair. However, he was not satisfied for long- he wanted more, he craved the taste of her. Impatiently he seized her hips, maneuvering her until she was positioned at his mouth. He buried his face amid the intimate curls, his hands gripping her thighs as she jerked with surprise. He searched her with his tongue, licking deeply into the seam of moist folds. Avidly he hunted for the tiny engorged peak where her pleasure was concentrated. Finding it, he nibbled, stroked, darted his tongue at it, as he felt her stiffen in approaching climax. He backed off, gentling, while she moaned pleadingly around his cock. Twice more he brought her to the edge, making her suffer, tormenting until she responded with desperate tugs of her mouth. Each time Sophia drew on him, Ross sank his tongue deep inside her, matching his rhythm to hers, until she shuddered hard as her pleasure finally reached its zenith. She cried out against his groin, her mouth still clamped around him. His own culmination approached rapidly, and he moved his hands to her head. But she resisted his attempts to dislodge her, and the silly strokes of her tongue became too much to bear. The climax broke over him, and he arched and gasped as he was consumed in an explosion of pure white fire.

As the soap slid through sparse curls and into the cleft between her thighs, ribbons of unexpected sensation stirred from her most intimate flesh and unfurled across the expanse of her skin. Her mouth dropped open, but she caught the moan before it escaped. Their gazes collided, the flames in his eyes darkened as his pupils dilated. He knew. Though he could see nothing, he knew exactly where her fingers drifted, and precisely where the soap slicked over already moistened skin. Despite her mortification, Farah also marveled. She'd been bathing for almost three decades and, while she'd found a tremor of pleasure whilst lingering here, it had never been so achingly insistent, so full of demand and promise. That demand, those promises, were mirrored in the stare of Dorian Blackwell.

She murmured, “Keeping me alive…intact…just so I can work their damned stele and get Cohort blood…all over my hands. Gun to your neck…blood on my hands…saints against God.” “Don’t talk,” said Crown roughly. “You’re spouting nonsense.” “You haven’t talked sense in months.” She burbled with coughing again. “You’re the one facing the dark night of the soul, Princess.” “Love that melodrama. Is there Eighth somewhere in your family tree?” “Gave yourself up… gave all of us up…for what? Propaganda and a leash…promise of salvation without understanding the sin. Hect and the hideous Sixth House mechanism…and now they are taken too. For what? Our lives? Is this living, Corona?” “You’ve never lived a single day in your life,” said Corona bitterly. “It’d be against regulations.” The Captain said, “Name and rank: Captain Judith Deuteros. House…Second,” and Crown scrubbed at her face with her hand, little licks of hair escaping from their elastic and curling over her forehead like light. The Captain broke off and said, “You think you’re walking the tightrope with fast talking and your face…steeled myself to the talking long ago. But you’re slipping, Princess…can’t save you from that…Hect, my hands are too filthy to save you…” It was funny to think of anyone wanting to save Camilla. The Captain’s eyes passed restlessly to Nona. Sweat was beading on her temples. The Captain focused, and said hoarsely, “Ninth, where is the mercy of the Tomb? Where is your sword in the coffin? Who are your masters now, and who do you master? Where is my cavalier, Reverend Daughter? Where is yours?” Her voice rose. “Because I saw her—in the waves—she was there in the grey water—I saw them all—they hurt me—where is my hunger? I eat and eat and eat without surcease, my green thing, my green-and-breathing thing…

I was held tight, wound round with wire, I couldn't breathe, and I had to run. I threw the sweater on the floor and went out the door and down to the creek where I always went. Jonas found me after a while and we lay there together, protected from the rain by the trees crowding overhead, dim and rich in the kind of knowing, possessive way trees have of pressing closer. I looked back at the trees and listened to the soft sound of the water. There was no cousin, no Charles Blackwood, no intruder inside. [...] I fell asleep listening to Jonas, just as the shadows were coming down. Sometime during the night Jonas left me to go hunting, and I woke a little when he came back, pressing against me to get warm. "Jonas," I said, and he purred comfortably. When I woke up the early morning mists were wandering lightly along the creek, curling around my face and touching me. I lay there lughing, feeling the almost imaginary brush of the mist across my eyes, and looking up into the trees.

I was held tight, wound round with wire, I couldn't breathe, and I had to run. I threw the sweater on the floor and went out the door and down to the creek where I always went. Jonas found me after a while and we lay there together, protected from the rain by the trees crowding overhead, dim and rich in the kind of knowing, possessive way trees have of pressing closer. I looked back at the trees and listened to the soft sound of the water. There was no cousin, no Charles Blackwood, no intruder inside. [...] I fell asleep listening to Jonas, just as the shadows were coming down. Sometime during the night Jonas left me to go hunting, and I woke a little when he came back, pressing against me to get warm. "Jonas," I said, and he purred comfortably. When I woke up the early morning mists were wandering lightly along the creek, curling around my face and touching me. I lay there laughing, feeling the almost imaginary brush of the mist across my eyes, and looking up into the trees.

Having perfected his arrangements, he would get my pipe, and, lighting it, would hand it to me. Often he was obliged to strike a light for the occasion, and as the mode he adopted was entirely different from what I had ever seen or heard of before I will describe it. A straight, dry, and partly decayed stick of the Hibiscus, about six feet in length, and half as many inches in diameter, with a small, bit of wood not more than a foot long, and scarcely an inch wide, is as invariably to be met with in every house in Typee as a box of lucifer matches in the corner of a kitchen cupboard at home. The islander, placing the larger stick obliquely against some object, with one end elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, mounts astride of it like an urchin about to gallop off upon a cane, and then grasping the smaller one firmly in both hands, he rubs its pointed end slowly up and down the extent of a few inches on the principal stick, until at last he makes a narrow groove in the wood, with an abrupt termination at the point furthest from him, where all the dusty particles which the friction creates are accumulated in a little heap. At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens his pace, and waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously along the smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing rapidity, the perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches the climax of his effort, he pants and gasps for breath, and his eyes almost start from their sockets with the violence of his exertions. This is the critical stage of the operation; all his previous labours are vain if he cannot sustain the rapidity of the movement until the reluctant spark is produced. Suddenly he stops, becoming perfectly motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller stick, which is pressed convulsively against the further end of the channel among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced through and through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling to escape from his clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke curls spirally into the air, the heap of dusty particles glows with fire, and Kory-Kory, almost breathless, dismounts from his steed.

What is so rewarding about friendship?” my son asked, curling his upper lip into a sour expression. “Making friends takes too much time and effort, and for what?” I sat on the edge of his bed, understanding how it might seem simpler to go at life solo. “Friendship has unique rewards,” I told him. “They can be unpredictable. For instance....” I couldn’t help but pause to smile crookedly at an old memory that was dear to my heart. Then I shared with my son an unforgettable incident from my younger years. “True story. When I was about your age, I decided to try out for a school play. Tryouts were to begin after the last class of the day, but first I had to run home to grab a couple props for the monologue I planned to perform during tryouts. Silly me, I had left them at the house that morning. Luckily, I only lived across a long expanse of grassy field that separated the school from the nearest neighborhood. Unluckily, it was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella. “Determined to get what I needed, I raced home, grabbed my props, and tore back across the field while my friend waited under the dry protection of the school’s wooden eaves. She watched me run in the rain, gesturing for me to go faster while calling out to hurry up or we would be late. “The rain was pouring by that time which was added reason for me to move fast. I didn’t want to look like a wet rat on stage in front of dozens of fellow students. Don’t ask me why I didn’t grab an umbrella from home—teenage pride or lack of focus, I’m not sure—but the increasing rain combined with the hollering from my friend as well as my anxious nerves about trying out for the play had me running far too fast in shoes that lacked any tread. “About a yard from the sidewalk where the grass was worn from foot traffic and consequently muddied from the downpour of rain, I slipped and fell on my hind end. Me, my props, and my dignity slid through the mud and lay there, coated. My things were dripping with mud. I was covered in it. I felt my heart plunge, and I wanted to cry. I probably would have if it hadn’t been for the wonderful thing that happened right then. My crazy friend ran over and plopped herself down in the mud beside me. She wiggled in it, making herself as much a mess as I was. Then she took my slimy hand in hers and pulled us both to our feet. We tried out for the play looking like a couple of swine escaped from a pigsty, laughing the whole time. I never did cry, thanks to my friend. “So yes, my dear son, friendship has its unique rewards—priceless ones.

memoir A Ride in the Neon Sun. Here’s what she says about traveling: Some people travel with firm ideas for a journey, following in the footsteps of an intrepid ancestor whose exotic exploits were happened upon in a dusty, cobweb-laced attic containing immovable trunks full of sepia-curled daguerreotypes and age-discoloured letters redolent of bygone days. Others travel for anthropological, botanical, archaeological, geological, and other logical reasons. Some are smitten by a specific country brewed from childhood dreams. For others, travel is a challenge, a release, an escape, a shaking off of the shackles, and even if they don’t know where they will end up they usually know where they will begin. The very hardest part of writing this book was that I was unable to stop working on it. I kept reading even after the initial manuscript was turned in, discovering new titles and authors whose works I just couldn’t bear to leave out. I even envisioned myself watching the book being printed and shouting periodically, “Stop the presses!” so that I could add yet another section or title. But of course the day actually came when I knew I had to stop or there would never be an end to the project.And here is the result, in your hands right now. So, before your next trip—either virtual or actual—grab a pen and begin making notes about the titles that sound good to you. And enjoy the journeys. I’d love to hear from you. My email address is nancy@nancypearl .com.

What else do you want to know?’ he asked. Possessed by morbid curiosity, her eyes darted to the scar that cut just over his ear. She’d found it shortly after they met, while he lay unconscious in the grass. He didn’t need to ask what had caught her attention. ‘I got that in a fight against imperial soldiers. Ask me why.’ She shook her head, unable to bring herself to do it. The cocoon of warmth that had enveloped the entire afternoon unwound itself in an instant. ‘Are you having second thoughts about being here with me?’ He planted a hand into the grass, edging closer. ‘No. I trust you.’ He was giving her all the time in the world to shove him away, to rise, to flee. Her heartbeat quickened as she watched him. Moving ever so slowly, he braced an arm on either side of her, his fingers sinking into the moss. ‘I asked you to come with me.’ Despite her words, she dug her heels into the ground and inched backwards. ‘I feel safe with you.’ ‘I can see that.’ He affected a lazy smile as she retreated until her back pressed against the knotted roots that crawled along the ground. His boldness was so unexpected, so exciting. She held her breath and waited. Her pulse jumped when he reached for her. She’d been imagining this moment ever since their first duel and wondering whether it would take another swordfight for him to come near her again. His fingers curled gently against the back of her neck, giving her one last chance to escape. Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her. It was as natural as breathing to wrap his arms around her and lower her to the ground. He settled his weight against her hips. The perfume of her skin mixed with the damp scent of the moss beneath them. At some point, her sense of propriety would win over. Until then he let his body flood with raw desire. It felt good to kiss her the way he wanted to. It felt damn good. He slipped his tongue past her lips to where she was warm and smooth and inviting. Her hands clutched at his shirt as she returned his kiss. A muted sound escaped from her throat. He swallowed her cry, using his hands to circle her wrists: rough enough to make her breath catch, gentle enough to have her opening her knees, cradling his hips with her long legs. He stroked himself against her, already hard beyond belief. He groaned when she responded, instinctively pressing closer. ‘I need to see you,’ he said. The sash around her waist fell aside in two urgent tugs while his other hand stole beneath her tunic. She gasped when his fingers brushed the swath of cloth at her breasts. The faint, helpless sound nearly lifted him out of the haze of desire. He didn’t want to think too hard about this. Not yet. He felt for the edge of the binding. ‘In back.’ She spoke in barely a whisper, a sigh on his soul. She peered up at him, her face in shadow as he parted her tunic. She watched him in much the same way she had when they had first met: curious, fearless, her eyes a swirl of green and gold. He pulled at the tight cloth until Ailey’s warm, feminine flesh swelled into his hands. He soothed his palms over the cruel welts left by the bindings. She bit down against her lip as blood rushed back into the tortured flesh. With great care, he stroked her nipples, teasing them until they grew tight beneath his roughened fingertips. God’s breath. Perfect. He wanted his mouth on her and still it wouldn’t be enough. Her heart beat out a chaotic rhythm. His own echoed the same restless pulse. ‘I knew it would be like this.’ His words came out hoarse with passion. At that moment he’d have given his soul to have her. But somewhere in his thick skull, he knew he had a beautiful, vulnerable girl who trusted him pressed against the bare earth. He sensed the hitch in her breathing and how her fingers dug nervously into his shoulders, even as her hips arched into him. He ran his thumb gently over the reddened mark that ran just below her collarbone and felt her shiver beneath him.

thought there might not be a sky: he had an idea that the formless rock went on and on in a great arch overhead—but when he thought about it, that did not seem possible. Christopher always knew in his dream that you could get to Almost Anywhere from The Place Between. He called it Almost Anywhere because there was one place that did not want you to go to it. It was quite near, but he always found himself avoiding it. He set off sliding, scrambling, edging across bulging wet rock, and climbing up or down, until he found another valley and another path. There were hundreds of them. He called them the Anywheres. The Anywheres were mostly quite different from London. They were hotter or colder, with strange trees and stranger houses. Sometimes the people in them looked ordinary, sometimes their skin was bluish or reddish and their eyes were peculiar, but they were always very kind to Christopher. He had a new adventure every time he went on a dream. In the active adventures people helped him escape through cellars of odd buildings, or he helped them in wars, or in rounding up dangerous animals. In the calm adventures, he got new things to eat and people gave him toys. He lost most of the toys as he was scrambling back home over the rocks, but he did manage to bring back the shiny shell necklace the silly ladies gave him, because he could hang it around his neck. He went to the Anywhere with the silly ladies several times. It had blue sea and white sand, perfect for digging and building in. There were ordinary people in it, but Christopher only saw them in the distance. The silly ladies came and sat on rocks out of the sea and giggled at him while he made sand castles. “Oh clistoffer!” they would coo, in lisping voices. “Tell uth what make you a clistoffer.” And they would all burst into screams of high laughter. They were the only ladies he had seen without clothes on. Their skins were greenish and so was their hair. He was fascinated by the way the ends of them were big silvery tails that could curl and flip

He was so very gentle, despite his power and size, his fingertips sliding over her in light, beguiling patterns. His focus on her, his awareness of every sound, pulse, shiver, was absolute. His low voice tickled her ear as he murmured how beautiful she was, how good she felt, how hard she made him... and all the while, the thick shaft kept sinking deeper and deeper. By the time he filled her completely, she was feverish with need. A little sob of anticipation escaped her as he began to move. But every thrust was long and agonizingly slow, withholding the last bit of stimulation she needed. He held her more closely now, his weight on her from pelvis to breasts, while his hips rolled and circled, drawing up new surges of feeling. His mouth lowered to one of her breasts, licking and gently gnawing at the erect nipple. Squirming in frustration, she pushed her hips upward, but he pulled back reflexively. "No, love. I could hurt you." "You won't. Please... Keir..." "Please what?" "I need more." His laugh, a smolder of a sound, could have come from the devil himself. "I dinna think you can take more than this, darlin'." "I can." She strained against him. "This deep?" he asked, reaching places in her that had never been touched before. She shook at the pleasure of it. "Oh, God. Yes." His hands grasped her hips, keeping them angled firmly upward as he pumped in a steady rhythm. Slow in... slow out... "Faster," she said desperately. "No' yet," he whispered. "Please," she begged. His low, dark voice curled in her ear. "There's a saying we have about whisky: Slow fire makes sweet malt." She whimpered as he rolled his hips gently, his hardness caressing everywhere inside. The deliberate pace didn't alter, no matter how she tried to drive herself harder onto the rigid length of him. Every time she began to plead for more, his mouth came to hers in another one of those obliterating kisses. None of this was what she'd expected. Her husband had been a considerate lover, doing everything she liked and giving her exactly what she wanted. Keir, however, was doing the exact opposite. He delighted in tormenting her until she didn't recognize herself in the frantic creature she'd become. He was absolutely wicked, shameless, making love to her in ways that felt unimaginably good, always holding satisfaction just out of reach. "You give me so much pleasure, darlin'... more than a body can stand. The way you hold me so tight inside... like that... I can feel you pulling at me. Your wee, hungry body wants me deeper, aye? Put your hands on me... anywhere... ah, how I love your sweet touch...

For God’s sake, Anders, your pacing is driving me wild,” Leigh said with exasperation. “Sit down.” Anders paused with surprise and turned to peer at the brunette curled up in the corner of the couch with a book in her hands. “I’m not pacing, I’m . . .” She arched her eyebrows, waiting, and he sighed. “Pacing,” he acknowledged and sank onto the nearest chair. He rested his elbows on his spread knees, allowing his hands to dangle between them, and stared out the window. After several minutes, he dropped back in the chair with a heavy sigh, then straightened and asked impatiently, “What the devil is she doing up there?” “She’s checking with her academic advisor to ensure that missing the first two weeks of classes won’t bugger her up for the term,” Leigh reminded him patiently. “Yeah, but that should have been a five-minute conversation. She’s been up there over an hour,” he complained. Valerie had helped clean up the kitchen after breakfast, then had taken Roxy with her and escaped upstairs on the pretext of calling the veterinary college to be sure she was still welcome after missing the first two weeks of the semester. “Yes, well, perhaps whoever she needs to speak to wasn’t available and she’s waiting for a call back,” Leigh suggested. “Or maybe they had work for her to do to keep from falling behind and she’s up their reading her textbooks and studying.” “Or maybe she’s hiding,” Anders said unhappily. Leigh tsked with irritation. “Why would she be hiding?” Anders didn’t respond, but in his mind he was remembering their kiss that morning . . . well, kisses. Or maybe one kiss. He wasn’t sure how to classify it. Did you have to come up for air to classify it as more than one kiss? Or was it counted in minutes or seconds? Because it had been a constant devouring of each other’s mouths for several minutes. “Oh my, yes. I see,” Leigh murmured. Anders glanced up at her murmur and noted her narrowed concentration on him. She’d read his damn mind. “Yes, that might have made her want to hide out,” she said sympathetically. “It wasn’t that long ago when I had my first encounter with life mate passion. It was pretty terrifying. And she didn’t have any idea what was happening. I mean, as an immortal you had heard about it, had some idea of what to expect, and yet you were still overwhelmed by it. Imagine how she must feel. She got hit by a nuclear explosion of passion out of nowhere.” Anders sighed and ran one hand wearily over his closely cropped hair. Leigh wasn’t saying a damned thing he hadn’t already thought of. Which was why he suspected Valerie was hiding out. The question was, how long would she hide? And how was he supposed to get her to know and trust him if she wouldn’t come out of her room?

I never dreamed it would be as amazing as that,” she whispered. “I did.” “Really?” Her soft voice was a caress. Everything about her was as smooth and silky and sweet as whipped cream. Well, except for her tart opinions. And her fierce determination to make him tell everything in his soul. Though he had to admit that after confessing his secret fears to her earlier, he felt freer, as if the boulder he’d been carrying for years had dropped from his back. “I knew it would be perfect.” He gave her a lingering kiss, then drew back to cup her pinkening cheek. “With you it could be nothing less.” Shyly avoiding his gaze, she finger-combed his short hair. “Nancy always said that sharing a man’s bed was something to ‘endure.’ That marriage was more pleasant without it, but it was required for having children so she’d had to put up with it.” He skimmed a hand down her lightly freckled arm. “And what do you think, now that you’ve experienced it for yourself?” “I think I could ‘endure’ it with great enthusiasm.” Jane flashed him a mischievous smile. “But I’m not really sure. Should we try it again so I can make certain?” Stifling a laugh, he tried to look stern. “We’re lucky none of the grooms have stumbled over us already.” He managed to sound even-toned, though the prospect of taking her again--here, now--was already making him hard. “Speaking of that, we’d better get dressed, before someone finds us here naked.” A sigh escaped her. “You do have a point. Though I don’t know how you can be so sensible and industrious when all I feel is lazy and content.” “I’m not being sensible and industrious at all.” Reluctantly he slipped from her arms to go hunt up his drawers. “I’m simply being selfish. The longer you stay naked, the more chance that I will attempt to ravish you again.” “That sounds perfectly…awful,” she said as she struck a seductive pose. God save him. He swept his gaze over her thrusting breasts, her slender belly with its delicate navel, and her auburn thatch of curls. The taste of her was still on his lips, the smell of her still in his nostrils. He wanted her again. And again and again… Muttering a curse under his breath, he tossed her shift at her. “Put some clothes on before I combust.” She laughed, a delicate tinkling sound that tightened his cock. Fortunately for his self-restraint, she did as he bade and donned her shift. Only then was he able to breathe, to concentrate on putting on his trousers rather than on the erotic sight of her drawing her stockings up those luscious legs. He turned and nearly stumbled over the carriage lamps. “These are a lost cause, now that I recklessly dashed them to the floor in my…er…enthusiasm, sweeting.” “Good,” she said cheerily. “Now you can’t run off to London without me tonight.

The madness surged around him, and Rhy tore himself away from the breaking city and turned his sights again to his quest for the captain of the Night Spire. There were only two places Alucard Emery would go: his family estate or his ship. Logic said he’d go to the house, but something in Rhy’s gut sent him in the opposite direction, toward the docks. He found the captain on his cabin floor. One of the chairs by the hearth had been toppled, a table knocked clean of glasses, their glittering shards scattered in the rug and across the wooden floor. Alucard—decisive, strong, beautiful Alucard—lay curled on his side, shivering with fever, his warm brown hair matted to his cheeks with sweat. He was clutching his head, breath escaping in ragged gasps as he spoke to ghosts. “Stop … please …” His voice—that even, clear voice, always brimming with laughter—broke. “Don’t make me …” Rhy was on his knees beside him. “Luc,” he said, touching the man’s shoulder. Alucard’s eyes flashed open, and Rhy recoiled when he saw them filled with shadows. Not the even black of Kell’s gaze, but instead menacing streaks of darkness that writhed and coiled like snakes through his vision, storm blue irises flashing and vanishing behind the fog. “Stop,” snarled the captain suddenly. He struggled up, limbs shaking, only to fall back against the floor. Rhy hovered over him, helpless, unsure whether to hold him down or try to help him up. Alucard’s eyes found his, but looked straight through him. He was somewhere else. “Please,” the captain pleaded with the ghosts. “Don’t make me go.” “I won’t,” said Rhy, wondering who Alucard saw. What he saw. How to free him. The captain’s veins stood out like ropes against his skin. “He’ll never forgive me.” “Who?” asked Rhy, and Alucard’s brow furrowed, as if he were trying to see through the fog, the fever. “Rhy—” The sickness tightened its hold, the shadows in his eyes streaking with lines of light like lightning. The captain bit back a scream. Rhy ran his fingers over Alucard’s hair, took his face in his hands. “Fight it,” he ordered. “Whatever’s holding you, fight it.” Alucard folded in on himself, shuddering. “I can’t….” “Focus on me.” “Rhy …” he sobbed. “I’m here.” Rhy Maresh lowered himself onto the glass-strewn floor, lay on his side so they were face-to-face. “I’m here.” He remembered, then. Like a dream flickering back to the surface, he remembered Alucard’s hands on his shoulders, his voice cutting through the pain, reaching out to him, even in the dark. I’m here now, he’d said, so you can’t die. “I’m here now,” echoed Rhy, twining his fingers through Alucard’s. “And I’m not letting go, so don’t you dare.” Another scream tore from Alucard’s throat, his grip tightening as the lines of black on his skin began to glow. First red, then white. Burning. He was burning from the inside out. And it hurt—hurt to watch, hurt to feel so helpless. But Rhy kept his word. He didn’t let go.

A whimper escaped her as he slid low between her thighs, his head bending to the swollen place he had been tormenting with his fingers. He put his mouth on her, licking along the delicate, salty strait, spreading her with his thumbs. She tried to sit bolt-upright, but fell back against the pillows as he found what he wanted, his tongue strong and wet. She was spread beneath him like a pagan sacrifice, illuminated by the daylight that now flooded the room. Merripen worshipped her with hot, glassy licks, savoring the taste of her pleasured flesh. Moaning, she closed her legs around his head, and he turned deliberately to nibble and lick at one pale inner thigh, then the other. Feasting on her. Wanting everything. Win curled her fingers desperately in his hair, lost to shame as she guided him back, her body arching wordlessly...here, please, more, more, now...and she groaned as he fastened his mouth over her with a fast, flicking rhythm. Pleasure seized her, wrenching an astonished cry from her, holding her stiff and paralyzed for excruciating seconds. Every movement and measure and pulse of the universe had distilled to the compelling, slippery heat, riveted there on that crucial place, and then it all released, the feeling and tension shattering exquisitely, and she was racked with hard, blissful shudders. Win relaxed helplessly as the spasms faded. She was filled with glowing weariness, a sense of peace too pervasive to allow movement. Merripen let go of her just long enough to undress completely. Naked and aroused, he came back to her. He gathered her up with brute, masculine need, settling over her. She lifted her arms to him with a drowsy murmur. His back was tough and sleek beneath her fingers, the muscles twitching eagerly at her touch. His head descended, his shaven cheek rasping against hers. She met his power with utter surrender, flexing her knees and tilting her hips to cradle him. He pushed gently at first. The innocent flesh resisted, smarting at the intrusion. He thrust more strongly and Win caught her breath at the burning pain of his entrance. Too much of him, too hard, too deep. She writhed in reaction, and he buried himself heavily and pinned her down, gasping for her to be still, telling her to wait, he wouldn't move, it would be better. They both stilled, breathing hard. "Should I stop?" Merripen whispered raggedly, his face taut. Even now in this flash point of need, he was concerned for her. Understanding what it had cost him to ask, how much he needed her, Win was overwhelmed with love. "Don't even think of stopping now," she whispered back. Reaching down his lean flanks, she stroked him in shy encouragement. He groaned and began to move, his entire body trembling as he pressed within her. Although every thrust caused a sharp burn where they were joined, Win tried to pull him even deeper. The feeling of having him inside her went far beyond the pain or pleasure. It was necessary.

Surely you’re not going to destroy another book, are you?” “I’ve decided my obsession with reading has gotten me absolutely nowhere, so . . . I’m tossing all the nonsense out of my life and intend to travel forth with less baggage.” “You love to read.” “And I’ll occasionally indulge that love, but enough is enough.” She held up her copy of Pride and Prejudice. “This, for all intent and purposes, is a fairy tale. I’m done with fairy tales for good, as well as anything by Shakespeare. I loathe his stories, don’t understand most of what he’s written, and I was only reading them because of any future children I hoped to have. But since I’m destined to remain a spinster forever . . . I’m chucking them into the fire.” “What do Shakespeare and any children you might have in the future have in common?” Millie sent him a look that clearly said she found him a little dense. “I wanted to be knowledgeable so that my children wouldn’t suffer any embarrassment because of my ignorance and lack of education.” Everett’s mouth dropped open before he had the presence of mind to snap it shut when she shot him a glare. Bracing himself in case she got it into her head to punch him as she’d done Mr. Victor, Everett stepped closer to her and pried the copy of Pride and Prejudice out of her hand. “Any child would be lucky to call you mother, Millie. You’re smart, well-read, curious about everything, and have a true love for children.” Staring at him for a long moment, Millie tilted her head. “I knew we should have summoned the physician to take a look at you after your last brawl.” “My wits are not addled, Millie. Quite honestly, my mind is clearer right now than it’s been in years.” He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it, relieved when her eyes widened just a bit. “And I have to tell you something else.” “What?” she asked in a voice that sounded somewhat breathless. “I can’t allow you to burn any Jane Austen book—but especially not Pride and Prejudice.” “That’s what you have to say to me—that I can’t burn a silly book?” “I finished the story, Millie. I read Pride and Prejudice from cover to cover, and . . . I’m your Mr. Darcy and you’re my Lizzy.” “You . . . finished . . . the story?” “Indeed. And if you didn’t hear me the first time, I’m Mr. Darcy.” “I’m fairly certain Mr. Darcy would have had an English accent, but since Lizzy did enjoy reading, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to compare me with her, although. . . .” As Millie continued talking, really rapidly at that, Everett simply watched her, taking in every detail of her face. Her green eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were flushed a delicate shade of pink. Brown curls had begun to escape the pins someone had put in her hair, and a spray of flowers that had been tucked into that hair was hanging somewhat forlornly over her ear. Her lips were still moving incredibly fast, but the second his gaze settled on them, he couldn’t seem to look away. They were delightful lips, just the right shade of pink, and . . . Everett leaned forward and claimed those rapidly moving lips with his own. For

Come on, lovey, open up. These buckets is heavy.” The plea accompanied another tapping. “Patience, Molly.” Christopher paused for a brief moment, gathering the towel about him again. Then his muscles flexed, and if she had found the breath, Erienne would have shrieked as he lifted her and dumped her onto the bed. She half raised with her mouth open to hotly voice her objection to whatever he had in mind, but he flung the bedcovers over her head, squelching comment. “Lie still.” His whisper bore a tone of command that could prompt immediate obedience from even the most reluctant. Erienne froze, and with a smile Christopher reached across to turn down the other side of the bed to make it seem as if he had just left it. Frantic visions involving her possible fate flew through Erienne’s mind. She considered the horrible humiliation she would suffer if she were discovered in the man’s bed. Her fears burgeoned, her rage peaked, and she threw back the covers, intending to escape the trap he laid for her. In the next brief second she caught her breath sharply and snatched the covers back over her head again, for the sight of him standing stark naked beside the chair where his clothes were draped was too much for her virgin eyes to bear. It had been no more than a glimpse, but the vision of his tall, tanned, wide-shouldered form bathed in the pinkish light of the rising sun was forever branded in her brain. Christopher chuckled softly as Erienne curled into the bed and finally obeyed his warning. He slipped on his breeches, secured them, and moved across the room to unlock the door. Molly knew her trade and her competition, and the village of Mawbry suited her well, since there was an absolute lack of the latter. When Christopher opened the portal, she was through it in a trice and shrugging out of the yoke that bore the pails. Pressing herself tightly against the male form, she rubbed her fingers through the hair on his chest and fluttered her lashes. “Oh, lovey, ye are a wondrous sight for any girl to behold.” “I’ve already told you, Molly. I have no need of yer services,” Christopher stated bluntly. “I only want the water.” “Ah, come now, lovey,” she crooned. “I knows ye’ve been away ter sea and needs a li’l tussle in bed. Why, with such a man as yerself, I’d be more’n willin’ ter give ye all ye need without a hint o’ a coin.” Christopher swept his hand toward the mentioned furnishing, drawing the maid’s eyes to it. “I already have all I desire. Now be along with you.” Molly’s dark eyes widened in surprise as she turned to stare at the bed. Unable to mistake the curvaceous form hidden beneath the quilt, she straightened indignantly and with a swish of her skirts was gone from the room, slamming the door behind her. Erienne waited, not daring to come out from beneath the covering until Christopher tapped her on the shoulder. “ ’Tis safe now. You can come out.” “Are you dressed?” she asked cautiously, her voice muffled beneath the covers. Christopher chuckled. “I’ve got my breeches on, if that’s what you’re worried about." -Molly, Christopher, & Erienne

You’re all I want, Jane.” As he stroked her, he used his other hand to brush hers away so he could unfasten his own trouser buttons. “The only woman I ever cared about.” “You’re the only man Iever cared about.” She undulated against his fingers, begging for him with her body. “Why do you think…I waited for you so long?” “Not long enough, apparently,” he muttered, “or you wouldn’t have gotten yourself engaged to Blakeborough.” He tugged at her nipple with his teeth, then relished her cry of pleasure. “I only…did it because I was…tired of waiting.” She arched against his mouth. “Because you clearly weren’t…coming back for me.” “I was sure you hated me.” At last he got his trousers open. “You acted like you hated me still.” “I did.” Her breath was unsteady. “But only because…you tore us apart.” He shifted her to sit astride him. “And now?” Flashing him a provocative smile he would never have dreamed she had in her repertoire, she unbuttoned his drawers. “Do I look like I hate you?” His cock, so hard he thought it might erupt right there and embarrass him, sprang free. “You look like…like…” He paused to take in her lovely face with its flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes, and lush lips. Then he swept his gaze down to her breasts with their brazen tips, displayed so enticingly above the boned corset and her undone shift. He then dropped his eyes to the smooth thighs emerging from beneath her bunched-up skirts. Shoving the fabric higher, he exposed her dewy thatch of curls, and a shudder of anticipation shook him. “You look like an angel.” She uttered a breathy laugh. “A wanton, more like.” Taking his cock in her hand, she stroked it so wonderfully that he groaned. “Would an angel do this?” His cock was a rod of iron. “Jane…” He covered her hand to stay it, but she ignored his attempt. “I love it when you can’t control yourself,” she whispered. “I love having you at my mercy. You have no idea…how much I enjoy seeing Dom the Almighty brought low.” He barely registered her words. What she was doing felt so good. So bloody damned good. If she stroked him much more… “I want to be inside you.” He gripped her wrist. “Please, Jane…” Her sensuous smile faltered. “You’ve never said ‘please’ to me before. Not in your whole life.” “Really?” Had he only ever issued orders? If so, no wonder she’d refused him last night. Perhaps it was time to show her she didn’t have to seduce him to gain control. That he could give up his control freely…to her, at least. “Then let me say it now. Please, Jane, make love to me. If you don’t mind.” She stared at him. “I…I don’t know what you mean.” He nodded to his cock, which looked downright ecstatic over the idea. “Get up on your knees and fit me inside you.” Realizing he’d just issued yet another order, he added, “Please. If you want.” Jane got that sultry look on her face again. Like the little seductress she was rapidly showing herself to be, she rose up and then came down on him. By degrees. Very slow degrees. He had trouble breathing. “Am I hurting you?” Her smile broadened as she shimmied down another inch. “Not really.” Stifling a curse, he clutched her arms. “You just…enjoy torturing me.” “Absolutely,” she said and moved his hands to cover her breasts. He was more than happy to oblige her unspoken request, happy to thumb her nipples and watch as her lovely mouth fell open and a moan of pure pleasure escaped her. His cock swelled, and he thrust up involuntarily. “Please…” he said hoarsely. “Please, Jane…” With a choked laugh, she sheathed herself on him. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh, that feels amazing.” “It would feel more amazing if you…would move,” he rasped, though the mere sensation of being buried inside her was making him insane. When she arched an eyebrow, he added, “Please.” “I could get to like this,” she said teasingly. “The begging.

was babbling about, Maura could only guess. What she did know was that every second that passed made the air hotter, the smoke thicker, and their chances of a safe escape even more remote. “Uncle Don,” she continued, her voice as meek as she could force, “Would you put down your gun please? I’m afraid, too.” There was no response other than the pained sobbing of a man whose mind had lost control of his emotions. A wave of guilt spread over her. The signs had all been there. If she’d only been paying attention. But she hadn’t, because she was too close. She’d lost her objectivity, and now she was paying the price. She reached down and gently touched the hand that cradled the pistol. But Mellman’s wide fingers only clutched it tighter, and he looked at her, more lucid. “I can’t face it, Maura. I can’t. You go on. It’s all over for me, anyway.” The smoke curling up from around the attic floorboards joined that wafting up the stairwell, the two swirling in concert to increase the sinister haze above. Maura dropped to her knees, coughing. “No. It’s not over. You didn’t do anything wrong. Everyone knows that. Everyone knows what a good police chief you are.” Mellman turned red-rimmed eyes to her and talked through a wheezing cough. “You think so?” “Of course!” she swallowed. “My dad was the greatest, but you’re giving him some stiff competition.

Noir is about losers. The characters in these existential, nihilistic tales are doomed. They may not die, but they probably should, as the life that awaits them is certain to be so ugly, so lost and lonely, that they'd be better off just curling up and getting it over with. And, let's face it, they deserve it. Pretty much everyone in a noir story (or film) is driven by greed, lust, jealousy or alienation, a path that inevitably sucks them into a downward spiral from which they cannot escape. They couldn't find the exit from their personal highway to hell if flashing neon lights pointed to a town named Hope. It is their own lack of morality that blindly drives them to ruin.

The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane’s arm and whisper, “Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you.” He took a breath. “There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again.” Jane’s mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, “But…but surely you wouldn’t banish all the food.” He considered, then nodded once. “Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic.” And he spun her into the middle of the dance. While the music played, they didn’t speak again. All his attention was on her, leading her through the motions, watching her with admiration. He danced with her as though they were evenly matched, no indication that she was the lone rider of the Precedence Caboose. She had never before felt so keenly that Mr. Nobley and Miss Erstwhile were a couple. But I’m not really Miss Erstwhile, thought Jane. Her heart was pinching her. She needed to get away, she was dizzy, she was hot, his eyes were arresting, he was too much to take in. What am I supposed to do, Aunt Caroline? she asked the ceiling. Everything’s headed for Worse Than Before. How do I get out of this alive? She spun and saw Martin, and kept her eyes on him as though he were the lone landmark in a complicated maze. Mr. Nobley noticed her attention skidding. His eyes were dark when he saw Martin. His recent smile turned down, his look became more intense. As soon as the second number ended, Jane curtsied, thanked her partner, and began to depart, anxious for a breath of cold November air. “A moment, Miss Erstwhile,” Mr. Nobley said. “I have already taken your hand for the last half hour, but now I would beg your ear. Might we…” “Mr. Nobley!” A woman with curls shaking around her face flurried his way. Had Mr. Nobley been making visits to other estates while he was supposed to be hunting? Or was this a repeat client who might’ve known the man from a past cast? “I’m so happy to find you! I insist on dancing every dance.” “Just now is not…” Jane took advantage of the interruption to slip away, searching above the tops of heads for Martin. He’d been just over there…a hand grabbed her arm. She turned right into Mr. Nobley, their faces close, and she was startled by the wildness in him now, a touch of Heathcliff in his eyes. “Miss Erstwhile, I beg you.” “Oh, Mr. Nobley!” said another lady behind him. He glanced back with a harried look and gripped Jane’s arm tighter. He walked her out of the ballroom and into the darkened library, only then releasing her arm, though he had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I apologize,” he said. “I guess you would.” He was blocking the escape, so she gave in and took a chair. He began to pace, rubbing his chin and occasionally daring to look at her. The candlelight form the hallway made of him a silhouette, the starlight from the window just touching his eyes, his mouth. It was as dark as a bedroom. “You see how agitated I am,” he said. She waited, and her heart set to thumping without her permission. He wildly combed his hair with his fingers. “I can’t bear to be out there with you right now, all those indifferent people watching you, admiring you, but not really caring. Not as I do.” Jane: (hopeful) Really? Jane: (practical) Oh, stop that. Mr. Nobley sat in the chair beside her and gripped its arm. Jane: (observant) This man is all about arm gripping.

Are you so scared you were going to run?” She nodded, and he ran a finger along the line of her jaw. “Let’s try to get through this,” he said. “Even if it works, there’s no way I can ever repay you,” Paige said. He just shook his head. “I don’t want anything from you, Paige. Except that no one ever hits you again. Ever.” Paige just had to touch his face. She put her small palm against his cheek and whispered, “You are such an angel.” “Naw. I’m just an average guy.” He laughed a little. “A below-average guy.” She shook her head and a tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. Preacher carefully wiped it away. “It doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said. “If a man has a family like this—you and Christopher and a new baby coming—why? It seems like he’d do anything in the world to keep you safe, not hurt you. I wish...” He shook his head sadly. “What do you wish, John?” “You deserve to have a man who loves you and never lets you forget it. Someone who wants to raise Christopher into a solid and strong man, a good man who respects women.” He put his hand against her hair, grabbing a silky fistful. “If I had a woman like you, I’d be so careful,” he said in a whisper. She looked into his tender eyes and smiled, but it was tinged with fear and sadness. “Come here, let me hold you,” he said, pulling her to him. She slipped onto his lap, pulled up her legs and curled against him, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her back. She nestled like a little kitten against his broad chest. Preacher leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, his arms around her, holding her against him. All I have to offer is this, he thought. Help. Safety. We’ll get this bastard out of her life, she’ll grow strong and confident again. And then she’ll go. Somewhere down the line there will be a man—one who treats her right. But until then, sometimes she might need someone to hold her for a little while. And if it gets to be me, those few times, I’ll make the most of it. He sat like that until the small clock on the wall said that it was midnight. Paige had not moved in hours; she slept in his arms. He could stay there until dawn, just feeling her small body against his. With a deep sigh, he kissed the top of her head. Then he stood, carefully lifting her in his arms. She roused briefly, looking up at his face. “Shh,” he said. “Let’s get you to bed. We have a big day tomorrow.” He carried her up the back stairs and into his old room. Preacher lowered her to the bed, next to her son, and brushed the hair away from her brow. “Thank you, John,” she whispered. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “I’m doing what I want to do.” *

Her whole body shook as big, fat drops slid down her cheeks. Mortified, she covered her face as though she could hide her wailing. Strong arms enveloped her and Mitch pulled her close. She gave one thought to protest, and then sank into the warm, solid strength of his chest. He was big and broad, so different from what she was used to. The thought made her cry harder. She should push him away, but instead she curled closer. Needing him. She was the most wicked kind of woman. There’d be no escaping hell now. All those years of penance washed away by one night of rash behavior. Mitch kissed her temple, rubbing his hands over her bare skin. That he let her cry, and didn’t start lecturing her on emotional outbursts, made her want to crawl into him and never let go. He swayed them both, murmuring nonsense and tracing slow, soothing circles over her back. “Come on now, Princess. Tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.” She hiccupped into his shirt while she clung to him as though he were her life vest on a sinking ship. A great gush of air was followed by a hiccup. She blurted her very pressing and very embarrassing need. “I-I h-have to go to the b-b-bathroom.” The gentle sway stopped. A rumble in his chest was followed by a cough. He was trying not to laugh. The jerk. She sobbed harder: great heaping wails straight from the pit of her stomach. Now that she was on a roll, she keened pitifully, “A-and m-m-y f-feet hurt.” “It’s okay.” His tone was most definitely amused. “Why didn’t you go?” Now came the worst confession. “M-my dress i-is too b-big.” “Well, take it off.” Did he think she was an idiot? “I c-can’t get it off.” With a fresh batch of hysterics, her shoulders trembled as she buried her face in his T-shirt, now wet with tears. No one at the store had mentioned she’d need a crew of people to go to the bathroom, and now a stranger had to undress her. She hiccupped. They really should mention these kinds of details at the time of purchase. He ran his fingers down a million tiny buttons from the blades of her shoulders to the curve of her ass. “It’s okay. We can take care of this.” “B-but,” she cried. The thought almost unbearable. She was being tested. How was she supposed to be good when she had to disrobe in front of the most gorgeous man alive? “You’ll s-see me almost n-naked.” When he said nothing, fresh tears welled in her eyes. He probably thought she was propositioning him. Surely women threw themselves at him all the time. He rubbed her bare arms. “I’m thirty-four, Princess. I’ve seen a naked woman before.” “But you haven’t seen me.” No one had seen her—well, except Steve, but he hardly even counted. “I’m twenty-eight, and only one guy has seen me. And he isn’t like you. Why can’t you be someone else?” “Like who?” He trailed a path over her bare skin, creating a rush of tingles up and down her spine. She burrowed closer, some of her hysterics finally calming as his soothing but intoxicating presence worked its charm. “You’re not Mister Rogers, you know.” “You can trust me, Maddie. I won’t attack.” Ha!

Father Pernin explained, “Things went well enough with me during the first three or four hours of this prolonged bath, owing in part, I suppose, to my being continually in motion, either throwing water on my own head or on that of my neighbors.  It was not so, however, with some of those who were standing near me, for their teeth were chattering and their limbs convulsively trembling. Reaction was setting in and the cold penetrating through their frames. Dreading that so long a sojourn in the water might be followed by severe cramps, perhaps death, I endeavored to ascend the bank a short distance, so as to ascertain the temperature, but my shoulders were scarcely out of the river, when a voice called to me: ‘Father, beware, you are on fire!’” The few who sought the warmth of the water closer to shore, where the fire heated the shallow depths, paid a high price, for the air there was filled with hot, poisonous gases that burned their lungs and their eyes.  By 11:00 p.m., the entire village was on fire, and no one was able to make any effort to stop the conflagration. In fact, the heat was so high that the water in bottoms of deep wells boiled until they were dry, sometimes killing the people who had sought refuge in their once cool depths, while others who had hidden in root cellars and basements found themselves in red-hot ovens instead.  Bodies in such places would not be found, replaced instead by skeletal remains curled in their final throes of agony.  Some people were last seen diving into a damp, underground culver to escape the flames, but those looking for them later would find only a pile of ashes.

Not yet, Baird,” the one beside him cautioned. He was as tall as his friend and just as muscular but he had short, spiky blond hair that complimented his pale blue eyes. “Can’t wait much longer.” Long, strong fingers curled into a fist as though the amber-eyed male could grasp the slender figure in his hand and hold her through sheer force of will. “Been dreaming about her every night, Sylvan. I ache for her.” “What does she look like?” There was genuine curiosity in the question. Though Baird had never seen her outside his dreams, Sylvan had no doubt he could describe his chosen female to the last detail. “So fuckin’ beautiful it hurts to look at her. Yellow hair like yours but longer—more golden. And her eyes…” Baird shook his head. “Like jewels. A pale grey that’s almost silver.” “You find these human women appealing then?” “Only her—she’s the only one I can see.” The amber eyes stared hungrily across the road. “I need her soon. Need to be with her. In her.” “You’re sure she’s the one?” Sylvan stared doubtfully at the woman silhouetted in the window. She was humming softly to herself but despite the distance and the pane of glass between them he could hear her perfectly and knew Baird could too. As attuned as his half brother was to this human female, he could probably hear her heartbeat even from across the street. “I know she’s the one.” There wasn’t a shred of doubt in the deep, rumbling voice. “Didn’t I tell you we’ve been dream-sharing? And her scent…” He inhaled deeply and his dark gold eyes were suddenly half-lidded with desire. “It’s her all right and she’s ripe for bonding. I want her.” “I know you do, but Baird…” The other male shifted from foot to foot uneasily. “You haven’t been back that long—only three days and it’s a miracle you escaped alive. Don’t you think it might be a good idea to wait a while? To take some time to recover?” “Waited long enough,” was the rumbling reply. “Six months in that hell hole and the only thing keeping me alive and sane were the dreams I had of her. I won’t wait any longer—she’s mine, whether she knows it yet or not.” “You’ll scare her,” his half-brother objected. “Human women are frightened enough of us as it is.” “I won’t hurt her. Just need to take her—bond her.

Taking a deep breath and whispering a silent prayer for steady hands, she made the incision on his forearm. Not daring to meet his gaze, she retrieved the fresh vial of Anthony’s blood along with a dropper. “That appears to be blood,” Rafe commented, though he sounded more perplexed than disturbed. “It is,” she said agreeably and began dripping the ruby liquid into the incision. Immediately the cut began to knit back together. Rafe placed his good hand on her shoulder, squeezing it with almost enough pressure to hurt. “Whose blood is it?” “Anthony’s,” she whispered, worry curling in her stomach at his intent gaze. Had she caused him harm? Her alarm deepened when he froze for what seemed to be an eternity. “Cristo,” he breathed at last. “I should have considered something so simple.” Suddenly, he went rigid, eyes widening. “Dios mío!” Cassandra placed her hand on his. “Did I hurt you? I swear, I did not intend—” “Hurt me?” A harsh burst of laughter escaped his lips. It was a rusty sound, as if long disused. “I can feel it! Hell, I can move it. Look!” Sure enough, the tip of his ring finger was bending back and forth. This time, it didn’t twitch. This time, it moved with purpose. Not only that, but the scarring had diminished slightly where she’d cut him. “Saint Jude.” Triumph swelled in her breast. “It worked!” Gleefully,

His stomach growled as he sought out the kitchens, nodding to a passing guard. The smell of baking hit him as he rounded the long corridor to the kitchens. Closing his eyes, Duncan inhaled the aroma. “Damson tarts.” The plum and currant tarts were a favorite of his and he smiled inwardly knowing Moira had not only prepared them for the feast of Samhain, but for him, too. His stomach rumbled, and he quickened his pace. Duncan’s heart slammed inside his chest at the vision before his eyes when he entered the kitchens. One of the tables was laden with many tarts, yet it was the scene in the corner by the fire which undid him. He leaned against the wall for support and gazed upon the beauty. Brigid was slumped in a chair with plum juice staining her hands and mouth. In her lap curled up against her was Nell—both sound asleep. A slight snore escaped from Brigid, and Duncan smiled.

Jonathon, who has the Kung Chow act—always good to have another of the company about—” “Kung Chow?” Wolf said in dismay. “I am not going to substitute for one of his wretched doves again! Really, Nigel, this is going too far—” “No one is asking you to substitute for a dove, Wolf,” Nigel said, pacing faster. “We should make this a real Arabian Nights story. Shipwreck our girl in Arabia, have her taken to a harem, that way we can bring in all the variety acts as things to entertain the sultan! And have an excuse to put her in as little as we can convince her to wear. And there are plenty of girls in our chorus who wouldn’t blanch at doing a harem dance. Have her escape with the Court Magician’s help—” “Oh good lord, why don’t you just steal the plot and music from my Abduction from the Seraglio and have done with it?” Wolf said in disgust. “Why don’t I—Wolf! That’s brilliant!” Nigel turned towards the parrot and conductor with a smile lighting up his face. “Perfect! You adapt the music for our show, we can tout it as ‘Based on Abduction from the Seraglio by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.’ Make the print just large enough that the punters won’t notice and the high-minded will. The punters will get their nautch dances, and the high-toned will tell each other how fine it is to listen to classical music while they gawk at the nautch dances from behind their pince-nezes. It’s brilliant! I love you!” As Wolf growled in startlement, Nigel swooped him up, kissed his beak, and put him back down on his stand again. “Brilliant! Brilliant! I’m going to go look up the libretto of this opera of yours and see what I can keep out of it. Arthur, help Wolf with some catchy lyrics. We’ll need at least one love song, of course, and one song about being homesick. And one from the sultan about making the beauty his slave for all time—” Nigel strode off, heading for the music library. Behind him, Wolf sighed. “Well,” the parrot said in resignation. “At least I won’t have to make up any little tinkly tunes this time.” 5 NINETTE sat up in the bed, curled her arms around her knees, and listened in astonishment to the cat.

Charlotte stood, her gaze instantly connecting with Rothbury's. A zing of awareness tingled down her spine. Dripping with sensuality, the earl stood with his back to the wall, his stance, as always, exuding a lazy confidence. The damp spring air in the crowded room caused his dark-blond locks to curl slightly where wisps had escaped the velvet queue secured behind his neck. He wore no costume, no mask, which of course wasn't required, therefore catching the eye of every warm-blooded female within a two-hundred-foot radius. It wasn't an exaggeration. The sighs of feminine appreciation surrounded Charlotte. Though she found it slightly ridiculous, she could not find it in herself to blame them. He was simply that fetching. His expertly cut dark gray coat hugged his broad shoulders, and his stark white cravat, frothy with elegant folds, emphasized his chiseled chin, gold with faint bristles. And his mouth- oh, that glorious mouth- both haughty and wicked, curving with his ever-present sagacious grin. Lord, what it must feel like to have those lips touch one's own. Charlotte gave an appreciative sigh, drinking up the sight of him. For a masquerade, his plain evening clothes on any other man would have lent him to fade into the background. But not Rothbury. Dear heavens, no. It only added to his sinful, blush-inducing appeal.

Life beckoned to me in the form of a blinding white light, coaxing me to come near it and grasp it. To live again. To exist again among the living. But I didn't want to. Not anymore. Death was a better choice. But Death did not want me. Yet. There was only one thing to do, then. I must escape Life. I turned away from the light, but it followed me. I ran, as fast as I can, but it was still behind me. I couldn’t lose it, however hard I tried. It was gaining on me! Out of breath, I turned into a dark alley and found myself in a barren stretch of land. I dropped to the ground as the light came into sight. And I knew that to avoid it, there was nothing else to do…but go underground. With my bare hands, I scratched and scraped and clawed on the ground, and my fingernails cracked, and my hands became bloodied. But I didn't stop. I must not stop. I must not let the light get me. So, I scratched and clawed and scraped the soil. Tears and perspiration mingled on my face, dripping down to the hole I was digging. “Still, I went on, and on, and on, focused on my task. Finally, a hole big enough appeared out of my efforts. Coughing, short of breath, I crawled inside, worming my way in. I curled up my body. I pulled my knees to my chest, folded my arms around them, and wriggled myself in, until I was deeply and comfortably nestled in. No vacant spaces, no empty void. Just me and the hole. I was a perfect fit for the dark pit I created for myself. Gradually, my breathing returned to normal, my heart softly beating. Gratefully, I closed my eyes, allowing the darkness to engulf me wholly, shielding me from the light called Life.

Marcie felt something on her hair and woke to look into Ian’s rich brown eyes. Dawn was barely lighting the cabin and he was running his big hand over her curls. “Morning,” she said sleepily. He didn’t say anything. He just lowered his lips to hers and touched them gently, sweetly. She felt the brush of his beard, the soft flesh of his lips and let her eyes drop closed. He moved over her mouth for a moment. She moaned and slipped an arm around his neck, holding him there. He pulled back just a little and whispered, “We’re snowed in, honey.” “Good.” “I was jealous of Bobby, you know,” Ian said, petting her hair back along her temple, moving it over her ear. “Be careful, Ian—you’re talking about ‘it.’” “I’m ready to tell you anything you want to know. We were all a little jealous of Bobby. He had something real special with you. You sent him panties.” Her cheeks warmed in spite of herself. Her eyes got very round. “He showed you?” Ian chuckled. “He showed everyone. Very skimpy panties. I think they were lime-green with black lace or something.” “I cannot believe he showed you!” “He was proud of them. He kept them tucked in his inside pocket like a good-luck charm.” “They were perfectly clean, I’ll have you know.” “Aw, that almost comes as a disappointment,” Ian said, chuckling. “They should have had your scent on them.” “They had Tide and Downy on them!” “And you sent him that picture—on the motorcycle.” She put her hands over her face. In muffled tones she muttered, “I’m mortified.” He pulled her hands away and lightly kissed her again. “So the night I almost froze to death was actually the second time you’ve seen me in my underwear.” “Technically, I’ve seen your underwear a ton of times. I came home a couple of times to see your cute little rump sticking out of the covers, not to mention all that underwear on my tub, drying out,” he said. “And I’d trade my life to see you in your underwear again.” Her eyes got round for a minute, but then she smiled slightly and a little laugh escaped her. “I’ve heard some interesting come-ons in my limited experience, but that’s a new one. Tell me, do I have to shoot you after you peek?” “What if I told you, you might have to shoot me to stop me? Would that scare you?” “You don’t scare me, Ian. I know you’d protect me from anything. Even yourself.” He

And so now I can’t abide large groups of people. If they’re all looking at me, it becomes impossible. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I want only to escape.” “So you stay quiet. You hide every good thing about you and hope that nobody looks.” Minnie stared at her skirts. “Yes.” The word was anguished. She curled up smaller. For the longest time, he didn’t say anything. Then, slowly, he tilted her head up. “Too bad,” he murmured. “I’ve already seen you.

Thomas glanced back at the stairs, excited nerves leaping in his stomach. “Is Eliza coming?” After the words escaped his mouth he realized how comical he sounded. Of course she was coming. “I mean to say, is Eliza ready?” A wide grin washed over Kitty’s face, as if she were hiding something. “She’ll be down shortly.” Thomas nodded and rested his fidgety hands on the back of the embroidered chair. Nathaniel led Kitty to the other seat and helped her to sit. At that moment, the dainty tap of Eliza’s shoes on the stairs forced Thomas to whirl around. Nathaniel came up behind him. “Steady, boy.” Thomas clenched his jaw to keep it from gaping and dropped his hands to his sides. His eyes traced Eliza’s dainty form. She was even more radiant in that gown than he’d imagined and her face glittered with the most magnificent smile he’d ever seen. The fitted gown accentuated her perfect curves and impossibly tiny waist. The white lace around the neckline tickled her creamy skin, while the dusty-pink color drew out the rosy nature of her cheeks and lips. He tried, but he couldn’t stop staring. Her hair was curled like Kitty’s and wrapped with a delicate ribbon that matched the color of her gown. Her creamy complexion and the velvety look of her long neck were so enticing he had to fight the sudden urge to taste it. Eliza curtsied low and dipped her head. Upon rising she lifted her lashes and spoke to him in a tantalizing timbre. “Good evening, Thomas.” Thomas’s heart beat with such profound strength, it ripped every word from his mind. He wanted to say how beautiful she was. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for keeping his distance when she needed him. Even more than that, he wanted to move his face near hers, and inhale her graceful rose scent deep into his lungs before tasting her lips once again. Every appropriate response fled his mind as his blood raced around his body. He bowed. “Good evening, Eliza.” “Do my eyes deceive me?” Nathaniel, back to his charismatic self, pushed Thomas aside and kissed Eliza’s hand as he bowed with dramatic flare. “You are even more alluring than Aphrodite herself, my dear.” Eliza smiled again and giggled low in her throat. “You are too generous, Doctor.” “I am too enamored. You and your sister shine like the stars themselves.” A hearty grin flashed across his proud face. “Shall we go in to dinner?” He took his place beside Kitty and sent a flashing glance to Thomas, no doubt intended to instruct him to make the most of the moment. Thomas could kill himself. Good evening? That’s all he could say? Eliza’s body faced away from him, but she turned in his direction and the rest of her followed, her gown sweeping across the floor. Thomas closed the space between them, offering his arm. “Shall we go in?” Her slender hand grasped his arm. “You look very nice this evening, Thomas.” Thomas’s tongue dried up in his mouth, shriveling his ability to speak. He could never compete with Nathaniel’s theatrical praises. He’d have to just say what he thought. “You’re a vision, Eliza.” Her

Alistair grumbled, and curls of smoke escaped his nostrils. She’d caught him in another mistake, the clever minx, and it only made him desire her even more. “We

My heart is on the ground, Hunter. My uncle can’t find Santos. He says no one but a Comanche would know how to find him. That’s why I came here--to you.” “It is good you come. It is in the song, eh?” “No--no, you don’t understand. I came to ask a favor.” She grasped his hand in both of hers, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Please, will you find Santos and bring Amy home to me?” His facial muscles drew taut. “To your wooden walls?” “Yes, home to me. Please.” His smile died. “This is why you come? To ask this favor?” “Please, Hunter, don’t say no. I’ll do anything, anything you ask.” All trace of warmth left his eyes. Loretta stared up at him. She had come so far. She couldn’t bear it if he said no. Amy was out there. “Please, Hunter, I’ll do anything.” He said nothing, just studied her, his expression stony. Exhaustion and defeat sent Loretta to her knees. Still clinging to his hand, she bowed her head. “Please, Hunter, please, I wouldn’t ask if I had anyone else to turn to. I thought you were my friend.” Hunter studied her blond hair, braided and coiled like a snake around her crown, long curls escaping the combs to trail halfway down her back. He had walked to meet her believing she had returned to him. Now he realized she had come only to ask his aid, that she had no intention of remaining beside him. He felt like a foolish young boy, humiliated and angry. But not so angry that he wanted her on her knees.

This is why you come? To ask this favor?” “Please, Hunter, don’t say no. I’ll do anything, anything you ask.” All trace of warmth left his eyes. Loretta stared up at him. She had come so far. She couldn’t bear it if he said no. Amy was out there. “Please, Hunter, I’ll do anything.” He said nothing, just studied her, his expression stony. Exhaustion and defeat sent Loretta to her knees. Still clinging to his hand, she bowed her head. “Please, Hunter, please, I wouldn’t ask if I had anyone else to turn to. I thought you were my friend.” Hunter studied her blond hair, braided and coiled like a snake around her crown, long curls escaping the combs to trail halfway down her back. He had walked to meet her believing she had returned to him. Now he realized she had come only to ask his aid, that she had no intention of remaining beside him. He felt like a foolish young boy, humiliated and angry. But not so angry that he wanted her on her knees. It was the first time he had seen her surrender her pride. By that alone he knew how deeply she loved the child that had been lost to her. I thought you were my friend. The words cut deep. Perhaps he should feel honored. She had traveled a great distance into his land, trusting him with her life and with the life of the child she loved. “Stand, Blue Eyes,” he told her gently. She tipped her head back. Tears shimmered on her cheeks. “I’ll do anything, Hunter. I’ll serve you on my knees. I’ll be your loyal slave forever. I’ll kiss the ground you walk on, anything.” He disengaged his hand from hers and grasped her shoulders, hauling her to her feet. “I want you in my buffalo robes, not making kisses in the dirt.

Please, Hunter, please, I wouldn’t ask if I had anyone else to turn to. I thought you were my friend.” Hunter studied her blond hair, braided and coiled like a snake around her crown, long curls escaping the combs to trail halfway down her back. He had walked to meet her believing she had returned to him. Now he realized she had come only to ask his aid, that she had no intention of remaining beside him. He felt like a foolish young boy, humiliated and angry. But not so angry that he wanted her on her knees. It was the first time he had seen her surrender her pride. By that alone he knew how deeply she loved the child that had been lost to her. I thought you were my friend. The words cut deep. Perhaps he should feel honored. She had traveled a great distance into his land, trusting him with her life and with the life of the child she loved. “Stand, Blue Eyes,” he told her gently. She tipped her head back. Tears shimmered on her cheeks. “I’ll do anything, Hunter. I’ll serve you on my knees. I’ll be your loyal slave forever. I’ll kiss the ground you walk on, anything.” He disengaged his hand from hers and grasped her shoulders, hauling her to her feet. “I want you in my buffalo robes, not making kisses in the dirt.” Her eyes darkened. “I’ll do anything.” Hunter was about to tell her he would find Amy, that she need not beg, but her last words stopped him. He was not a stupid man. He searched her pale face. “I’ll be your woman. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll stay with you. Freely. If you’ll find Amy and bring her back to me. I promise, Hunter.” Her desperation made him feel ashamed. She had come to him for help; he couldn’t turn her away. He needed no reward for finding her sister. Yet he wanted this woman. And she was here, offering herself to him.

You cannot escape me. You are here. That is the way of it.” Glancing toward the door and the horrors she knew lay beyond, she whispered, “I have no choice.” “You choose where you place your feet, Blue Eyes. This path you walk is bad--very bad. This Comanche will show you, eh?” He leaned closer. “You will learn that my hand upon you is not a terrible thing.” Loretta’s eyes widened. “N-not now?” His fingers curled in her hair, making a loose fist. “You will not eat. You fear my touch. You would die first. Your words, eh?” Loretta’s senses started to swim. She blinked to clear her vision. She tried to shrug his hand away. “Even if I ate and you let me be tonight, you wouldn’t the next, or the next.” Heat crept up her neck. “And--after you, all your friends. Do you think I’m so stupid?” He had abandoned his grip on her hair to trace the too generous neckline of his hunting shirt, his fingertip burning a trail along her collarbone, up the slope of her shoulder, along her throat. She closed her eyes, too weak to shove him away. “No friends, Blue Eyes. You belong to this Comanche.” “I’ll fight you--until I draw my last breath.” She swayed and righted herself. “Why bother with me? Why not find yourself an Indian woman?” “It is you I want.” He brushed his knuckles along the hollow of her cheek. “Your skin is moonlight. I am dark like night next to you.” He slid his hand behind her neck and drew her toward him. “Sunshine in your hair, moonlight on your skin, this Comanche’s bright one, no?

But for now it’s goodbye to the beaches, and indeed many a celebrated island of yore now lies deep under the waves. An entire world and way of life has disappeared with these fabled places, a lifeway that went right back to the beginning of the species in south and east Africa, where the earliest humans were often intimately involved with the sea. That wet, sandy, tidal, salty, sun-flecked, beautiful beach life: all gone, along with so much else, of course; animals, plants, fish. It’s part of the mass extinction event they are still struggling to end, to escape. So much has been lost that will never come back again, that the loss of the joy of the relatively few humans who were lucky enough to live on the strand, who combed the beaches, and fished, and rode the waves, and lay in the sun – that’s nothing much to grieve for, given everything else that has been lost, all the suffering, all the hunger, all the death, all the extinctions. Most of the mammal species are gone. Still, it was a way of life much beloved, and still remembered in art and song, image and story – still legendary, still a lost golden age, vibrating at some level below thought, there in their salty blood and tears, in the long, curled waves of DNA that still break inside them all.

I didn’t know a mouth could open that far. His tongue lolled out, his lips curled back and his eyes bulged as if they’d come right out of their sockets, his face contorting in a gruesome display of excruciating agony. A moment later, a ragged, earsplitting howl escaped his throat and tore icicles up my spine. His hands shot up to clamp against his own ears and he sank straight to the bottom of the pool.

I curled my fingers in my lap, felt my knee shaking, and whispered, “You know that time I told you I wasn’t scared of dying?” I scrunched up my face and felt a tear slip out of my eye and stream down my cheek. “I was lying. I am scared.” A few more tears escaped, hitting my jawline. “I know I wouldn’t have died, but I still thought I was going to once or twice—” A big, big hand swept over half of my face before doing the same to the other side, and in the time it took me to realize what he was doing, I was up again, his arms around me once more. Then I was on top of him, seated across his thighs with my shoulder to his chest, and it was me that pressed my face to his throat as another shiver ran through me. “I was so scared, Rhodes,” I whispered into his skin as his arm curled low around my back. “You’re okay now,” he said hoarsely.

All that day and all that night there sat an awful gladness in my heart,--nay, blame me not if I see the world thus darkly through the Veil,--and my soul whispers ever to me saying, "Not dead, not dead, but escaped; not bond, but free." No bitter meanness now shall sicken his baby heart till it die a living death, no taunt shall madden his happy boyhood. Fool that I was to think or wish that this little soul should grow choked and deformed within the Veil! I might have known that yonder deep unworldly look that ever and anon floated past his eyes was peering far beyond this narrow Now. In the poise of his little curl-crowned head did there not sit all that wild pride of being which his father had hardly crushed in his own heart? For what, forsooth, shall a Negro want with pride amid the studied humiliations of fifty million fellows? Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow. Better far this nameless void that stops my life than a sea of sorrow for you.

He grazed a fang across my collarbone and I shivered. The building pressure had me on the edge and teetering. It was absolutely ridiculous that I was so close to orgasm with only a few strokes of his fingers, but Devin managed to pull it out of me as I grabbed the sheets at my side and pressed the side of my face into the bed. The heat slammed into me in waves. It was all I could do to hold on for the ride, letting out a senseless sound of pleasure. He pulled his hand away slowly, kissing my forehead. "More?" "No," I breathed. "You, now, please." I pulled him down and kissed him deeply. He shifted how he was leaning over me, scooting up the bed as he did it. As he pressed himself firmly against my entrance, I was ready to beg for it if I had to. I wanted Devin. Now. He slid himself just inside. A sharp breath, my eyes widened. The nostalgia pinch of being stretched open surprised me. "I'm all right," I breathed. "It's just been a while." He pressed in a little farther. I dug my nails lightly into his back, and he growled in approval. He grazed my neck with his fangs and a soft noise escaped my lips; he licked and kissed my skin on his way back up to my mouth. An ice-cold breeze whipped past us. I held on tighter as Devin thrust deep inside. I screamed as the waves of pleasure hit again, somehow even harder than before. I removed my nails from his back when I realized how deeply I had dug them into his skin, but he didn't seem to notice. Everything felt like jelly. Content, unwound jelly. I rolled on my side, catching my breath as Devin curled me into his body, one hand lazily stroking my stomach. "How do you feel?" "That was intense," I breathed. "Is it always like that with fae?" "Too much?" He nuzzled into my hair.

I walked to the painting on the easel. It was an impression, not a lifelike rendering. 'I wanted you to see this one,' I said, pointing to the smear of green and gold and silver and blue. 'It's for you. A gift. For everything you've done.' Heat flared in my cheeks, my neck, my ears, as he silently approached the painting. 'It's the glen- with the pool of starlight,' I said quickly. 'I know what it is,' he murmured, studying the painting. I backed away a step, unable to bear watching him look at it, wishing I hadn't brought him in here, blaming it on the wine I'd had at dinner, on the stupid dress. He examined the painting for a miserable eternity, then looked away- to the nearest painting leaning against the wall. My gut tightened. A hazy landscape of snow and skeletal trees and nothing else. It looked like.... like nothing, I supposed, to anyone but me. I opened my mouth to explain, wishing I'd turned the others away from view, but he spoke. 'That was your forest. Where you hunted.' He came close to the painting, gazing at the bleak, empty cold, the white and grey and brown and black. 'This was your life,' he clarified. I was too mortified, too stunned, to reply. He walked to the next painting I'd left against the wall. Darkness and dense brown, flickers of ruby red and orange squeezing between them. 'Your cottage at night.' I tried to move, to tell him to stop looking at those ones and look at the others I'd laid out, but I couldn't- couldn't even breathe properly as he moved to the next painting. A tanned, sturdy male hand fisted in the hay, the pale pieces of it entwined among strands of brown coated with gold- my hair. My gut twisted. 'The man you used to see- in your village.' He cocked his head again as he studied the picture, and a low growl slipped out. 'While you made love.' He stepped back, looking at the row of pictures. 'This is the only one with brightness.' Was that... jealousy? 'It was the only escape I had.' Truth. I wouldn't apologise for Issac. Not when Tamlin had just been in the Great Rite. I didn't hold that against him- but if he was going to be jealous of Issac- Tamlin must have realised it, too, for he loosed a long, controlled breath before moving to the next painting. Tall shadows of men, bright red dripping off their fists, off their wooden clubs, hovering and filling the edges of the painting as they towered over the curled figure on the floor, the blood leaking from him, the leg at a wrong angle. Tamlin swore. 'You were there when they wrecked your father's leg.' 'Someone had to beg them to stop.' Tamlin threw a too-knowing glance in my direction and turned to look at the rest of the paintings. There they were, all the wounds I'd slowly been leeching these few months. I blinked. A few months. Did my family believe that I would be forever away with this so-called dying aunt? At last, Tamlin looked at the painting of the glen and the starlight. He nodded in appreciation. But he pointed to the painting of the snow-veiled woods. 'That one. I want that one.' 'It's cold and melancholy,' I said, hiding my wince. 'It doesn't suit this place at all.' He went up to it, and the smile he gave me was more beautiful than any enchanted meadow or pool of stars. 'I want it nonetheless,' he said softly.

I caught his mouth with mine and shifted my hands to start unhooking his shirt buttons. I could feel him grinning as he kissed me harder, driving me back against the bookshelf and shoving his knee between my thighs. I pushed his shirt off of his broad shoulders and looked at the perfection of his muscular torso for a moment, running my hands down his chest. He drove me back against the shelf more firmly, kissing me again. I devoured the taste of him, his hands sliding over my breasts through the thin material of my dress and making my nipples harden in response. I placed my palms on his chest and pushed him back, propelling him around so that he was pressed against the shelf instead of me and a dark laugh left him. “Do you wanna be in charge, sweetheart?” “Well, I am more powerful than you,” I teased. His eyes lit with the challenge in my tone as I took a few steps back and pulled on the knot at the back of my neck. My dress fell from my body like a spill of oil and pooled at my feet, leaving me in nothing but my black panties. “Holy shit, Tory.” He gazed at me hungrily and I stepped back again biting on my bottom lip as I looked at him. “Take your pants off,” I commanded. Caleb’s smile deepened and he held my eye as he kicked his shoes off and unhooked his belt. I twisted my fingers through my hair as I watched him, my pulse rising as he revealed more of his muscular body to me. When he was down to his navy boxers, he advanced on me again. I smiled, backing up as he stalked towards me until the backs on my thighs met with the games table. He was upon me in a heartbeat, his hands gripping my thighs as he lifted me up and sat me on the table. His mouth pressed to my throat, stubble grazing across my skin in the most delicious way. His kisses moved lower, passing over my collar bone before making it to the swell of my breast. His mouth landed on my nipple, his tongue flicking against it and making me moan in pleasure. His hand found my other breast while he spread his other palm across my lower back to hold me in place. I locked my ankles around him, pulling him closer so that I could feel the full length of his arousal grinding against me through the lacy fabric of my panties. His mouth found mine again and I pushed my fingers into his golden curls as my breasts skimmed against the firm lines of his muscular chest. My muscles were tightening, my heart pounding and my body aching for more of him. I grazed my fingertips down his chest, feeling every ridge of his abdomen before reaching the waistband of his boxers. I pushed my hand beneath the soft material and wrapped my fingers around the hard length of him. Caleb groaned against my lips as I began to move my hand up and down, a tingle running along my spine as I felt just how much my touch affected him. His hands made it to the sides of my panties and he peeled them down as his heavy breathing broke our kiss. I lifted my ass to let him remove them and he stepped back, forcing my hand off of him as he tossed my underwear aside. I watched as he pushed his boxers off revealing every inch of him and my mouth dried up with desire. He shot forward with his Vampire speed, scooping me up and moving me backwards as he lay me beneath him on the games table. Poker chips and cards scattered all around us and a surprised laugh left my lips. He grinned as he kissed me again, hard enough to bruise my lips but still not enough to tame my desire. My hands explored the curve of his shoulders and I arched my back off of the table so that my nipples skimmed his flesh. Caleb shifted, moving between my legs, our kiss breaking for the briefest moment as he looked into my eyes and pushed himself inside me. A moan of pleasure escaped me as he filled me and I tipped my head back, my eyes falling closed as I absorbed the feeling of his body merging with mine. “Fuck,” Caleb breathed as he started to move, slowly at first but building in speed as I urged him on. (tory)

The duke was standing before the open windows…stark naked. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged, and Jules could only stare as the silvery beam from the moonlight painted itself over his body. His thighs and calves were thick and powerful, stomach and buttocks lean and delineated with muscle. Though they stood several feet apart, she was all too aware of the breadth of his shoulders, his height, and the inherent power in his body. You are so beautifully formed, Your Grace. Alarmingly, her cheeks went hot, then her throat and belly. He was so compelling she stared helplessly, absurdly grateful for the darkened room. Jules drew a soft breath, trying to calm the wild pounding of her heart. The duke tilted his head, baring to her gaze the strong column of his throat. She refused to look lower than his shoulders, not wanting to feel that baffling heat stabbing her belly. He inhaled, and it came on a soft growl when he released his breath. She bit into her lower lip, hard, for that thumping heat low in her belly responded viscerally to that low growl. The corner of the duke’s mouth curled upward and seemed mocking and cynical. Still, she was struck by the incredible sensual beauty of that small smile. Unexpectedly he turned his head and stared directly at her. Jules froze, even her breathing suspended. Though she held herself astonishingly still, her heart jerked with more erratic force. Surely he could not see her. It is impossible. Yet she felt way down inside her, every nuance of his stare. Perilous tension coated the air, and she waited for him to move closer to her, but he turned away and padded over to the bed, the darkness hiding him from her entirely. Jules could not say how long she waited, listening for sounds that he slept. It could have been a few minutes or an hour. She heard nothing, and again she couldn’t escape the feeling the duke knew someone was in the room with him. But why did he not say or do something if he suspects it? She closed her eyes and drew strength for calm, allowing that she might be panicking in vain. There was no peril, and she only had to leave his chamber without being noticed. Jules waited a few more minutes before softly moving from behind the drapes. She paused, then lowered herself to her knees and crawled on her hands and knees to the door. She almost smiled at her absurdity but marshaled her reaction and ventured forward as fast as possible. At the door, she reached up and gently eased open the latch, grateful the hallway was also dark. Perhaps if the duke was awake, he might not notice the slight opening of his door. She crawled through the small space created, and once in the hallway, she lurched to her feet and hurried toward her door.

You’re not running again,” he growled before pouncing up onto the table. I shrieked, stumbling backwards as he leapt towards me. I threw my shoes at him and they bounced off of his chest making him pause in surprise. He barked a laugh then lunged at me, faster than was humanly possible. He caught my waist and I squealed as he pushed me back against a heavy bookcase which stood along the wall. My hands landed on his shoulders like I was going to push him off of me but I didn’t. “Cheat,” I breathed as my heart pounded. “Only a little,” he admitted. Before I could say anything else, he leaned forward and kissed me. My heart leapt, my skin tingled and my traitorous body gave in to his demand. I was supposed to hate him. I was supposed to be shoving him off of me and slapping him and telling him to stay the hell away from me. I definitely shouldn’t have been pulling him closer, my hands fisting in the material of his shirt, my lips parting to admit his tongue. I could still taste blood from where I’d bitten my lip and he obviously could too, a groan of desire escaping him as I felt a soft tug on my magic from the welt on my lip. Why am I always a sucker for the bad guys? And why does it always feel so good? The heat of his kiss lit me up and I gave up on any thoughts of pushing him away. It wasn’t like I was giving him my heart anyway. Just a kiss... or maybe two... Caleb’s hands slid into my hair and I arched my back, pressing my body against his. His grip tightened in my hair and he dragged my head backwards, breaking our kiss as he moved his mouth down my neck, teasing with the idea of biting me, his fangs flirting with my flesh. My body was alight with his proximity and I moaned, urging him on. I didn’t want this to stop even if I really should have. Caleb withdrew just enough to look into my eyes and the heat I saw in his gaze made my toes curl. “You wanna play another game, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice deep. “What do I get if I win?” I breathed. “I think this game will have two winners,” he promised. My gaze roamed over his face hungrily but then I glanced at the open door. This really wasn’t the best place for us to be making out... or doing anything else either. “I can sort that,” he said, taking one hand off of me and casting magic at the door. A long vine curled across the carpet before pushing the door closed and winding itself around the handle to lock it. An orb of orange light flickered into existence overhead as we were plunged into darkness, casting shadows over his stunning features. He aimed his palm at the ceiling next and I felt a wave of magic wash over me. “Silencing bubble, so we don’t have to hold back,” he explained. I looked into his eyes, wondering if I was really going to do this with him. Heat was curling its way through my body, lighting me up with desire for this beast before me and I decided to act on it before I had the chance to question my decision. (tory)

He stared at me for a long moment as if he was trying to figure me out and I dropped my eyes before he could. I didn’t want Darius Acrux in my head. My attention snagged on a deep red stain on the sleeve of his pristine white shirt and I pointed it out. “Are you bleeding?” I asked. “No,” he replied forcefully before looking down at the offending stain and waving his hand to clear it away with his water magic. “Well that was obviously blood so-” “I said no, just drop it,” he snarled. I flinched back but he didn’t release me and my heart started beating faster. He sighed heavily and shook his head before letting me go. “Sorry, I just... I’m not bleeding now. It’s not an issue.” “Okay...” I took a step back, wondering why I was even talking to him. This was the guy who had tormented me for weeks and he was clearly going to snap right back into asshole mode after tonight. But something about this nice version of Darius kept drawing me in despite my reservations. “Come on, let’s catch up with the others and get back to the Academy,” he urged, offering me his arm again. The anger which had risen in him a moment ago seemed to have gone so I tentatively accepted his arm and we started walking down the driveway and away from his family. “Careful,” I teased. “Someone might think we don’t even hate each other if you don’t release me soon.” We made it to the edge of the pooling light which lit up the front of his house and he drew me into the darkness beyond it. “I never said I hated you,” he murmured, his voice deep as he tugged me around to face him. I looked up at his striking face, the moonlight highlighting his strong jaw and pulling my attention to his mouth for a moment. “Well I really feel sorry for anyone you do hate,” I muttered, pulling my arm out of his grip. He resisted for a moment like he wanted to keep hold of me but gave in when I tugged a little harder. “The things I’ve done to you... you know it isn’t personal, right?” he asked. I looked up at him for several long seconds, wondering if he seriously bought into that horse shit or if it was just what he was trying to sell me. I wasn’t really sure what I saw there but I definitely didn’t buy his excuses. “Is that how you justify it to yourself?” I asked bitterly, our little bubble of peace well and truly burst now that we were standing in the cold air of the night. Darius hesitated and I gave him an eye roll dramatic enough to fell a small tree. I turned away from him, looking for Orion and the stardust which would take us back to the Academy but his fingers curled around my wrist before I could escape. “Do you hate me, then?” he asked quietly and for some strange reason it sounded like the idea of that didn’t sit well with him. I forced myself to reply in a steady tone, holding his eye as I spoke. “No,” I said and a glimmer of relief spilled through his eyes, almost halting me there but I wasn’t quite so blinded by him as to give him a free pass for all his bullshit. “To hate you, I’d have to care about you. And I don’t give one shit about you,” I said coldly. I shook his hand off of me for the second time and stalked away towards Darcy and Orion. He didn’t follow me and I was glad. Because I had the horrible feeling that that might just have been a lie.(toy)

But things that take their power from explosions contained in iron, things operated by an intricacy of mechanical devices—I mislike them, I’m afraid, and I mishandle them more often than not. Some of humankind’s creations trouble me not at all. The ones that deal in directing the flow of electricity, for example.” He indicated the stereo with the turn of his hand. “But the internal combustion engine…” “But why would it bother you to drive one, and not to ride it?” “A reasonable question, though I’m not sure it has a reasonable answer. I’ve—a mental block? A moral objection?—to being put in control of such a machine. Being borne along one I can put up with.” “But cars make you uncomfortable.” He raked his hands through the black curls at his temples and smiled crookedly. “I am a creature of earth and air,” he said. “Enclosed in a car, I feel sickened and weak, and as panicky as an animal that chews through its own leg to escape a trap.” Eddi stared at him, surprised. She knew he’d been uncomfortable in the car, but she hadn’t dreamed he’d been uncomfortable as all that.

Had she escaped the nightmare of Eden only to have fallen prey to another? God. Please let her be alive somewhere. Please. ‘Gideon?’ Daisy’s voice broke into the turbulent stream of his thoughts. He glanced away from the road, surprised to see a laptop resting on her knees. He hadn’t even noticed her taking it out of its case. Of course, the sight of Brutus curled up in the open collar of her coat was no surprise at all. ‘Yes? What’s wrong?’ ‘Your

The house was quiet and the room was dark. It had to be closing in on four in the morning, but Cedric couldn’t sleep. Not only was he wired from the confrontation with the intruder, but his mind raced with what had happened afterward. The image of Gabriel, furious and panting as he stood over his abuser and took control of the situation, was etched into his mind. Cedric didn’t think he’d ever forget it. And now, that same young man was curled beside him beneath the blankets they shared, looking at him through the dark. “Sir?” Gabriel asked. “Yes, Gabriel?” “You’re not angry about what I did, are you? Or the things I said? I’m sorry that I spoke like that. It’s—” “No.” Cedric shifted closer. The sleeper sofa they shared was small enough that it didn’t take much until they were chest to chest. Gabriel adjusted his position so their bodies were flush. “Don’t be sorry about anything. I should be upset that you put yourself in danger like you did, but the truth is, without you, both of us would have been in even more danger. If you hadn’t stepped in, bad things would have happened.” “He would have taken us,” Gabriel murmured. His hand traced down Cedric’s side, and just like that, the air thickened with the chemistry they shared. It hit Cedric right away, filling his lungs and plunging to his groin. He might have wanted to go to sleep, but his cock had other ideas. “I heard him. I heard all the things he said to you. I was hiding in the kitchen while he spoke, waiting for a chance to creep closer without being heard so I could help you. I’m sorry I took so long.” “No. I told you, don’t be sorry about anything.” Cedric traced his fingers over Gabriel’s cheek, aching to kiss him. “What you did was perfect. I’m okay, and you’re okay, and he’s going to jail, and that’s all that matters.” “I should have told you about him.” Gabriel lowered his gaze. “From the very first day I came to your house, I picked up on his scent. You… you don’t forget something like that, after you spend so long living in a nightmare. I don’t think I’ll forget it for as long as I’m alive.” “I won’t forget it, either.” Cedric’s fingers traced down Gabriel’s neck, then under his jaw along his chin. Stubble pricked his skin. “I didn’t want to tell you about what happened to me because…” Gabriel hesitated, but his gaze flicked upward. His eyes were partially lidded, and his face relaxed. Physical contact had always been an excellent way to soothe him, and tonight it did the trick just fine. “Because everyone treats me like I’m broken, and I didn’t want to think it was true. I thought I was in love with Garrison, and that if I could trick you into thinking I was okay, that maybe you’d let your guard down and I could escape and find him. All I wanted to do was get back to him because I didn’t know how to be on my own. I still don’t, but the difference now is that I understand it.” All the times he’d run away, and all the times he’d clung to Cedric seeking comfort. Over the years, Garrison had turned Gabriel from an impressionable teen into a subservient young man who couldn’t function on his own. Subservient, not submissive. Cedric understood the difference better than ever now that he had confronted the truth.

Knocking on their door, a panther's paw that rubbed until it became a pounding no one responded to. He tried the handle. They were there all right, fancy pretending like that, it wasn't as if he had disturbed them from sleeping. He coughed, and gasped, while walking rapidly up and down the landing. Should he go back into his room, shout from there, scream in fact, as though in the middle of a nightmare? He remained at the top of the stairs, cutoff from the rest of the house, the neighbourhood. Had they gone out, or were they dead— copulating too fast, too much? He moved down one stair head bowed considering the best way into the next event. The other doors had, during his stay, remained part of the walls, a slight murmur or hum of a radio escaped occasionally through a crack. But if he knocked, enquired the time, wouldn't the crack immediately be sealed, not even space for an eye, let alone his finger? He hovered on the front door step, two hundred yards from the Palais de Dance. Coloured tickets, spent out balloons, contraceptives divided pavement from road. Berg leaned slightly forward in order to see the pub clock. On his back he stared at the buildings that were giants advancing. Snatch the stars, pull out the moon for my navel, a button hole for my own personal identification. A shadow pushed itself across his face. He spread out his arms. I implore to be left where I am, as I have been given, I am satisfied, attuned to my world. He shut his eyes, and foetus-curled from the pavement. His lips, dry leaves, slowly parted. Have I ever been inside? Edith's tears, not coping, timid amongst robust mums. You discovered: dormitory pleasures, what is considered a pretty boy at the age of nine, to be taken advantage of.

She relaxed her mind and let her body dissolve. Bone and tendon quivered until her arms, hands, and fingers looked like black specks waving in the dark. Soon she was free from gravity and drifting up the stairs. But as she twisted through the gloom, something foreign tangled with her invisible body. It wove through her with a furry tickle, leaving a pungent scent of decay. It didn't have the sensation of steam, dust, or smog. She curled back, trying to escape the sickening smell, but whatever it was moved with her, sinuous like a snake, coiling around her. She twirled, then sprang forward, but it held her. The air became thick and gluey, her cells no longer able to pull in oxygen through osmosis.

I grit my teeth as I try again to unzip my pants. The rope digs into my chafed wrists, and they scream in protest. It takes an agonizing amount of time, but I finally manage to unbutton my jeans, then drag them, the long johns beneath them, and my underwear all down. Pestilence’s impersonal gaze is on me, looking at my lady goods, which are on full display. Kill me now. He curls his lip. “I’m sorry,” I say, “but if this fucking bothers you, then you can step outside.” And let me pee then escape in peace.

This is a very difficult part of the journey, so we must stay together,” he told us as we moved quickly down the dirt road. We were heading deeper into the countryside. He explained that we would have to go around Jalalabad, and the shortest way was through a large marijuana field. It was well guarded on all sides by the farmers, and he had received special permission for us to walk through it. “I paid them to let us pass,” he said. But he said we must be quiet and stay together and concentrate, or the unpleasant smell of the tall plants would overcome us. I’d never smelled anything so rotten. The field was so vast and dense with plants that the concentrated aroma of the marijuana plants had turned into a putrid stench that burrowed into our noses and seeped down into our stomachs. It was like walking through a garbage dump where animal carcasses and waste food had been left to rot, producing one large overwhelming odor of death. We gagged every step. I wanted to throw up, but Masood prodded us to keep moving. We didn’t dare stop, worried that the stench would overwhelm us to the point we would be unable to continue. He carried a lantern and held it out in front of us and warned us to watch where we stepped. The field went on for miles. I figured this because we had to walk all night to get through it. “There are scorpions and spiders, but don’t worry, if you get bit, it won’t kill you. I know exactly what to do.” I knew scorpions well. I’d seen them when I walked to school or down by the Kabul River, where we went at times to picnic or to throw rocks in the river. They were a greenish brown, with spindly legs and a curling tail with a poisonous sting on the end. Masood tried to reassure us we’d be fine because they had poor eyesight. They were all over, and we often saw them scurrying out of the light of the lantern. The odor was so intense it overpowered us no matter how hard we tried not to think about it. The sour smell settled in our stomachs, and every so often one of us would stop and start retching. Masood turned and waited when one of us was throwing up, then he marched on and we followed.

I loved it,” I whisper, curling my ballerina toes in my flats. “That song.” “Yeah, you loved dancing dirty for me?” My hands have come down to his shoulders and I fist his hoodie. “Yes.” A puff of air escapes him again as he chuckles slightly, his eyes intense. “God, Fae, you kill me, you know that?

As grief ripples through the river of soul where white lilies sleep, it finds its lyrics for the deeps are lit and unknowingly escapes the sadness through the flute for the soul is in wonder at the song it weaves.... You who once curled on the rusty bed in quiet, now find the caress that gently sways you inside, and grief o' grief shuffles the layers of your deeps. Darkness is thick no more for the lonesome moments turn to dawn and the glimmer of light is disguised no more....

How he longed for the farm fields, the soft breeze whipping through his hair, making it stand on end, and the soft, cool feel of the fresh air on his face. He closed his eyes, pausing in his walk. The breeze, the sunlight glistening off the long grass as it swayed, moved by an unseen hand. Lifting Violet’s long, brown curls, the ones that always escaped from the kerchief that bound her hair back. Her green eyes trained on him, rimmed with lashes that were dark and long.

Ana supposes she should be thankful for the anguish in her life. She should appreciate the formative pain forced on her under the guise of necessity and be grateful for the endless cycle of endings and beginnings. Death and resurrection. Every new experience ended in the death of her former self. The first time Ana had died was the night she was taken. That night marked the death of her innocence and the beginning of her new life. Her immaturity had been the next thing she had to sacrifice. Hardening herself in order to survive, sharpening her resolve and suppressing her disdain. Learning to inflict pain—training to kill. The day she met Katya was the only death she had welcomed. Katya reminded her there was life beyond the academy. Those crimson curls, a mirror image of the mother she had lost. Hope. Katya was hope. The last time she had died was the morning she escaped. Desperation had led her down a dark path. Her morals had been the last part of herself she had killed in order to live. The minor aches and pains seem so mundane in comparison now.

The dream had been real and not real, and there had been no end to it, no escape. Until a familiar male voice had said her name. And the terror had stopped, as if the axis of the world had shifted toward that voice. That voice, which became a doorway, full of light and strength. Nesta had reached a hand toward it. And then there had been another male voice in her mind, and this one had been familiar as well, and full of power. But it had been kind in a way she had never heard the voice be to her, and it had eased her from the black pit of the dream, leading her with a star-flecked hand back to a land of drifting clouds and rolling hills under a bright moon. She had curled up on one of those hills, safe and guarded in the moonlight, and slept. Nesta dozed, heavy and dreamless, and did not open her eyes until sunlight, not moonlight, kissed her face.

Almost as sick as before, I clicked out the light and curled up in my own ball of misery. I couldn’t sleep. Images of her, so long repressed, played in my mind like a montage. The first time I laid eyes on her at the diner. Her sweet sensual face, those dorky glasses, her self-consciousness burning away with her growing anger. I recalled holding her slender curves while she thrashed around, desperately trying to escape from the one person who was trying the hardest to help her. The shocked anticipation on her face in the pharmacy when she thought I was going to kiss her. Even the unflattering florescent light couldn’t detract from her beauty, or hide her shame at her weakness for me. We had been drawn to each other, from the very beginning. And then I flashed forward to how we’d ended—with her leaving me for my mortal enemy. The one who’d back-handed her for kicking him in the shin and called her a “country bimbo.” The one who tagged and dragged her to The Academy against her will. The commander who put me in charge of this mission—to get his baby mama back. She was just a girl I used to know.

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Are you telling me you want this? That you want to get married?” She arched a brow, and he couldn’t hold her gaze. For the first time in his life, Leo found himself truly nervous. Here was a situation he couldn’t hit, wrestle, or order into compliance. Baring feelings was all well and good, but talking about them sucked. But there came a time in a man’s life where he had to suck it up and gush, especially when he was a blind idiot for a while. “Would I be going through all this trouble if I didn’t want to get married? Listen, Vex, I know we got off to a rocky start. In my defense, you’re a little much for any man to handle. Not that I mind,” he hastened to add when her second brow shot up. “I like who you are, and I’m a big enough man to admit I might have reacted poorly when you declared I was your mate and that I couldn’t escape.” “I said what?” Again, she gaped in open surprise. Then laughed. Pretty damned hard as a matter of fact. He frowned. “Don’t you dare deny it, Vex. You had me all but in front a preacher within five minutes of us meeting. And it scared me. But you were right about us belonging together, even if it took me longer to realize it. You are the one for me, Meena. The chaos to balance my serenity. The colored rainbow to enrich the grayness of my current life. I want you, Vex. Catastrophes and all. I just hope, even after what I’ve done, and the fact I might sometimes have a stick up my ass, at least according to Luna, that you’ll forgive me and still want me too.” He ended his gush of words and stared at Meena hopefully, and a little fearfully, given she once again stared at him slack-jawed. Would she say something? She did, just not from her lips. No, Meena’s voice came from behind him. “Oh, Pookie, that has got to be the most beautiful thing I ever heard.” Either Meena had some mad ventriloquist skills or… Leo froze as he stared at the woman in front of him, a woman that he realized the more he stared was Meena and yet not. This one wore her hair in soft curls around her shoulders, a tiny scar marred the tip of her chin, and her scent… was all wrong. However, the body that jumped on his back and the lips that noisily kissed the flesh of his neck? That was his Vex. What the hell? “Who are you?” he asked. The Meena clone grinned and waved. “Teena, of course.” “My twin,” Meena added against his ear. “Identical twin?” “Well, duh. And it’s a good thing too, or I’d be a little miffed right now that you just said all those beautiful things to her.” “I thought it was you.” “Apparently. It happens a lot, which I totally don’t get. She looks nothing like me.” “I feel like such an idiot.” He tried to crane his head to see the Meena clinging to his back, but she slapped her hands over his eyes. “No, you can’t look. It’s bad luck.” “But…” “No buts. Although I will say yours looks awfully delicious in those pants. But it will look even better when it’s naked and wearing my teeth marks.” “Vex!” “I know. I know. Don’t start something we can’t finish. Consider yourself warned, however. As soon as that priest says I do, your ass is mine. All mine.” Such a low, husky promise. “Come on, Teena, you are just in time to help me get into my gown. Can you believe my Pookie arranged all this?” The pride in her voice made him smile, but he did have to shake his head at the whole twin sister thing. With one last kiss on his neck, Meena whispered, “See you in a little bit, Pookie.