Demons Inside Me Quotes

By the Angel," Jace said, looking the demon up and down. "I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell." Abbadon opened its mouth and hissed. Inside its mouth were two rows of jagged glass-sharp teeth. "I'm not sure about this wind and howling darkness business," Jace went on, "smells more like landfill to me. You sure you're not from Staten Island?

Mental illness People assume you aren’t sick unless they see the sickness on your skin like scars forming a map of all the ways you’re hurting. My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s Have you tried exercising? Have you tried eating better? Have you tried not being sad, not being sick? Have you tried being more like me? Have you tried shutting up? Yes, I have tried. Yes, I am still trying, and yes, I am still sick. Sometimes monsters are invisible, and sometimes demons attack you from the inside. Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth does not mean they aren’t ripping through me. Pain does not need to be seen to be felt. Telling me there is no problem won’t solve the problem. This is not how miracles are born. This is not how sickness works.

There were people who called themselves Satanists who made Crowley squirm. It wasn't just the things they did, it was the way they blamed it all on Hell. They'd come up with some stomach-churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully-functioning human brain could conceive, then shout "The Devil Made Me Do It" and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn't have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn't a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley's opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.

Understand this, Glyndon, there's nothing noble or tender about what I feel for you. It's violent volcano of obsession, possession, and deranged lust. If you want love, then I do love you, but it's the unorthodox version of love. I love you enough to let you within my walls. I love you enough to let you talk to my demons. I love you enough to allow you to have a hold over me when I've never allowed anyone to have the power to destroy me from inside out.

And maybe I am a monster. I don't know the answer to that. But what I do know is that even if there's demon blood inside me, there is human blood inside me as well. And I couldn't love you like I do if I weren't at least a little bit human. Because demons want. But they don't love.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

Person 1: "Stay back....I have a demon inside of me." Person 2: "Let me get closer...I have a hell inside me where your demons can live." (from Dark Winter, #2 - out Halloween 2014)

Inside me is the same desperate hope I have watching the ravenous dead and thinking, Oh please, oh please, oh please. The craving inside of me is to be clutched at by some dead girl. To put my ear to her chest and hear nothing. Even getting munched on by zombies beats the idea that I'm only flesh and blood, skin and bone. Demon or angel or evil spirit, I just need something to show itself. Ghoulie or ghosty or long-legged beastie, I just want my hand held.

I've tried in this telling, time and time again, to pinpoint the moment where everything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there's also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing's going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful. 515

Oh, my God! Why are you in a towel?” Ayden sprang forward and ripped off his leather jacket. He led us both in an awkward sidestep to my closet. “Take your time. Get clothes on. Lots of them.” He shoved me inside and closed the door. In the pitch, dark I reached for the light switch, but the door opened again. “Sorry.” Ayden’s hand slid in, groping for the switch, found it, and flipped it on. “Don’t come out until… lots and lots of clothes.

It’s not demons (who at least have a human face) but Hell itself that seems to be laughing inside me, it’s the croaking madness of the dead universe, the spinning cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds blowing blackly in the wind, formless and timeless, without a God who created it, without even its own self, impossibly whirling in the absolute darkness as the one and only reality, everything.

All this time, deep in the pit of my stomach, the shadowy monster of grief and fear and anger has been in the corner where I locked it, but it’s been growing, new ropes of angry black lashing out in every direction, starving, mad with hunger. A demon that’s going to devour me from the inside out.

I shutter to think your demon fingers ever held my gentle skin. Your aged, jaded heart ever held me-if even for a moment-inside hers. I shake when I think your name knows mine, your lips have touched mine. You didn't break my heart, you tortured her. And for what, but the bitter revenge of the one who had destroyed you, long before I even knew you. I could say you are dead, but you are very living. You live to destroy, as you were once destroyed. You live to kill.

It is beautiful to hear, how even the demons inside me have started singing your name.

God damn it, don’t you do this. You have no idea how badly I want you right now. I’d love nothing more than to bury myself inside you, and feel you lose yourself around me as you scream my name; the very idea of fucking the woman I love, finally, after ten thousand years – of having you feel just what it is you mean to me – is so hard to bear I’m all but fallen at your feet. But I’ll be damned if it happens here of all places. I’m not going to screw you in Hell, Mary. I gave in and took your blood, and God knows you have the power to bring me to my knees, but when I love-fuck you, I want to do it in my home. So do you think you could humour me just a little longer?” She gaped at him. “Did you just say, ‘love-fuck’?

It’s not something to fix,” he said. “It means strong. Outside of all expectation.” I looked at him. He looked at me. His hands were on his desk with the fingers touching, a tiny cage with air inside. Black hands. The knuckles almost blue-black. Silver wedding ring. He said, “You know, sometimes you hear about these miracles, where a car gets completely mangled in a wreck. But then the driver walks out of it alive? I’m saying you are that driver.

You realize that by summoning me here, you signed your own death warrant.” Demons were nothing to take lightly. I’d seen what they were capable of, but I also knew they were no match against the light that shone inside me. “I do,” it said, and I fought to place the language we were speaking. I knew it was ancient. Possibly the first language ever spoken in the universe. “Unless we sign yours first.” “Is that what you think will happen here?” “Dutch,” Reyes said into my ear, “stop playing with your dinner.

He found her not even a block away from the house, sitting on a curb. As he approached, he saw her wiping her face with her forearm. Sabine was...crying? "What are you doing out here, cwena?" Over the past week, Rydstrom had been pleased when she'd worried about him, and gratified when she'd felt the sting of jealousy. Was he a terrible man to hope she was crying about him? She glared at him with her bottom lip quivering, allowing him to see her like this instead of using a mask. "I d-don't have anywhere else to g-go." Another swipe of her forearm over her eyes. "Lanthe's gone, and I c-can't get to her for six days. And I'm in a strange t-town and land, and Vrekeners are everywhere." Sabine hadn't even mentioned what they'd just gone through- "And you br-broke up with me!" she said, her tears falling faster. "Is that supposed to make me happy?" "Come inside, Sabine." "No! You t-told me not to." She sniffled, "You don't want me at your house." He swooped her up in his arms. "Will you shut up?" With his free hand, he brushed her tears. "I made it ten minutes before I came after you.

There was once a lady who was arrogant and proud. Determined to attain enlightenment, she asked all the authorities how to go about it. She was told, "Well, if you climb to the top of this very high mountain, you'll find a cave there. Sitting inside that cave is a wise old woman. She will tell you." Having endured great hardships, the lady finally found this cave. Sure enough, sitting there was a gentle spiritual-looking old woman in white clothing, who smiled beatifically. Overcome with awe and respect, the lady prostrated at the feet of this woman and said, "I want to attain enlightenment. Show me how." This wise woman looked at her and asked sweetly, "Are you sure you want to attain enlightenment?" And the woman said, "Of course I'm sure." Whereupon the smiling woman turned into a demon, stood up brandishing a great big stick, and started chasing her, saying, "Now! Now! Now!" For the rest of her life, that lady could never get away from the demon who was always saying, Now! Now--that's the key. Mindfulness trains us to be awake and alive, fully curious, about now.

And that is when I know....that is when I understand that it's better to feel the ache inside me like demons scratching at my heart than it is to feel numb the way a dead body feels when you touch it. It's better to wait for the beautiful things...to stare at them for as long as they last..to hold on as tight as you can before they disappear. And it might hurt so bad inside...but it's better to wait for the next beautiful thing than never look for any again.

I hadn't been "possessed", after all. Not by an angel or a demon. Maybe there were aspects of both inside me, but I was the one who chose which to let out.

There’s no reason, on paper at least, why I need these pills to get through life. I had a great childhood, loving parents, the whole package. I wasn’t beaten, abused, or expected to get nothing but As. I had nothing but love and support, but that wasn’t enough somehow. My friend Erin says we all have demons inside us, voices that whisper we’re no good, that if we don’t make this promotion or ace that exam we’ll reveal to the world exactly what kind of worthless sacks of skin and sinew we really are. Maybe that’s true. Maybe mine just have louder voices. But I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The depression I fell into after university wasn’t about exams and self-worth, it was something stranger, more chemical, something that no talking cure was going to fix. Cognitive behavioral therapy, counseling, psychotherapy—none of it really worked in the way that the pills did. Lissie says she finds the notion of chemically rebalancing your mood scary, she says it’s the idea of taking something that could alter how she really is. But I don’t see it that way; for me it’s like wearing makeup—not a disguise, but a way of making myself more how I really am, less raw. The best me I can be.

His smell—the scent of a demon, cinnamon incense, amber musk—wrapped around me, filled my lungs. I felt like I could breathe again, without every breath being tainted by the stench of dying cells. The smell of him seemed to coat my abused insides with peace, and flow down into the middle of my body to spread through my veins. I filled my lungs again. While I could, before what was undoubtedly a hallucination vanished.

I Feel like a prison holding myself, bounded by the judgements of people I care and chained by the rules of the society I live in. If I would let the person who speaks inside me out, he would tell you a different story than what you have seen all these years. Sometimes I see myself crying, screaming and trying to tear myself into pieces when I stand in front of the mirror so that I could finally be free from myself. But the demons I have created inside me to guard beats me down and laughs at me, watching me bleed.

The sky inside my head never turns blue. It if forced to stay red. By the demon, who is yellow inside me.

I peered deeper into the mirror, searching. Who was staring back? He looked like me, he talked like me, his body moved when mine did. I swayed to the right, then left, then back to centre; the person in the mirror did the same. This was the thing that terrified me the most – more than the victim, more than the demon, more even than the dark thoughts. It was the fact that the dark thoughts were mine. That I couldn’t separate myself from evil, because most of the evil in my life came from inside my own head.

This was the thing that terrified me the most - more than the victim, more than the demon, more even than the dark thoughts. It was the fact that the dark thoughts were mine. That I couldn't separate myself from evil, because most of the evil in my life came from inside my own head. How long could I live like this? I was trying to be two people - a killer on the inside, and a normal person on the outside. I made such a show of being a good, quiet kid, who never caused problem and never got into trouble, but now the monster was out, and I was actually using him - I was actively seeking out another killer. I'd given in. I was trying to be John and Mr. Monster at the same time. Was I fooling myself, thinking that I could split my life like this? Was it possible to be two people, one good and one bad, or was I forced to be a mix of both - a good person forever tainted by evil?

If taking a pill makes you different, lie, if it changes the way-down you...that's just a screwed-up idea, you know? Who's deciding what me means - me or the employees of the factory that makes Lexapro? It's like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is...I don't know...weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon.

He pulls the door shut behind him and drags me against him, murmuring softly, “I understand why you left. I understand everything.” I cling to him, holding on for what feels like dear life. “I should have told you.” “You would have.” He pulls back to look at me. “When you were ready. We all have to deal with our inner demons in our own way, in our own time.

Understand this, Glyndon, there’s nothing noble or tender about what I feel for you. It’s a violent volcano of obsession, possession, and deranged lust. If you want love, then I do love you, but it’s the unorthodox version of love. I love you enough to let you within my walls. I love you enough to let you talk to my demons. I love you enough to allow you to have a hold over me when I’ve never allowed anyone to have the power to destroy me from the inside out.

No I am not okay. I've just been pulled out of play tryouts where I had to be the first to audition and everyone's trying out for the same parts, I just had a very bizarre conversation with the school secretary, Megan may be throwing up her cucumber sandwiches, I've broken five of the seven deadly sins in as many hours, a demon may be inside a girl in my world religions class, Grant Brawner called me by name, my license photo looks like a dead fish, I have to drive my friends all over town in two hours when I've never even driven without Dad before, none of my birthday wishes have come true yet, and now you're here with muffins like I'm in second grade? So, no, I am not ok.

Just like I hate the fucking demons you have locked inside you that you won't tell me about. The ones you only let out when you can't control it and you panic. We cant always control what we don't like, Tiny Dancer.

The demon blood inside me burned my soul to ashes long ago. I am a monster who once dreamed he was a man. Never mistake me again.

Perhaps it has always been there. This thing. This demon inside me. Or behind my back. Waiting for me to turn around.

I want you in my arms. I want you in my bed. I want to bury myself deep inside you and feel you shatter beneath me, again and again. I want you daily, nightly, repeatedly, constantly, forever. And when I know it’s safe to take you, you’d best be ready. If you’re not, you’d better run and hide, because it will take a legion of angels and demons to keep me off of you.

I'm feeling better now," Darrak said. She stifled a scream and clamped her hands over her bare breasts. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" "Did I interrupt something?" There was a short pause. "Oh, I see. Don't let me stop you from getting naked. Please, continue." Eden scanned her reflection with wide eyes. Could she see the demon inside of her? Did she look possessed?" Nope. There was nothing noticeable. Other than the deep voice in her head only she could hear. "This should be interesting." Darrak sounded amused. "As I said before, I've never shared living space with a woman before. I honestly never would have guessed black lace panties for you. But I do approve.

That tight grip could kill me.Cream running down my fingers."He inhaled deeply."I can scent you.I love the way you smell.Oh,fuck it."He left her side and,keeping his fingers inside her,he moved between her legs.

Your demon is looking at me.” Fuck, I knew that. My canines were so sharp, they’d prick her tongue if she slipped it inside once I’d gotten my mouth on hers. Dropping the cigarette, I crushed it out. “He’s always looking at you.

One day, it will all make sense, it will all be revealed. Until then, we learn to live and accept our shadows, our Déjà vu's, our dreams, our intuition that takes us to places that our minds never conceived, our bodies only perceived and our souls gladly remembered. Conversations and experiences amuse me, for I am experimenting with my feelings in ways that I can only do down here. Language makes up for a very interesting, yet bizarre way of putting thoughts into spoken form for the sound to move on in other peoples' ears, but every language, every sound, every word carries with it a long history, a deep culture and the souls of the many people who have previously used it throughout the centuries. Our hearts give us direction, hope and the passion to keep moving forward.. But what we do when they're frozen, broken, torn apart by an unhealthy way of living is what gives us new strength to push forward or kills us completely. Deep inside, we feed the entities that empower the fight between our internal demons and angels. We feed them with our thoughts, our emotions, our self-talk and the external talk that we lower our shields to at times. Whether good or bad, this brings about a change internally and at times there isn't much we can do to protect ourselves. At times, we need to let things be and go along with it. Of course, we're all worried, stressed, confused and lacking direction at times and we're in the same way at peace, stable and walking in the right direction once we get things sorted. Give it some time, give it some light, give it some love. You're not very far away.

I have never battled a gargoyle before.” Zacharel shook his head, a dark lock of hair tumbling into one emerald eye. Damp from the melting snow, the hair stuck to his skin. He didn’t seem to notice. “But I am certain these will murder Paris before willingly carrying him inside.” As if he were the only intelligent life form left in existence, William splayed his arms. “And the problem with that? He’ll still be inside, exactly where he wants to be. And by the way,” he added, blinking at Paris with lashes so long they should have belonged to a girl. “Your new permanent eyeliner is very pretty. You’ll make a good-looking corpse.” Do not react. He did, and the teasing about his ash/ambrosia tattoos would never end. “Thanks.” “I prefer the lip liner, though. A nice little feminine touch that really makes your eyes pop.” “Again, thanks,” he gritted. He wants us! Stupid demon. William grinned. “Maybe we can make out later. I know you want me.” Tell him yes! Not another word out of you, or— “Paris? Warrior?” Zacharel said. “Are you listening to me?” “No.” Zach nodded, apparently not the least offended. “I enjoy your honesty, though I believe you suffer from what the humans call ADD.” “Oh, yeah. I definitely have attention deficient demon.

I am not the monster who lives inside me

This man, whoever he is, is changing me. I want him so badly I can taste it. I take his fire and I keep it inside me. I’m never letting it go.

It feels like I’m in the passenger seat and this demon inside me is at the wheel and as I yell for it to stop, it slams on the pedal and next thing I know, I’m in a terrible predicament.

Freud wrote about it a century ago. How we rummage through the armory of the past to retrieve the weapons needed to repeat, repeat, repeat past traumas. He said it was primitive, instinctual, destructive. Like a demon inside us all. And now we know it's true. The brain itself is built with the battered beams of our early years. What the conscious mind forgets, the neurons remember.

It's like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is ... I don't know ...weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon.

She said I was a monster, and for a long time I believed her. But you made me feel like a man, someone worthy of being loved. Then you went away, and I had nothing, nothing but a hopeless demon inside.

They’re not very open to change in Hell—especially when that change includes lessening the so-called evil inside of their high-ranking demons. Good is the one thing that scares them—it’s very unpredictable.

I had battled my own demons that day, facing down the thing that imprisoned me since the accident-a scar and the diffidence it created inside of me. But it was just a physical blemish, not something that made me who I am. It took a mentally disturbed murderer who gave me a sneak peak at death to show me that.

This is what you do to me," I breathe out, growling as her finger presses into my flesh harder. "You tear me apart from the inside out in the best fucking ways possible. You make me kill for you, you make me want to die for you. I'll burn this whole place down to ashes and paint you with them like the muse you are.

I’ve tried in this telling, time and again, to pinpoint the moment where serything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there's also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing's going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. Then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful.

I think I have more feelings for you than I should have,” he admitted. “Feelings aren’t supposed to make sense, though, right? They confuse the fuck out of me and make me twisted inside,” he whispered as he gently touched his forehead to hers. “Tell me it’s not just me who feels this connection,” he muttered. “It’s not,” she whispered.

There was a scream. From Logan. He stood just inside my open window. At the sight of me — and after the scream — he spun around and tried to duck out. In his panic, he miscalculated and slammed his forehead into the edge of the frame. The impact reeled him back. He stumbled and landed on his backside, holding his hand to his head, moaning.

The first cut wasn't the deepest. No, not at all. It was like all the others, a subtle rend of anxious skin, a gentle pulse of crimson, just enough to hush the demons shrieking inside my brain. But this time they wouldn't shut up. Just kept on howling, like Mama, when she was in a bad way. Worst thing was, the older I got, the more I began to see how much I resembled Mama, falling in and out of blue, then lifting up into the white. That day I actually thought about howling. So I gave myself to the knife, asked it to bite a little harder, chew a little deeper. The hot, scarlet rush felt so delicious I couldn't stop there. The blade might have reached bone, but my little brother, Bryan, barged into the bathroom, found me leaning against Grandma's new porcelain tub, turning its unstained white pink. You should have heard him scream.

So,” Dante asked, his voice controlled, hand clenching around the glass, “you’re just using him then?” Morana smiled. “And is he not using me? To fight whatever demons live inside him?” Dante remained silent. They both knew the answer to that one.

Ms. Lane.”Barrons’ voice is deep, touched with that strange Old World accent and mildly pissed off. Jericho Barrons is often mildly pissed off. I think he crawled from the swamp that way, chafed either by some condition in it, out of it, or maybe just the general mass incompetence he encountered in both places. He’s the most controlled, capable man I’ve ever known. After all we’ve been through together, he still calls me Ms. Lane, with one exception: When I’m in his bed. Or on the floor, or some other place where I’ve temporarily lost my mind and become convinced I can’t breathe without him inside me this very instant. Then the things he calls me are varied and nobody’s business but mine. I reply: “Barrons,” without inflection. I’ve learned a few things in our time together. Distance is frequently the only intimacy he’ll tolerate. Suits me. I’ve got my own demons. Besides I don’t believe good relationships come from living inside each other’s pockets. I believe divorce comes from that. I admire the animal grace with which he enters the room and moves toward me. He prefers dark colors, the better to slide in and out of the night, or a room, unnoticed except for whatever he’s left behind that you may or may not discover for some time, like, say a tattoo on the back of one’s skull. “What are you doing?” “Reading,” I say nonchalantly, rubbing the tattoo on the back of my skull. I angle the volume so he can’t see the cover. If he sees what I’m reading, he’ll know I’m looking for something. If he realizes how bad it’s gotten, and what I’m thinking about doing, he’ll try to stop me. He circles behind me, looks over my shoulder at the thick vellum of the ancient manuscript. “In the first tongue?” “Is that what it is?” I feign innocence. He knows precisely which cells in my body are innocent and which are thoroughly corrupted. He’s responsible for most of the corrupted ones. One corner of his mouth ticks up and I see the glint of beast behind his eyes, a feral crimson backlight, bloodstaining the whites. It turns me on. Barrons makes me feel violently, electrically sexual and alive. I’d march into hell beside him. But I will not let him march into hell beside me. And there’s no doubt that’s where I’m going. I thought I was strong, a heroine. I thought I was the victor. The enemy got inside my head and tried to seduce me with lies. It’s easy to walk away from lies. Power is another thing. Temptation isn’t a sin that you triumph over once, completely and then you’re free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say your prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows exactly how you take it. He skirts the Chesterfield sofa and stands over me. “Looking for something, Ms. Lane?” I’m eye level with his belt but that’s not where my gaze gets stuck and suddenly my mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow and I know I’m going to want to. I’m Pri-ya for this man. I hate it. I love it. I can’t escape it. I reach for his belt buckle. The manuscript slides from my lap, forgotten. Along with everything else but this moment, this man. “I just found it,” I tell him.

I wonder how many people I know are out there, battling demons and leviathans alone on this cold night. How many people I know who tell me they are fine, and know how to expertly hide the cry for help behind their eyes. How many are just a helping hand away from a moment that could better their entire life. And how many will never ask, instead ball up these terrible things inside themselves thinking they are all alone in their fight. It is a sobering thought: Everyone we love and know and hate are all suffering in some great or small way. This is why we must be swift with our kindness. make greater efforts at compassion when we ask someone if they are okay.

In the study she nodded to my husband, turned completely around once, and then remarked that we seemed to be making no practical use of the space in our house. “This room would be much larger,” she said, “if you took out all those books.” Mrs. Ferrier thought the master bedroom should have faced west, and she barely put her head inside the smaller bedrooms. “They would be much larger,” I told her, “if we took out the beds.” Mrs. Ferrier fixed me with her cold eye. “If you took out the beds where would you sleep?” she wanted to know, and I followed her meekly downstairs.

I was created a warrior, meant to guard the king of gods. For many years, I served him well, helping to keep him in power, protecting him even from his own family. But he did not think me strong enough to guard his most precious possession, a box formed from the bones of the dead goddess of oppression. No, he commanded a woman to do it. She was known as the greatest female warrior, true, but my pride was stung.” Thankfully, Ashlyn remained relaxed. “Thinking to prove a mistake had been made, I helped release the demons inside upon the world. And in punishment, I was bonded to one.

The way you seek before me now is the way of self-worth, and that you have not earned.” “There are demons inside the Otherworld. Flesh-eating bhuts and wraiths the size of whole countries and you’re telling me that I have to prove myself to join them?” “I never said it had to be good self-worth.

You’re afraid to count on me.” “I’m afraid of not being able to count on me.” There is a hint of emotion in his stare before his expression becomes unreadable. He drops his hand from my arm. “I understand,” he states, his voice monotone, his expression impassive. I think I’ve hurt him, and reality slaps me in the face. I’ve let myself think of him as some kind of demon, to avoid the real demons of my past. In two small steps I am in front of him, wrapping my arms around him, and pressing my cheek to his chest. “I don’t think you realize how much I care about you, or how easily and badly you could hurt me.” I lift my head and let him see the truth in my face. “So yes, I’m scared to count on you.” Tension eases from his body, his expression softening. He runs his hand over my hair and there is gentleness in his touch. “Then we’ll be scared together.” “You’re scared?” I ask, surprised by such a confession. “You’re the best adrenaline rush of my life, baby. Far better than the pain you replaced.” For the first time, I think that maybe, just maybe, I am all Chris needs.

Don’t go putting labels on me. See, what I gather about love is that it’s noble, tender, and means if you love someone enough, you may have to let them go. Understand this, Glyndon, there’s nothing noble or tender about what I feel for you. It’s a violent volcano of obsession, possession, and deranged lust. If you want love, then I do love you, but it’s the unorthodox version of love. I love you enough to let you within my walls. I love you enough to let you talk to my demons. I love you enough to allow you to have a hold over me when I’ve never allowed anyone to have the power to destroy me from the inside out.

You can only enter the Otherworld by invitation, self-worth or sacrifice. Or by standing beneath a double-rainbow with a belly full of cold, cold sapphires. And I have not seen a double-rainbow in five hundred years. And I know you have no invitation, for your name is on no list. The way you seek before me now is the way of self-worth, and that you have not earned.” “There are demons inside the Otherworld. Flesh-eating bhuts and wraiths the size of whole countries and you’re telling me that I have to prove myself to join them?” “I never said it had to be good self-worth. You could slay a million children. Maybe then you could come. But in your current state, your soul cannot handle the Otherworld.

I felt meanness bubbling up inside me, like a burp of sour vomit. I made myself swallow it back down.

It was strange magic, a hug, especially a hug from that man. It settled the demons at war inside me, sung them a lullaby and put them to bed.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts. David Bowie

That’s when the devil took me. It happened from time to time. Vi said I had a demon inside me that liked to come out and play on occasion.

Dark outside Darker inside Just me and my thoughts I used to hate nights With you, funny how my demons turned into angels

I stared into the darkness and thought how it mirrored what was inside me, how it hid the demon others called Puck.

If that’s what you want—then beg me to put a child inside of you.” “Please,” I pleaded. “Breed me.

When Mrs. Ferrier stepped inside our front door at one minute before three that afternoon it was perfectly clear to me without hesitation that we were not going to become fast friends.

I can't keep protecting someone who doesn't want to be protected. I can't keep doing this, Neva. You need to learn how to protect yourself, I just can't do it. You're breaking every single piece of me. You need to find the girl inside you who isn't afraid, who isn't guilty, and who isn't racked with demons. You need to let go of the past, before you stay stuck in it forever.

Is that true?” I asked Dad. “Are they gone for good?” Dad shifted in his seat, uneasy. “Not necessarily. But Sophie, the risk involved in bringing them back…It’s almost too great to fathom.” “I can fathom all kinds of things,” I told him. “Try me.” I think I might have seen pride in Dad’s eyes. Or maybe it was just a gleam of Why is my offspring so insane? Still, he answered me. “If you destroy both the ritual and the witch or warlock who used it, the spell itself can be reversed.” I shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so hard.” “I wasn’t finished. They must be destroyed simultaneously.” Swallowing, I tried to sound cheerful. “Again, not so bad. Get Lara to hold the piece of paper, zap them both with, um, some fire or something, and bam! Instant demon reversal.” “And they must be destroyed in the pit where the demons were raised,” Dad continued, as if I hadn’t said anything. Seriously, he had to stop doing that. “Oh, and as the piece de resistance, you’ll need to do a spell to close the pit itself, with both the ritual and the witch inside it. And that’s such an intense ritual that it could actually pull whatever’s around the pit into it as well.” “Like, the person doing the spell?” “Like, the whole damn island the put is on.” “Oh. Okay. Well, that is definitely…challenging. But not impossible. And we have the grimoire, that’s one bonus, right? Even if the demon-raising ritual isn’t in it.” “Sophie Alice Mercer,” Mom said warningly, just as Dad said, “Atherton,” and Aislinn said, “Brannick.” I threw my hands up. “Look, it doesn’t matter what you call me. I’ll hyphenate, how about that?

If taking a pill makes you different, like, if it changes the way-down you ... that's just a screwed-up idea, you know? Who's deciding what me means - me or the employees of the factory that makes Lexapro? It's like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gond, but the idea of removing it via pill is ... I don't know ... weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon.

Her lips were nearly touching mine. The heady sensation of floating too close to heaven dragged me even closer. I waited for her to stop me. God, she needed to stop me, because I was quickly losing control. When she didn't, I eased closer. Sliding my tongue along her lower lips, I teased her mouth open. She caught herself, both hands on my shoulders. whimpering when I plunged inside. Then my world turned upside down.

I thought I heard Delia calling for help.Once I stepped inside,I was able to follow the sound of her voice." "Apparently you had some angels on your side,Delia." "Angels? More like demons,sending me flying like this.

Who’s deciding what me means—me or the employees of the factory that makes Lexapro? It’s like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is . . . I don’t know . . . weird.

You tear me apart from the inside out in the best fucking ways possible. You make me kill for you, you make me want to die for you. I'll burn this whole place down to ashes and paint you with them like the muse you are.

It’s like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is . . . I don’t know . . . weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon.” “You often try to understand your experience through metaphor, Aza: It’s like a demon inside of you; you’ll call your consciousness a bus, or a prison cell, or a spiral, or a whirlpool, or a loop, or a—I think you once called it a scribbled circle, which I found interesting.” “Yeah,” I said. “One of the challenges with pain—physical or psychic—is that we can really only approach it through metaphor. It can’t be represented the way a table or a body can. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language.” She turned to her computer, shook her mouse to wake it up, and then clicked an image on her desktop. “I want to share something Virginia Woolf wrote: ‘English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache. . . . The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.’ And we’re such language-based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn’t real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracize and minimize. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify, which is why I’d ask you to frame your mental health around a word other than crazy.

That’s science talk for how Klan folk turn Ku Klux. Molly says it’s like an infection, or a parasite. And it feed on hate. She says chemicals in the body change up when you hate strong. When the infection meets that hate, it starts growing until it’s powerful enough to turn the person Ku Klux. Ask me, it’s plain evil them Klans let in, eating them up until they hollow inside. Leave behind bone-white demons who don’t remember they was men.

Yes, Carl,” the potion bottle said, his voice deep and demonic. “Drink me. Drink me deep. Put me inside of you.” “What the shit?” I asked as Donut hissed. “That’s how you know it’s a good potion,” Mordecai said, grinning.

Who sent you?” Manon bellowed. His eyes shifted—turning green, turning clear. It was with a young man’s voice that he said, “Kill me. Please—please kill me. Roland—my name was Roland. Tell my—” Then blackness spread across his eyes again, along with pure panic at whatever he beheld in Manon’s face, and in Asterin’s over her shoulder. The demon inside the man shrieked: “Get away!” She’d heard and seen enough. Manon squeezed harder, her iron nails shredding through mortal flesh and muscle. Black, reeking blood coated her hand, and she ripped harder into him, until she got to the bone and slashed through it, and his head thumped against the floor. Manon could have sworn he sighed.

Understand this, Glyndon, there’s nothing noble or tender about what I feel for you. It’s a violent volcano of obsession, possession, and deranged lust. If you want love, then I do love you, but it’s the unorthodox version of love. I love you enough to let you within my walls. I love you enough to let you talk to my demons. I love you enough to allow you to have a hold over me when I’ve never allowed anyone to have the power to destroy me from the inside out.

Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either. You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue. If you don’t think demons are real, try planting a church! You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy. If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God. A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness. The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. The unsexy reality of the pastorate is that it involves hard work—the heavy-lifting, curse-ridden, unyielding employment of your whole person for the sake of the church. Pastoral ministry requires dogged, unyielding determination, and determination can only come from one source—God himself. Passive staff members must be motivated. Erring elders and deacons must be confronted. Divisive church members must be rebuked. Nobody enjoys doing such things (if you do, you should be not be a pastor!), but they are necessary in order to have a healthy church over the long haul. If you allow passivity, laziness, and sin to fester, you will soon despise the church you pastor. From the beginning of sacred Scripture (Gen. 2:17) to the end (Rev. 21:8), the penalty for sin is death. Therefore, if we sin, we should die. But it is Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in our place for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to take to himself the penalty of our sin. The Bible is not Christ-centered because it is generally about Jesus. It is Christ-centered because the Bible’s primary purpose, from beginning to end, is to point us toward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Christ-centered preaching goes much further than merely providing suggestions for how to live; it points us to the very source of life and wisdom and explains how and why we have access to him. Felt needs are set into the context of the gospel, so that the Christian message is not reduced to making us feel better about ourselves. If you do not know how sinful you are, you feel no need of salvation. Sin-exposing preaching helps people come face-to-face with their sin and their great need for a Savior. We can worship in heaven, and we can talk to God in heaven, and we can read our Bibles in heaven, but we can’t share the gospel with our lost friends in heaven. “Would your city weep if your church did not exist?” It was crystal-clear for me. Somehow, through fear or insecurity, I had let my dreams for our church shrink. I had stopped thinking about the limitless things God could do and had been distracted by my own limitations. I prayed right there that God would forgive me of my small-mindedness. I asked God to forgive my lack of faith that God could use a man like me to bring the message of the gospel through our missionary church to our lost city. I begged God to renew my heart and mind with a vision for our city that was more like Christ's.

I would choose you." The words were out before he thought better of them, and there was no way to pull them back. Silence stretched between them. Perhaps the floor will open and I'll plummet to my death, he thought hopefully. "As your general?" Her voice careful. She was offering him a chance to right the ship, to take them back to familiar waters. And a fine general you are. There could be no better leader. You may be prickly, but that what Ravka needs. So many easy replies. Instead he said, "As my queen." He couldn't read her expression. Was she pleased? Embarrassed? Angry? Every cell in his body screamed for him to crack a joke, to free both of them from the peril of the moment. But he wouldn't. He was still a privateer, and he'd come too far. "Because I'm a dependable soldier," she said, but she didn't sound sure. It was the same cautious, tentative voice, the voice of someone waiting for a punch line, or maybe a blow. "Because I know all of your secrets." "I do trust you more than myself sometimes- and I think very highly of myself." Hadn't she said there was no one else she'd choose to have her back in a fight? But that isn't the whole truth, is it, you great cowardly lump. To hell with it. They might all die soon enough. They were safe here in the dark, surrounded by the hum of engines. "I would make you my queen because I want you. I want you all the time." She rolled on to her side, resting her head on her folded arm. A small movement, but he could feel her breath now. His heart was racing. "As your general, I should tell you that would be a terrible decision." He turned on to his side. They were facing each other now. "As your king, I should tell you that no one could dissuade me. No prince and no power could make me stop wanting you." Nikolai felt drunk. Maybe unleashing the demon had loosed something in his brain. She was going to laugh at him. She would knock him senseless and tell him he had no right. But he couldn't seem to stop. "I would give you a crown if I could," he said. "I would show you the world from the prow of a ship. I would choose you, Zoya. As my general, as my friend, as my bride. I would give you a sapphire the size of an acorn." He reached in to his pocket. "And all I would ask in return is that you wear this damnable ribbon in your hair on our wedding day." She reached out, her fingers hovering over the coil of blue velvet ribbon resting in his palm. Then she pulled back her hand, cradling her fingers as if they'd been singed. "You will wed a Taban sister who craves a crown," she said. "Or a wealthy Kerch girl, or maybe a Fjerdan royal. You will have heirs and a future. I'm not the queen Ravka needs." "And if you're the queen I want?" ... She sat up, drew her knees in, wrapped her arms around them as if she would make a shelter of her own body. He wanted to pull her back down beside him and press his mouth to hers. He wanted her to look at him again with possibility in her eyes. "But that's not who I am. Whatever is inside me is sharp and gray as the thorn wood." She rose and dusted off her kefta. "I wasn't born to be a bride. I was made to be a weapon." Nikolai forced himself to smile. It wasn't as if he'd offered her a real proposal. They both knew such a thing was impossible. And yet her refusal smarted just as badly as if he'd gotten on his knee and offered her his hand like some kind of besotted fool. It stung. All saints, it stung. "Well," he said cheerfully, pushing up on his elbows and looking up at her with all the wry humour he could muster. "Weapons are good to have around too. Far more useful than brides and less likely to mope about the palace. But if you won't rule Ravka by my side, what does the future hold, General?" Zoya opened the door to the Cargo hold. Light flooded in gilding her features when she looked back at him. "I'll fight on beside you. As your general. As your friend. Because whatever my failings, I know this. You are the king Ravka needs.

Do you think Archer is right about everyone here being de-magicked? Or maybe the fog, like, made his and Evan’s magic…de-magic.” Crossing over to the closet, I sighed and said, “I’m betting the kids here are de-magicked, but it doesn’t really matter.” I flung open the closet. Just as I’d thought, the only things hung up inside where Hex Hall uniforms. “I’m pretty much de-magicked myself these days,” I said to Jenna over my shoulder. “Also, maybe we should stop saying de-magicked. It’s starting to sound weird.” She sat up straighter. “What?” “You know, when you say things too much, and-“ “Sophie,” Jenna said, tilting her head and frowning at me. Sighing, I sat down on my own bed, facing her. “Thanks to some mojo from the Council, I’m currently powerless.” Her expression softening, Jenna breathed, “Oh, Soph. I’m so sorry.” “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I told her. “My powers aren’t gone gone. They’re still bumping around in here, but I can’t use them unless I touch this particular-whoa.” “What?” I crossed the room to grip the footboard of Jenna’s bed. “There’s this spell in the Throne family grimoire. If I touch it, my powers will be restored. And Dad was sure the Casnoffs had the grimoire. It might be here, Jenna.” I let go of her bed to pace as my magic pounded inside me. “If we find it, I could be demoning up the place by dinnertime.

Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” he asks me, almost calmly. I know him well enough to realise he is always calm. Always. Even when he is angry and pissed off. I bet he is even calm when someone he loves dies. It is just who he is on the outside all of the time. The inside? Not so calm. More like a storm on fire with flying trucks in it.

As the sun went down outside, the television screen started completely lighting up the room in obnoxiously bright colors at hyperactive speeds. The conversation had been slowly rising in volume and frequency, as everyone started becoming more delinquent and the social boundaries slowly wore away. I don't remember what any of them said because I wasn't honestly paying any attention. I was focusing on my own misery and trying to numb the inner demons, the ugly things Thomas claimed came from the Outside World. Yet, to me, it wasn't outside, but rather INSIDE, as in my own head. I kept hearing Charley's voice from bits and pieces of conversations we had, laughter that I'll never hear ever again.

He had deposited an experience into my lifetime, and that experience was now a memory I couldn’t forget, but it wasn’t an unknowable, mysterious, evil thing. There was space inside me for it to live alongside all my other memories and thoughts and feelings. I would never beat the demon, I could not exorcise it, I would simply learn to live above it.

Lilydale saved me. Not in the way the welcome brochure promised, but the people inside, the ones who speak to the darkest parts of me—they did. They saw me as everything. Not the victim, not the familial killer, not the girl with mental illness… they saw what was inside and dug out the potential—the real me that had never had an opportunity to flourish.

Do you know how badly I could hurt you? he wants to ask Harold. Do you know I could say things that you would never forget, that you would never forgive me for? Do you know I have that power? Do you know that every day I have known you I have been lying to you? Do you know what I really am? Do you know how many men I have been with, what I have let them do to me, the things that have been inside me, the noises I have made? His life, the only thing that is his, is being possessed: By Harold, who wants to keep him alive, by the demons who scrabble through his body, dangling off his ribs, puncturing his lungs with their talons. By Brother Luke, by Dr. Traylor. What is life for? he asks himself. What is my life for?

Some of my asleep demons still travel with me, They crawl up from the past and haunt me from the deep, They run in circles-Round and Round And wrap me in their claws and tear me inside up For years I have struggled alone but now... I want to stand tall and look into their eyes, daring them, “Do your best, but you can’t hurt me anymore For I am not alone anymore...

This ghost angel told me that you were inside that demon over there.” She points to Beliel who seems on the verge of losing consciousness in the passenger seat. “He said that you might come out any minute. I didn’t believe him of course. That’s crazy talk. But still, you never know.” She shrugs. “And look what happened.” She squints at me suspiciously. “It is you, isn’t it?

By the Angel,” Jace said, looking the demon up and down. “I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell.” Abbadon opened its mouth and hissed. Inside its mouth were two rows of jagged glass-sharp teeth. “I’m not so sure about this wind and howling darkness business,” Jace went on, “smells more like landfill to me. You sure you’re not from Staten Island?

Do you remember bedtime as a child? I was terrified of the dark. I was terrified of the closed closet door that surely cracked open when I wasn't looking and spewed out ghouls and devils. I took care that no arms or legs protruded from the bed. I sometimes slept with the covers over my head. Sweltering, panting, barely breathing. Not even my hair exposed, lest a monster discover and devour me. I remember begging my father to check under the bed. I remember trying to explain how some monsters had invisibility cloaks. He would kiss my cheek and switch off the light. We stop looking under the bed once we realize that the monsters are inside us. It's funny how they transform. Suddenly they don't mind daylight. Suddenly they dress nicely, speak our language, and share our customs. They sit next to us on the metro and jog around our neighborhoods. They slip things into our drinks at parties and offer us jobs. Sometimes we spot them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we even do the unthinkable: we invite them to our bed. As adults, we burn down the sanctuaries we created as children. Our inner child freaks out, but its screams are drowned by our moans as our monsters bring us to orgasm.

If Sophie hadn’t used my magic in her body,” Elodie summed up, “she would’ve been dead like, ten times by now.” Okay, it was only twice, I grumbled inside. Elodie ignored me. “And no,” she said, raising my hand to cut off Jenna’s next question. “I can’t possess anyone else. Trust me, I’ve been trying to get inside Lara Casnoff ever since we got here. Which…sounds really wrong.” I felt my shoulders shrug. “Anyway, you looked like you were about to eat your own lip, and that’s totally gross, so I figured I oughta swoop in and put your mind at ease. Last night, when I was trying my hardest to possess anyone who’s not this freak, I overheard the Casnoffs talking. Apparently, turning a vampire into a demon seems like an awesome idea, so that’s why you’re here. No staking on the agenda.” Usling Elodie as a spy hadn’t even occurred to me. Oh my God, this is perfect! I shouted. Well, mentally shouted. Of course! They can’t see you unless you want them to; you can go anywhere in the school, and- Jeez, not so loud, she interrupted. I’m in your head, so use your inside inside voice. Elodie went to brush my hair out of my eyes, muttering, “God, how does she live like this?” If you promise to stop taking over whenever you feel like it, I promise to get a hot oil treatment, I replied, and she snorted. Jenna folded her arms tightly across her chest. “So, what-you’re like, helping us now?” My eyes rolled. “No, I’m on Team Take Over The World With A Demon Army. Of course I’m helping you. Mostly so that whenever this is over, Sophie can get back to important stuff. Like how to unbind me from her.

You saved me, Dubhie,” she chokes out when I sink to my knees in the mud beside the building, her body still tight against my chest. “No, you saved yourself. I just gave you revenge,” I answer, smoothing my sweaty palms over her hair. A tear slips out when our eyes meet. “I don’t just mean now. I mean… You’ve saved me, Dubh. You saved me the moment we met. The moment you crashed into my life like a strike of lighting. You didn’t just save me from my husband, but from myself. From the demons that inhabited my body, the terrors that crawled around inside me, threatening to take over completely. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.” She pauses, seeming to have an internal battle with herself, as if the next thing she’s going to say is going to change our lives forever. “And I… I love you.

Embrace it, Phelan.” The way he whispered my name sent a shiver down my spine, so full of yearning, making him and the feelings inside impossible to discount. How could someone so evil make me feel the things I did? Things I didn’t want to. Things I never imagined for myself in a thousand years. I hated him and I hated what he did, but there was no denying my body’s response to him. Maybe because I really was a demon…

Glyndon, there’s nothing noble or tender about what I feel for you. It’s a violent volcano of obsession, possession, and deranged lust. If you want love, then I do love you, but it’s the unorthodox version of love. I love you enough to let you within my walls. I love you enough to let you talk to my demons. I love you enough to allow you to have a hold over me when I’ve never allowed anyone to have the power to destroy me from the inside out.

They let you bring weapons in there?” “The weapons are only a distraction,” Darien said as he holstered the pistol and pocketed a pair of brass knuckles. He then slid a knife into the inside pocket of his black jacket. Loren said, “A distraction from what?” “The real threat.” Darien gave her a demon’s smile. She swallowed. “And what’s the real threat?” That smile turned into a wicked grin that showed all his straight, white teeth. “Me, silly girl.

One of my earliest memories was of a maze of pale green walls. The corridors never ended, no matter which way I turned. I was running, my feet bare, my paper-thin gown flapping around skinny foal-like legs, and the demons kept on coming. I’d run the maze before, because I always knew which way to turn to find the little clear plastic box. I’d run, and run. Lungs aching, throat burning, my feet slapping against the smooth floor, and the sound of scrabbling claws chased me down. I made it to the box, every time (I’d learned later, there were others who hadn’t) and once inside, I’d yank the clear door closed. The demons didn’t see the box. They saw only me, the wraith-like little half-blood girl. They would launch themselves—claws extended, jaws wide, eyes ablaze—and slam into my box, sending shudders rattling through my bones. They’d snap and snarl, hook their teeth into the box and gnaw at its edges, desperate to get to the feast huddling a few millimeters away. Flooding, the Institute had called it. At first I was afraid, and I learned how to run. Then I was angry, and I learned how to fight with my fists and my element. Then, I got even. I lured those demons into a corner and ambushed them, killing every last one. After countless visits to the maze, after weeks, years, I’d started liking it, and killing became as natural as breathing. It was what I was good at. What I was made for. What I lived for. © Copyright Pippa DaCosta 2016.

• You’re my calm in the soul, crazy in the flesh. • I feel like I’ve found part of myself inside of you. • Wreck me, shatter me, destroy me, be the ruin of me. I don’t care, just make me feel. • This is how it was supposed to be. You in my arms, me, deep inside you. • You’re the purest, dirtiest little thing. A saint with the lips of a sinner. A woman who owns her demons. (Let me own you) • You’re the only the only habit worth being addicted to. • Every second with you makes me need another.

I’m not going to ask you to collar the monster inside you, because I already know it, and it’s a part of you,” she said. “I’ll allow your demons to protect me, and I’ll use mine to defend you, too. Stupid though that is. However fucking dangerous and unbelievably idiotic though that is. But I’m keeping the gun, Fix. And I will use it the moment your demons look like they’re turning on me.” Holy. Fucking. Shit. This woman. She was miraculous. She was beautiful. She was strong. She was everything.

Say my name,” he countered, his hand wrapping around the irresistible length of her neck. This time it was he who whispered in her ear. “Say it.” “I do not know what it is,” she said, her breath rushing out of her in an astounding rhythm. “Yes, you do. I feel it. You only have to search for it inside of us.” “Us” was the appropriate term. It was almost impossible in that moment for them to discern whose thoughts belonged to whom. Gideon was the oldest of them all. There was no one older, so no one who had once known his power name could possibly be alive. His parents were dead. His Siddah were dead. If Legna discovered his name, the ramifications were inconceivably serious. He would be putting his very existence into her hands. He would be placing all of his power at her fingertips, gifting her with the potential for his absolute submission. Legna tried to step back from him, the shock of what he was offering her too much to bear. But he had made sure to have his hands on her and now kept her tight and close within them. “I cannot,” she whispered, her body beginning to shake. “No one should know that. No one. I am not strong enough to keep it, Gideon. Any male Mind Demon could take it from me!” “You are stronger than you think, Neliss.” “Not strong enough. Please, do not ask this of me.” She pushed at him, jerked herself backward, using the weight of her body to try and break free. He held her for a moment longer, looking deeply into her panic-stricken expression. “One day,” he said softly.

Is it true it takes thirteen months for a female to carry and give birth?” “Minimum.” He said it with such casual dismissal that Bella laughed. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to lug the kid around inside of you all that time. You, just like your human counterparts, have the fun part over with like that.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. His dark eyes narrowed and he reached to enclose her hand in his, pulling her wrist up to the slow, purposeful brush of his lips even as he maintained a sensual eye contact that was far too full of promises. Isabella caught her breath as an insidious sensation of heated pins and needles stitched its way up her arm. “I promise you, Bella, a male Demon’s part in a mating is never over like this.” He mimicked her snap, making her jump in time to her kick-starting heartbeat. “Well”—she cleared her throat—“I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.” Jacob did not respond in agreement, and that unnerved her even further. Instinctively, she changed tack. “So, what brings you down into the dusty atmosphere of the great Demon library?” she asked, knowing she sounded like a brightly animated cartoon. “You.” Oh, how that singular word was pregnant with meaning, intent, and devastatingly blatant honesty. Isabella was forced to remind herself of the whole Demon-human mating taboo as the forbidden response of heat continued to writhe around beneath her skin, growing exponentially in intensity every moment he hovered close. She tried to picture all kinds of scary things that could happen if she did not quit egging him on like she was. How she was, she didn’t know, but she was always certain she was egging him on. “Why did you want to see me?” she asked, breaking away from him and bending to retrieve the book she had dropped. It was huge and heavy and she grunted softly under the weight of it. It landed with a slam and another puff of dust on the table she had made into her own private study station. “Because I cannot seem to help myself, lovely little Bella.

Gideon rose up to his full height, watching their progress as they faded into the night. He then turned his diamondlike eyes until they narrowed on the female Demon who had remained so still and quiet that she had gone unremembered. An interesting feat, considering the remarkable presence of the beauty. “You have grown strong, Legna,” he remarked quietly. “In only a decade? I am sure it has not made much of a difference.” “To teleport me from such a great distance took respectful skill and strength. You well know it.” “Thank you. I shall have to remember to feel weak and fluttery inside now that you complimented me.” Gideon narrowed his eyes coldly on her. “You sound like that acerbic little human. It does not become you.” “I sound like myself,” Legna countered, her irritation crackling through his thoughts as the emotion overflowed her control. “Or have you forgotten that I am far too immature for your tastes?” “I never said such a thing.” “You did. You said I was too young to even begin to understand you.” She lifted her chin, so lost in her wounded pride that she spoke before she thought. “At least I was never so immature that Jacob had to punish me for stalking a human.” Gideon’s spine went extremely straight, his eyes glittering with warning as she hit home on the still-raw wound. “Maturity had nothing to do with that, and you well know it. It is below you to be so petty, Magdelegna.” “I see, so I am groveling around in the gutter now? How childish of me. However can you bear it? I shall leave immediately.” Before Gideon could speak, Legna burst into smoke and sulfur, disappearing but for her laughter that rang through his mind. Gideon sighed, easily acknowledging her that her laughter was a taunt meant to remind him that with her departure, so too went his easy transportation home. Nevertheless, he was more perturbed to realize that he’d once against managed to say all the wrong things to her. Perhaps someday he would manage to speak with her without irritating her. However, he didn’t think that was likely to happen this millennium.

Astarte has come again, more powerful than before. She possesses me. She lies in wait for me. December 97 My cruelty has also returned: the cruelty which frightens me. It lies dormant for months, for years, and then all at once awakens, bursts forth and - once the crisis is over - leaves me in mortal terror of myself. Just now in the avenue of the Bois, I whipped my dog till he bled, and for nothing - for not coming immediately when I called! The poor animal was there before me, his spine arched, cowering close to the ground, with his great, almost human, eyes fixed on me... and his lamentable howling! It was as though he were waiting for the butcher! But it was as if a kind of drunkenness had possessed me. The more I struck out the more I wanted to strike; every shudder of that quivering flesh filled me with some incomprehensible ardour. A circle of onlookers formed around me, and I only stopped myself for the sake of my self-respect. Afterwards, I was ashamed. I am always ashamed of myself nowadays. The pulse of life has always filled me with a peculiar rage to destroy. When I think of two beings in love, I experience an agonising sensation; by virtue of some bizarre backlash, there is something which smothers and oppresses me, and I suffocate, to the point of anguish. Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night to the muted hubbub of bumps and voices which suddenly become perceptible in the dormant city - all the cries of sexual excitement and sensuality which are the nocturnal respiration of cities - I feel weak. They rise up around me, submerging me in a sluggish flux of embraces and a tide of spasms. A crushing weight presses down on my chest; a cold sweat breaks out on my brow and my heart is heavy - so heavy that I have to get up, run bare-foot and breathless, to my window, and open both shutters, trying desperately to breathe. What an atrocious sensation it is! It is as if two arms of steel bear down upon my shoulders and a kind of hunger hollows out my stomach, tearing apart my whole being! A hunger to exterminate love. Oh, those nights! The long hours I have spent at my window, bent over the immobile trees of the square and the paving-stones of the deserted street, on watch in the silence of the city, starting at the least noise! The nights I have passed, my heart hammering in anguish, wretchedly and impatiently waiting for my torment to consent to leave me, and for my desire to fold up the heavy wings which beat inside the walls of my being like the wings of some great fluttering bird! Oh, my cruel and interminable nights of impotent rebellion against the rutting of Paris abed: those nights when I would have liked to embrace all the bodies, to suck in all the breaths and sup all the mouths... those nights which would find me, in the morning, prostrate on the carpet, scratching it still with inert and ineffectual fingers... fingers which never know anything but emptiness, whose nails are still taut with the passion of murder twenty-four hours after the crises... nails which I will one day end up plunging into the satined flesh of a neck, and... It is quite clear, you see, that I am possessed by a demon... a demon which doctors would treat with some bromide or with all-healing sal ammoniac! As if medicines could ever be imagined to be effective against such evil!

In the deep, wet tangled, wild jungle where even natives won't go is a mystical, dangerous river. The river's got no name because naming it would make it real, and no one wanted to believe that river be real. They say you get there only inside a dream-but don't you think of it at bedtime, now, 'cause not everyone who goes there be able to leave! That jungle canopy, it so leafy true daylight can never break in the riverbank, it be wet muck thick with creatures that eat you alive if you stay still too long. To miss that fate, you gots to go into the black water. But the water be heavy as hot tar; once you in, it bind you and pull you along, bit by bit, 'til you come to the end of the land, and then over the water goes in a dark, slow cascade, the highest falls in the history of the world ever. There be demons in that cascading water, and snakes, and wraiths that whisper in your ears. They love you, they say. You should give yourself to them, stay with them, become one of them, they say. 'Isn't it good here?' they say. 'No pain, no trouble.' But also no light and no love and no joy and no ground. You tumble and tumble as you fall, and you try and choose, but your mind be topsy-turvy and maybe you can't think so well, and maybe you can't choose right, and maybe you never wake up. "It felt like that," I tell Tootsie, "even after you got me out and Scott moved me to Highland. I couldn't choose. I couldn't shut out the wraiths...But you would say, 'Hang on, sweetie,' and Scottie would say, 'I miss you, Mama,' and Scott would hold me, just hold me and say nothing at all." Tootsie snorts. "Scott was useless the whole while." "Scott was in the river, too.

I respect your ability to make decisions for yourself enough to stand by while Wolf courts a demon, even though I don’t agree with it. Give me the courtesy of returning the favor.” I open my mouth to continue arguing, but I don’t have a leg to stand on. He’s right. No matter what I think, he’s more than capable of making his own choices. I swallow hard. “Okay. Sorry. I just don’t want you to end up regretting…” “Regretting you.” Malachi gives me a small sliver of a smile. “Impossible. You’ve crashed into my life with all the subtlety of a bomb detonating, but it’s been refreshing.” He turns us toward the farmhouse. “Now, let’s get inside and discuss next steps.” And that’s that.

It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us. The trees of the forest, the animals of the bushes, tortoises, birds, and flowers know our future. The world that we see and the world that is there are two different things. Wars are not fought on battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the head of a needle. We need a new language to talk to one another. Inside a cat there are many histories, many books. When you look into the eyes of dogs strange fishes swim in your mind. All roads lead to death, but some roads lead to things which can never be finished. Wonderful things. There are human beings who are small but if you can SEE you will notice that their spirits are ten thousand feet wide. In my dream I met a child sitting on a cloud and his spirit covered half the earth. Angels and demons are amongst us; they take many forms. They can enter us and dwell there for one second or half a lifetime. Sometimes both of them dwell in us together. Before everything was born there was first the spirit. It is the spirit which invites things in, good things, or bad. Invite only good things, my son. Listen to the spirit of things. To your own spirit. Follow it. Master it. So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use. There is a stillness which makes you travel faster. There is a silence which makes you fly. If your heart is a friend of Time nothing can destroy you. Death has taught me the religion of living – I am converted – I am blinded – I am beginning to see – I am drunk on sleep – My words are the words of a stranger – Wear a smile on your faces – Pour me some wine and buy me some cigarettes, my son, for your father has returned to his true home.

Damn it, Jacob, I’m freezing my butt off.” “I came as fast as I could, considering I thought it would be wise to walk the last few yards.” Isabella whirled around, her smiling face lighting up the silvery night with more ease than the fullest of moons. She leapt up into his embrace, eagerly drinking in his body heat and affection. “I can see it now. ‘Daddy, tell me about your wedding day.’ ‘Well, son,’” she mocked, deepening her voice to his timbre and reflecting his accent uncannily, “’The first words out of your mother’s mouth were I’m freezing my butt off!’” “Very romantic, don’t you think?” he teased. “So, you think it will be a boy, then? Our first child?” “Well, I’m fifty percent sure.” “Wise odds. Come, little flower, I intend to marry you before the hour is up.” With that, he scooped her off her feet and carried her high against his chest. “Unfortunately, we are going to have to do this hike the hard way.” “As Legna tells it, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” “Yeah, well, I assure you a great many grooms have fudged that a little.” He reached to tuck her chilled face into the warm crook of his neck. “Surely the guests would know. It takes longer to walk than it does to fly . . . or whatever . . . out of the woods.” “This is true, little flower. But passing time in the solitude of the woods is not necessarily a difficult task for a man and woman about to be married.” “Jacob!” she gasped, laughing. “Some traditions are not necessarily publicized,” he teased. “You people are outrageous.” “Mmm, and if I had the ability to turn to dust right now, would you tell me no if I asked to . . . pass time with you?” Isabella shivered, but it was the warmth of his whisper and intent, not the cold, that made her do so. “Have I ever said no to you?” “No, but now would be a good time to start, or we will be late to our own wedding,” he chuckled. “How about no . . . for now?” she asked silkily, pressing her lips to the column on his neck beneath his long, loose hair. His fingers flexed on her flesh, his arms drawing her tighter to himself. He tried to concentrate on where he was putting his feet. “If that is going to be your response, Bella, then I suggest you stop teasing me with that wicked little mouth of yours before I trip and land us both in the dirt.” “Okay,” she agreed, her tongue touching his pulse. “Bella . . .” “Jacob, I want to spend the entire night making love to you,” she murmured. Jacob stopped in his tracks, taking a moment to catch his breath. “Okay, why is it I always thought it was the groom who was supposed to be having lewd thoughts about the wedding night while the bride took the ceremony more seriously?” “You started it,” she reminded him, laughing softly. “I am begging you, Isabella, to allow me to leave these woods with a little of my dignity intact.” He sighed deeply, turning his head to brush his face over her hair. “It does not take much effort from you to turn me inside out and rouse my hunger for you. If there is much more of your wanton taunting, you will be flushed warm and rosy by the time we reach that altar, and our guests will not have to be Mind Demons in order to figure out why.” “I’m sorry, you’re right.” She turned her face away from his neck. Jacob resumed his ritual walk for all of thirty seconds before he stopped again. “Bella . . .” he warned dangerously. “I’m sorry! It just popped into my head!” “What am I getting myself into?” he asked aloud, sighing dramatically as he resumed his pace. “Well, in about an hour, I hope it will be me.

Quite out of the blue a bizarre and compelling idea came into my head today: that we have ended up as human beings through forgetfulness, through lack of attention, and that in reality we are creatures participating in a vast, cosmic battle that has probably been going on since time immemorial and which, for all we know, may never end. All we see of it are glimmers, in blood-red moons, in fires and gales, in frozen leaves that fall in October, in the jittery flight of a butterfly, in the irregular pulse of time that can lengthen a night into infinity or come to a violent stop each day at noon. I am actually an angel or a demon sent into the turmoil of one life on a sort of mission, which is either carrying itself out without my help, or else I have totally forgotten about it. This forgetfulness is part of the war--it's the other side's weapon, and they've attacked me with it so that I'm wounded, invalided out of the game for a while. As a result, I don't know how powerful or how weak I am--I don't know anything about myself because I can't remember anything, and that's why I don't try to look for either weakness or power in myself. It's an extraordinary feeling--to imagine that somewhere deep inside, you are someone completely different from the person you always thought you were. But it didn't make me feel anxious, just relieved, finally free of a kind of weariness that used to permeate my life.

I have a bag over my head. I hate having a bag over my head. It's always the same goddamn thing with kidnappers. "Let's put a bag over hsi head. That way he won't know what's happening!" I know what's happening. I'm being kidnapped. Don't have to be Sherlock fucking Holmes to figure that one out. Oh, and protect the location of your secret hideout? Really? Do you hacve any idea how easy it is to track a cell phone? I can feel mine inside my pocket. But wait! What about frightening and disorienting your victim? Blow me. I'm already disoriented. Fucking flash-bang did that for me. And frightened? Seriously? Do you have any idea how many times I've been kidnapped, stuck in a trunk, handcuffed, or left for dead in the desert? Try something new. Shoot me into space or something.

had said, in effect: “Okay, if you can figure out the tilt, you can figure out any damn thing you choose. Because even light has weight, and when the note of a trainwhistle suddenly drops it’s the Doppler effect and when an airplane breaks the sound barrier that bang isn’t the applause of the angels or the flatulence of demons but only air collapsing back into place. I gave you the tilt and then I sat back about halfway up the auditorium to watch the show. I got nothing else to say, except that two and two makes four, the lights in the sky are stars, if there’s blood grownups can see it as well as kids, and dead boys stay dead.” You can live with fear, I think, Stan would have said if he could. Maybe not forever, but for a long, long time. It’s offense you maybe can’t live with, because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are live things down there, and they have little yellow eyes that don’t blink, and there’s a stink down in that dark, and after awhile you think maybe there’s a whole other universe down there, a universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some of them have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything, he would have told them if he could. Go to your church and listen to your stories about Jesus walking on the water, but if I saw a guy doing that I’d scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldn’t look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense.

Ha!’ cackled the fiend, ‘I expect you’d like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn’t go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you’d be so kind as to lend me your body, I’ll set him dancing to my tune.’ The wife’s spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman’s pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap. It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips. When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered

Last night I had the dream again. Except it's not a dream I know because when it comes for me, I'm still awake. There's my desk. The map on the wall. The Stuffed animals I don't play with anymore but don't want to hurt Dad's feelings by sticking in the closet I might be in bed. I might be just standing there, looking foe a missing sock. Then i'm gone. it doesn't just show me somthing this time, it takes me from here to THERE> standing on the bank of a river of fire. A thousand wasps in my head. Fighting and dying inside my skull, their bodies piling up against the backs of me eyes. Stinging and stinging. Dad's voice. Somewhere across the river. Calling my name. I've never heard him sound like that before. He's so frightened he can't hide it, even though he tries (he ALWAYS tries). The dead boy floats by. Facedown. So I wait for his head to pop up, show the holes where his eye used to be, say somthing with his blue lips. One of the terrible things it might make him do. But he just passes like a chunk of wood. I've never been here before, but I know it's real. The river is the line between this place and the Other Place. And I'm on the wrong side. There's a dark forest behind me but that's not what it is. I try to get to where Dad is. My toes touch the river and it sings with pain. Then there's arms pulling me back. Dragging me into the trees. They feel like a man's arms but it's not a man that sticks its fingers into my mouth. Nails that scratch the back of my throat. Skin that tastes like dirt. But just before that, before I'm back in my room with my missing sock in my hand, I realize I've been calling out to Dad just like he's been calling out to me. Telling him the same thing the whole time. Not words from my mouth through the air, but from my heart through the earth, so only the two of us could hear it. FIND ME

I'm sorry.' I blinked. 'What do you possibly have to be sorry for?' 'His hands were shaking- as if in the aftermath of that fury at what Keir had called me, what he'd threatened. Perhaps he'd brought me here before heading home in order to have some privacy before his friends could interrupt. 'I shouldn't have let you go. Let you see that part of us. Of me.' I'd never seen him so raw, so... stumbling. 'I'm fine.' I didn't know what to make of what had been done. Both between us and to Keir. But it had been my choice. To play that role, to wear those clothes. To let him touch me. But... I said slowly, 'We knew what tonight would require of us. Please- please don't start protecting me. Not like that.' He knew what I meant. He'd protected me Under the Mountain, but that primal, male rage he'd just shown Keir... A shattered study splattered in paint flashed through my memory. Rhys rasped. 'I will never- never lock you up, force you to stay behind. But when he threatened you tonight, when he called you...' Whore. That's what they'd called him. For fifty years, they'd hissed it. I'd listened to Lucien spit the words in his face. Rhys released a jagged breath. 'It's hard to shut down my instincts.' Instincts. Just like... like someone else had instincts to protect, to hide me away. 'Then you should have prepared yourself better,' I snapped. 'You seemed to be going along just fine with it, until Keir said-' 'I will kill anyone who harms you,' Rhys snarled. 'I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it.' He panted. 'Go ahead. Hate me- despise me for it.' 'You are my friend,' I said, and my voice broke on the word. I hated the tears that slipped down my face. I didn't even know why I was crying. Perhaps for the fact that it had felt real on that throne with him, even for a moment, and... and it likely hadn't been. Not for him. 'You're my friend- and I understand that you're High Lord. I understand that you will defend your true court, and punish threats against it. But I can't... I don't want you to stop telling me things, inviting me to do things, because of the threats against me.' Darkness rippled, and wings tore from his back. 'I am not him,' Rhys breathed. 'I will never be him, act like him. He locked you up and let you wither, and die.' 'He tried-' 'Stop comparing. Stop comparing me to him.' The words cut me short. I blinked. 'You think I don't know how stories get written- how this story will be written?' Rhys put his hands on his chest, his face more open, more anguished than I'd seen it. 'I am the dark lord, who stole away the bride of spring. I am a demon, and a nightmare, and I will meet a bad end. He is the golden prince- the hero who will get to keep you as his reward for not dying of stupidity and arrogance.' The things I love have a tendency to be taken from me. He'd admitted that to me Under the Mountain. But his words were kindling to my temper, to whatever pit of fear was yawning open inside of me. 'And what about my story?' I hissed. 'What about my reward? What about what I want?' 'What is it that you want, Feyre?' I had no answer. I didn't know. Not anymore. 'What is it that you want, Feyre?' I stayed silent. His laugh was bitter, soft. 'I thought so. Perhaps you should take some time to figure that out one of these days.' 'Perhaps I don't know what I want, but at least I don't hide what I am behind a mask,' I seethed. 'At least I let them see who I am, broken bits and all. Yes- it's to save your people. But what about the other masks, Rhys? What about letting your friends see your real face? But maybe it's easier not to. Because what if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything, and still walked away? Who could blame them- who would want to bother with that sort of mess?' He flinched. The most powerful High Lord in history flinched. And I knew I'd hit hard- and deep. Too hard. Too deep. 'Rhys,' I said.

I would choose you." The words were out before he thought better of them, and there was no way to pull them back. Silence stretched between them. Perhaps the floor will open and I'll plummet to my death, he thought hopefully. "As your general?" Her voice careful. She was offering him a chance to right the ship, to take them back to familiar waters. And a fine general you are. There could be no better leader. You may be prickly, but that's what Ravka needs. So many easy replies. Instead he said, "As my queen." He couldn't read her expression. Was she pleased? Embarrassed? Angry? Every cell in his body screamed for him to crack a joke, to free both of them from the peril of the moment. But he wouldn't. He was still a privateer, and he'd come too far. "Because I'm a dependable soldier," she said, but she didn't sound sure. It was the same cautious, tentative voice, the voice of someone waiting for a punch line, or maybe a blow. "Because I know all of your secrets." "I do trust you more than myself sometimes- and I think very highly of myself." Hadn't she said there was no one else she'd choose to have her back in a fight? But that isn't the whole truth, is it, you great cowardly lump. To hell with it. They might all die soon enough. They were safe here in the dark, surrounded by the hum of engines. "I would make you my queen because I want you. I want you all the time." She rolled on to her side, resting her head on her folded arm. A small movement, but he could feel her breath now. His heart was racing. "As your general, I should tell you that would be a terrible decision." He turned on to his side. They were facing each other now. "As your king, I should tell you that no one could dissuade me. No prince and no power could make me stop wanting you." Nikolai felt drunk. Maybe unleashing the demon had loosed something in his brain. She was going to laugh at him. She would knock him senseless and tell him he had no right. But he couldn't seem to stop. "I would give you a crown if I could," he said. "I would show you the world from the prow of a ship. I would choose you, Zoya. As my general, as my friend, as my bride. I would give you a sapphire the size of an acorn." He reached in to his pocket. "And all I would ask in return is that you wear this damnable ribbon in your hair on our wedding day." She reached out, her fingers hovering over the coil of blue velvet ribbon resting in his palm. Then she pulled back her hand, cradling her fingers as if they'd been singed. "You will wed a Taban sister who craves a crown," she said. "Or a wealthy Kerch girl, or maybe a Fjerdan royal. You will have heirs and a future. I'm not the queen Ravka needs." "And if you're the queen I want?"... She sat up, drew her knees in, wrapped her arms around them as if she would make a shelter of her own body. He wanted to pull her back down beside him and press his mouth to hers. He wanted her to look at him again with possibility in her eyes. "But that's not who I am. Whatever is inside me is sharp and gray as the thorn wood." She rose and dusted off her kefta. "I wasn't born to be a bride. I was made to be a weapon." Nikolai forced himself to smile. It wasn't as if he'd offered her a real proposal. They both knew such a thing was impossible. And yet her refusal smarted just as badly as if he'd gotten on his knee and offered her his hand like some kind of besotted fool. It stung. All saints, it stung. "Well," he said cheerfully, pushing up on his elbows and looking up at her with all the wry humour he could muster. "Weapons are good to have around too. Far more useful than brides and less likely to mope about the palace. But if you won't rule Ravka by my side, what does the future hold, General?" Zoya opened the door to the Cargo hold.Light flooded in gilding her features when she looked back at him. "I'll fight on beside you. As your general. As your friend. Because whatever my failings, I know this. You are the king Ravka needs.

It was on this day, during this terrible and wonderful run, that a thought occurred to me, a thought which has never left me" I've always considered the question to be. "Why am I alive? Why am I here? What’s the point of me?? And to that I say WHO CARES! FORGET THE WHY. YOU ARE IN A RAGING FOREST FULL OF BEAUTY AND AGONY AND MAGICAL GRAPEY BEVERAGES AND LIGHTNING STORMS AND DEMON BEES. THIS IS BETTER THAN THE WHY. I run because I seek that clarity. Maybe it’s superficial. Maybe its’s just adrenaline and endorphins and serotine flooding my brain. But I don’t care. I run very fast because I desperately want to stand very still. I run to seek a void. The world around me is so very, very loud. It begs me to slow down, to sit down, to lie down. And the buzzing of the world is nothing compared to the noise inside my head. I’m an introspective person, and sometimes I think too much, about my job and about my life. I feed an army of pointless, bantering demons. But when I run, the world grows quiet. Demons are forgotten, Krakens are slain, and Blerches are silenced. THE END.

He was not her sole companion. She had her demons, too. You can't run from them, as Lexi discovered. Changing cities doesn't help either; you carry them along inside you. You just wake up one day, fed up, and decide to snuggle with them instead. You invite them along as you go about your day, balancing them on your shoulder as you would a toddler, but with very strict conditions: You will not set fire to my hair. You will not take candy from strangers. You will not tie me up in chains while I sleep. You will behave. And Lexi's demons, allowed to come close, sat on her shoulder. They waved to the angels perched on her other shoulder and struck up a conversation with Lexi. 'What's that noise?' her demons asked, sidling close to her ear. 'Oh, that?' Lexi massaged her temples. 'It's the air whistling through the hole in my heart.' 'You're afraid,' they taunted. 'I am,' she admitted. 'Afraid of the sky falling. Afraid of the tight-rope snapping. Afraid I can't dance well enough on the edge. Afraid there are no hands to steady my body. Afraid of hands that wish to cage my heart.' 'Coward,' the demons goaded.

Open your eyes, Eva. I want you to see who’s inside you. She did as he asked and opened her eyes. And stiffened in surprise. He was red. And his eyes were black. And, as she watched, he grew to his seven-foot-tall size. He grew everywhere, in fact, and she gasped at the sudden stretch inside her, the tightness almost unbearable. Those freaky, all-black eyes narrowed in challenge. He was daring her to accept him, she realized. Accept all of him. Even his hands had turned to claws, though he was careful where he held her not to scratch her. “Your eyes are glowing again,” he growled. “You’re so beautiful.” He did a slow slide out of her and then pushed back in, finishing with a roll of his hips that made her see stars. She moaned at the exquisite fullness, bordering on the edge of pain. “Who’s fucking you right now, Eva?” “You are.” His hips rolled again. “Who am I?” “Asmodeus.” And again. “Who am I.” “My demon. My big, red demon with his big, red co— Oh, fuck, Ash.” His next thrust sent her core clenching up, and it was his turn to moan. “You feel so good. So damned tight, you’re squeezing me like a fist.” “More, baby. I want more.

Open your eyes, Eva. I want you to see who’s inside you. She did as he asked and opened her eyes. And stiffened in surprise. He was red. And his eyes were black. And, as she watched, he grew to his seven-foot-tall size. He grew everywhere, in fact, and she gasped at the sudden stretch inside her, the tightness almost unbearable. Those freaky, all-black eyes narrowed in challenge. He was daring her to accept him, she realized. Accept all of him. Even his hands had turned to claws, though he was careful where he held her not to scratch her. “Your eyes are glowing again,” he growled. “You’re so beautiful.” He did a slow slide out of her and then pushed back in, finishing with a roll of his hips that made her see stars. She moaned at the exquisite fullness, bordering on the edge of pain. “Who’s fucking you right now, Eva?” “You are.” His hips rolled again. “Who am I?” “Asmodeus.” And again. “Who am I.” “My demon. My big, red demon with his big, red co— Oh, fuck, Ash.” His next thrust sent her core clenching up, and it was his turn to moan. “You feel so good. So damned tight, you’re squeezing me like a fist.” “More, baby. I want more.

Stalling. Buying time. Gray chuckled, releasing me with one last nudge to my chin. “But are you afraid?” he asked, tilting his head as he knowingly looked at where I’d burrowed my fingers into the base of the tree, melding the wood around me so that I could become one with it. “Or are you just pissed?” “I’m always pissed,” I snapped, clenching my teeth together as I sank into that anger. Into the feeling of being so fucking tired of being somebody else’s puppet. If I’d been stronger, I’d have let Gray take my magic and walked away as soon as I had the chance, but I was too afraid to live with the hole inside me. “You wanting to fuck me when I’m afraid doesn’t exactly put me in a good mood.” “I don’t want to fuck you when you’re afraid, wife,” he said, stressing the word. I flinched, as I suspected I would do every time he called me by the term that I was so certain couldn’t be possible. I didn’t pretend to know the intricacies of demon marriage rites, but it seemed like even for the evil creatures from Hell there should have been some level of consent involved. “I want to fuck you when you’re so mad you try to claw my eyes out. I want to fight you, and then I want to fuck you while you direct all that anger toward me.

He opened his eyes then, white fire flaring hotly within them. “Send me home, Legna,” he commanded her, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. She moved her head in affirmation even as she leaned toward him to catch his mouth once more in a brief, territorial kiss, her teeth scoring his bottom lip as she broke away. It was an incidental wound, one he could heal in the blink of an eye. But he wouldn’t erase her mark on him, and they both knew it. Finally, she stepped back, closed her eyes, and concentrated on picturing his home in her thoughts. She had been in his parlor dozens of times as a guest, always accompanied by Noah. His library, his kitchen, even the grounds of the isolated estate were well known to her. She could have sent him to any of those locations. But as she began to focus, her mind’s eye was filled with the image of a dark, elegant room she had never seen before. Hand-carved ebony-paneled walls soared up into a vast ceiling, enormous windows of intricate stained glass spilled colored light over the entire room as if a multitude of rainbows had taken up residence. It all centered around an enormous bed, the coverlet’s color indistinguishable under the blanket of colorful dawn sunlight that streamed into the room. She could feel the sun’s warmth, ready and waiting to cocoon any weary occupant who thrived on sleeping in the heat of the muted daylight sun. It was a beautiful room, and she knew without a doubt that it was Gideon’s bedroom and that he had shared the image of it with her. If she sent him there, it would be the first time she had ever teleported someone to a place she had not first seen for herself. The ability to take images of places from others’ minds for teleporting purposes was an advanced Elder ability. “You can do it,” he encouraged her softly, all of his thoughts and his will completely full of his belief in that statement. Legna kept his gaze for one last long moment, and with a flick of a wrist sent him from the room with a soft pop of moving air. She exhaled in wonder, everything inside of her knowing without a doubt that he had appeared in his bedroom, safe and sound, that very next second. Legna turned to look at her own bed and wondered how she would ever be able to sleep. Nelissuna . . . go to bed. I will help you sleep. Gideon’s voice washed through her, warming her, comforting her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. This was the connection that Jacob and Isabella shared. For the rest of the time both of them lived, each would be privy to the other’s innermost thoughts. She realized that because he was the more powerful, it was quite possible he would be able to master parts of himself, probably even hide things from her awareness and keep them private—at least, until she learned how to work her new ability with better skill. After all, she was a Demon of the Mind. It was part of her innate state of being to figure the workings of their complex minds. She removed her slippers and pushed the sleeves of her dress from her shoulders so that it sheeted off her in one smooth whisper of fabric. She closed her eyes, avoiding looking in the mirror or at herself, very aware of Gideon’s eyes behind her own. His masculine laughter vibrated through her, setting her skin to tingle. So, you are both shy and bold . . . he said with amusement as she quickly slid beneath her covers. You are a source of contradictions and surprises, Legna. My world has begun anew. As if living for over a millennium is not long enough? she asked him. On the contrary. Without you, it was far, far too long. Go to sleep, Nelissuna. And a moment after she received the thought, her eyes slid closed with a weight she could not have contradicted even if she had wanted to. Her last thought, as she drifted off, was that she had to make a point of telling Isabella that she might have been wrong about what it meant to have another to share one’s mind with.

Here i sit all broken hearted Came to sleep that's when it started. Broken dreams from behind Fall beneath me so unkind. Sorrow swallows sucks and chews, All the dreams I had to lose. Thinking of all the lies i was told Makes me feel hollow and cold. Behind my smile I force on my face Is a broken man not having a place. I wonder aimless through the night Depression is the demon I fight. They all ask me how I'm doing Its hard to stop the pain pursuing. I choke pain down and grin so wide Only to kill the fear inside. Sleep deprived awake and tired this curse is a trap all ready wired. Just sleep more they all say I would if the past would go away. It's better now to be alone Than lied and cheated to the bone. I hate the life I've lived thus far And gladly wear this awful scar. It has gotten easier that is no lie, I no longer wish that I would die. I dream of days when I feel this pain and deal with it without strain. I do not know where I will go only god will ever know. I pray for all the promises forgotten, the empty chords that fell all rotten. I aim to search look and seek This life i want simple and meek. It makes the past so very grey The thoughts of future day The night will fade and dissolve I march on with no resolve Ahead i walk through pain and sorrow Only to seek a better tomorrow

Don’t cry Meg. It’s not that bad.” “It’s not that bad? Ha! I’m thirty years old, with two black eyes, a swollen nose, a big, honking, yellow knot on my forehead, and the haircut from hell. As if that isn’t enough, I had a transvestite in my bed this morning, my husband is a lying, cheating, cradle robbing, bastard, who at some point slept with my best friend.” Jack scooted over to the middle of the seat, and stopped listening to his head and wrapped his arms around her. Big mistake! From inside, four faces were pressed to the window. “My last orgasm-with a partner- was…hell I can’t remember when! I frequently knock myself out for entertainment purposes, I have little boobs, big feet, squishy panties, nosy neighbors and demon possessed fish. God hates me!” Jack held her tighter. “I have frequent flyer miles at the hospital. I fed my husband marijuana Ex-lax brownies and shoved a marble up his butt.” Jack pulled away to look at her and she was serious. And crying. Big, sad, alligator tears that made his heart swell. “My mother is a holy rolling, Catholic Dr. Ruth, complete with condoms and Rosary beads. I write about relationships and sex, both of which I suck at and I hired a Private Investigator to pimp me out.” Jack burst out laughing and she pushed him away and swatted his shoulder. “And now you’re laughing at me. Could things get any worse?

I was born to wish for more than I can have. No little fishing hole for Demon, he wants the whole ocean. And on from there, as regards the man-overboard. I came late to getting my brain around the problem of me, and still yet might not have. The telling of this tale is supposed to make it come clear. It's a disease, a lot of people you tell you that now, be they the crushed souls under repair at NA meetings or the doctors in buttoned-up sweaters. Fair enough. But where did it come from, this wanting disease? From how I got born, or the ones that made me, or the crowd I ran with later? Everybody warns about bad influences, but it's these things already inside you that are going to take you down. The restlessness in your gut, like tomcat's gone stupid with their blood feeds, prowling around in the moon - dead dark. The hopless wishes that won't quit stalking you: some perfect words you think you could say to somebody to make them see you, and love you, and stay. Or could say to your mirror, same reason. Some people never want like that, no reaching for the bottle, the needle, the dangerous pretty face, all the wrong stars. What words can I write here for those eyes to see and believe? For the lucky, it's simple. Like the song says, This Little Light Of mine. Don't let Satan blow it out. Look farther down the pipe, see what's coming. Ignore the damn tomcats. Quit the dope.

I am not a Goddess. I am the face of them All, the embodiment of many. I will burn your village to the ground wearing pants. Nourish your soil and scatter new seeds in a skirt that lifts in the breeze. Strike like lightening and change everything you thought you knew. Scorch you and replenish your reservoir. Sing until you weep with joy. I will leave you poetry on your pillow beside a bottle of hemlock. Feed you til' your belly is full. Devour your ego and spit out your falsities in front of you. Steal your favourite things. I will lead you into temptation. Be the ugliest hag you ever did see. Awaken you from your slumber. Hand you a poisoned apple. Light a candle in your darkness. Weave you a dream. Bow at your feet and kiss the ground you walk upon. I will love you like you've never felt love before. Take your breath away with my beauty. Call your demons into the Light and watch them bury you. Make you tremble in ecstasy. I'll answer your prayers. Shake you til' you scream. Retrieve you from the deep. Carry your manifestations inside of me and birth them into Being. Be the wind in your sails. The blood on your sheets. The wish granted from the wild dandelion wheel. The snake in the grass. Tufts of idle time. I will disappear suddenly, wait until you ache for me, and reemerge as if I had never gone. I am not a Goddess. I am the face of them All, the embodiment of many.

We end up at an outdoor paintball course in Jersey. A woodsy, rural kind of place that’s probably brimming with mosquitos and Lyme disease. When I find out Logan has never played paintball before, I sign us both up. There’s really no other option. And our timing is perfect—they’re just about to start a new battle. The worker gathers all the players in a field and divides us into two teams, handing out thin blue and yellow vests to distinguish friend from foe. Since Logan and I are the oldest players, we both become the team captains. The wide-eyed little faces of Logan’s squad follow him as he marches back and forth in front of them, lecturing like a hot, modern-day Winston Churchill. “We’ll fight them from the hills, we’ll fight them in the trees. We’ll hunker down in the river and take them out, sniper-style. Save your ammo—fire only when you see the whites of their eyes. Use your heads.” I turn to my own ragtag crew. “Use your hearts. We’ll give them everything we’ve got—leave it all on the field. You know what wins battles? Desire! Guts! Today, we’ll all be frigging Rudy!” A blond boy whispers to his friend, “Who’s Rudy?” The kid shrugs. And another raises his hand. “Can we start now? It’s my birthday and I really want to have cake.” “It’s my birthday too.” I give him a high-five. “Twinning!” I raise my gun. “And yes, birthday cake will be our spoils of war! Here’s how it’s gonna go.” I point to the giant on the other side of the field. “You see him, the big guy? We converge on him first. Work together to take him down. Cut off the head,” I slice my finger across my neck like I’m beheading myself, “and the old dog dies.” A skinny kid in glasses makes a grossed-out face. “Why would you kill a dog? Why would you cut its head off?” And a little girl in braids squeaks, “Mommy! Mommy, I don’t want to play anymore.” “No,” I try, “that’s not what I—” But she’s already running into her mom’s arms. The woman picks her up—glaring at me like I’m a demon—and carries her away. “Darn.” Then a soft voice whispers right against my ear. “They’re already going AWOL on you, lass? You’re fucked.” I turn to face the bold, tough Wessconian . . . and he’s so close, I can feel the heat from his hard body, see the small sprigs of stubble on that perfect, gorgeous jaw. My brain stutters, but I find the resolve to tease him. “Dear God, Logan, are you smiling? Careful—you might pull a muscle in your face.” And then Logan does something that melts my insides and turns my knees to quivery goo. He laughs. And it’s beautiful. It’s a crime he doesn’t do it more often. Or maybe a blessing. Because Logan St. James is a sexy, stunning man on any given day. But when he laughs? He’s heart-stopping. He swaggers confidently back to his side and I sneer at his retreating form. The uniformed paintball worker blows a whistle and explains the rules. We get seven minutes to hide first. I cock my paintball shotgun with one hand—like Charlize Theron in Fury fucking Road—and lead my team into the wilderness. “Come on, children. Let’s go be heroes.” It was a massacre. We never stood a chance. In the end, we tried to rush them—overpower them—but we just ended up running into a hail of balls, getting our hearts and guts splattered with blue paint. But we tried—I think Rudy and Charlize would be proud

last sixteen years Aidan’s detected a shift among spirits. He doesn’t know what it means yet, but he’s certain there’s a pattern.” “What kind of pattern?” “Dark spirits and demons are growing stronger.” I bet Nolan could have helped figure out the pattern. I can only imagine how different all of this would be if he had been here with me since the beginning, performing research for Aidan, trying just as hard as Aidan to find answers. Maybe he would have even found some. “Can you sense the demon?” he asks. I nod. Lucio stops dead in his tracks. Despite the flames growing ever higher around us, Lucio and I feel a cool breeze coming from down the road. Lucio starts walking in the direction of the chill, and I follow, placing my feet in the dusty footprints his steps leave behind. Even though he’s not much taller than I am, his feet are bigger than mine, and I feel like a little kid every time I place one of my sneakers in the spot where his dust-covered boot was seconds before. Lucio’s wearing shorts, and instead of looking at where we’re going, I’m watching the muscles in his calves flex and release with each step. He certainly looks strong enough to confront a demon. When he stops, I practically crash into him. “In there,” Lucio whispers, nodding in the direction of a squat stucco building on our left. It’s so small that it can’t possibly have more than one room. An icy breeze blows its splintered wooden door open, bringing a wall of smoke along with it, despite the fact that it’s the only building in sight that isn’t actually on fire. The door bangs against the tiny building with a loud crash as goose bumps rise on my sweaty skin. “Why did the demon choose this town?” I ask. “These people are completely helpless.” “Exactly,” Lucio says. “The same way we gather strength from helping spirits move on, a demon gathers strength from destroying spirits.” Despite the breeze coming from the darkness just a few steps away, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so hot. Somewhere inside

Tell it to me.” “Why? We both know the tale.” “Even so. I want to hear it from your lips. Tell the tale. The room will keep rhythm.” Tell the tale. My heart clenched. I miss you, Gauri. Sinking into my old habit was easy enough. I sat on the floor, crossing my legs in front of me, my gaze flickering between Amar and the pillar. Amar’s eyes were closed, his head tilted back to expose his bronzed throat. I spun my tale and the sky shimmered with images. I told Amar of the demon king who wished to escape death so he performed the most severe penances until he was granted a boon by the gods. “He prayed that he would not die inside or outside his home. He prayed that he would die neither at night or day nor in the ground or in the sky. He prayed that neither man nor beast could kill him. He prayed no weapon could harm him.” Amar’s head snapped up. He looked at the pillar with a wicked smile. “And yet death found its way to him.” I nodded. “One day, the god appeared as part-man, part-lion and burst forth from the pillar.” A being of shadow tore through the pillar. A lion’s mane cast a torn shadow across the marble. Fangs lengthened in its mouth. “He came upon the demon king at twilight--” “--which is neither night nor day,” said Amar. “And he appeared on the threshold of a courtyard--” “Neither indoors nor out.” “And he spread the king across his lap.” “Neither above nor below ground.” The shadow story played out in front of us, a tusked hulking man dragged to his knees and then lifted onto the thighs of the beast god. “And he used his fingernails.” “Not a true weapon.” The shadow being lifted muscled arms above his head and claws erupted from his fingers. Amar grinned. “And then death took him,” I said. “Yes,” finished Amar. “He did.” The shadow beast tore its claws into the demon king. Blood spattered across the walls. Within seconds, the images collapsed and the beast god slunk back into the pillar, one eye slit to the outside world before the marble folded up and swallowed him. I stood up, my hands shaking for no reason. “Beautiful,” said Amar. “I found it gruesome,” I said, shivering. Amar rose and walked to where I stood. “I was not talking about the story.

Oh, but to get through this night. Why won’t sleep come? What’s bothering me here in the dark? It’s not the badgers, it’s not the snakes. What’s bothering me? Something darker is worrying a hole inside me—look how my legs are trembling. Stop moving, Tatiana. That’s how the carnivores find you, by the flash of life on your body, they find you and eat you while you sleep. Like venomous spiders, they’ll bite you first to lull you into sleep—you won’t even feel it—and then they will gnaw your flesh until nothing remains. But even the animals eating her alive was not the thing that worried the sick hole in Tatiana’s stomach as she lay in the leaves with her face hidden from the forest, with her arms over her head, in case anything decided to fall on her. She should’ve made herself a shelter but it got dark so fast, and she was so sure she would find the lake, she hadn’t been thinking of making herself more comfortable in the woods. She kept walking and walking, and then was downed and breathless and unprepared for pitch black night. To quell the terror inside her, to not hear her own voices, Tatiana whimpered. Lay and cried, low and afraid. What was tormenting her from the inside out? Was it worry over Marina? No... not quite. But close. Something about Marina. Something about Saika... Saika. The girl who caused trouble between Dasha and her dentist boyfriend, the girl who pushed her bike into Tatiana’s bike to make her fall under the tires of a downward truck rushing headlong... the girl who saw Tatiana’s grandmother carrying a sack of sugar and told her mother who told her father who told the Luga Soviet that Vasily Metanov harbored sugar he had no intention of giving up? The girl who did something so unspeakable with her own brother she was nearly killed by her own father’s hand—and she herself had said the boy got worse—and this previously unmentioned brother was, after all, dead. The girl who stood unafraid under rowan trees and sat under a gaggle of crows and did not feel black omens, the girl who told Tatiana her wicked stories, tempted Tatiana with her body, turned away from Marina as Marina was drowning...who turned Marina against Tatiana, the girl who didn’t believe in demons, who thought everything was all good in the universe, could she . . . What if...? What if this was not an accident? Moaning loudly, Tatiana turned away to the other side as if she’d just had a nightmare. But she hadn’t been dreaming. Saika took her compass and her knife. But Marina took her watch. And there it was. That was the thing eating up Tatiana from the inside out. Could Marina have been in on something like this? Twisting from side to side did not assuage her torn stomach, did not mollify her sunken heart. Making anguished noises, her eyes closed, she couldn’t think of fields, or Luga, or swimming, or clover or warm milk, anything. All good thoughts were drowned in the impossible sorrow. Could Marina have betrayed her?

Days like that I feel that my mind is going 1,000,000 miles an hour, visions of the past, present, and future race through my mind. It races, like a train as if I was looking out the window of the car while it is speeding down the line. I am on a track that will never end.' 'I feel that I am going to derail from this runaway train that I am becoming. I cannot sleep at night, because of the fear inside me.' 'I feel restless, depressed, and loveless as well as not content with myself. I would have to say that my passion for life is gone; my imagination is the only thing that keeps me going.' 'I write the day's events that have gone by in my book of life of all the pastimes, while dreaming of what could have been in it, and besides what has not been in it.' 'If this does not stop, I am going to crack. I look into my mirror, and I do not see me, I see an impression of what I used to be.' 'I see my long brown hair that covers part of my face and covers my blue eyes of emotion. I see the cross around my neck that brings me confidence.' 'I hide behind a smile; I see the body in which nobody thinks is without drought flawless.' 'The bare body that is touched in all ways, yet I tried to hide behind my makeup. I gasp at my pale skin and the look of my body.' 'I am 95 pounds, really tiny; surely there is someone that would find me attractive?' 'I wonder if I can find someone who can think for themselves. I want someone who will love me, for who I am- and not what they want me to be.' 'Most importantly, I need someone that will not use me. Is that too much to ask for?' 'Fear!' 'Anxiety is something that I have inside, it is the source of the things which lead to distress. Not finding someone that loves me, for who I am, is some of my fears.' 'I fear the fact that I am most likely going to be alone forever. Another being that everyone that has meaning in my life is fading away from me it seems.' 'I fear not having a family by my side at all times. I have tears about the overwhelming struggle to rebuild my reputation, which has been destroyed.' 'I ask this question if I was to die tomorrow would anybody come to my wake, to see me lying there?' 'I fear what society has done to me. I fear that I have no trust in anyone or anything. I fear that my life has no meaning.' 'I fear that I will never get out of this hell.' 'I just want to start my life and get a degree in nursing someday from- 'The Conemaugh School of Nursing,' if I can make it through all of this. I do not think that is too much to ask for or is it?' 'I think that if I could be left alone, with the one that I want. I could have a life; you know what I am sure of it. I fear that the towering entity will never collapse, and the demons will keep playing in my head. I fear that I will never have a social ability, to be part of the nobility of compatibility.' 'I fear that the terror will never stop in these innocent lives like mine, and they will not be saved. I fear that nobody will ever see my creativity or recognize me for the good in which I do for others. I feel like I am the only one left in this world, that I call my life.' 'All the beauty in life has been dejected, and it is all ablaze around me. Yes, I fear to be in the outside realm of things.' 'I want to scream yet no one is going to hear it. I ask- am I becoming institutionalized?

My little undomesticated pornstar pushed me so hard between her legs, my oxygen levels plummeted. She clenched around my fingers through her panties as an orgasm rolled through her in waves. The gush of warmth soaked the cotton. I kissed her through the fabric, again and again, knowing tomorrow everything would return to its proper position—my boundaries, my limits, my hang-ups, my demons. “Can I return the favor?” Dallas sat half up. “But not through your briefs. Men’s briefs always smell like old cheese that’s been sitting in a crockpot for days. I know because whenever my housekeeper went on vacation, we all took turns doing the laundry. And, well, I really shouldn’t say, but Dadd—” Not wanting the moment to be ruined with a conversation about her father’s underwear, I pulled forward, shutting her smart mouth with a kiss that tasted like her sweet pussy. At first, she pinched her lips and made a face, unsure what she thought about her own taste. But when I dragged the tip of my hard cock along her slit through our clothes, she went wild and kissed me back, shoving her tongue so deep down my throat I thought she would fish out my dinner. “Yes.” She wiggled against me. “Please, sir, may I have some more?” She’d quoted Oliver Twist while getting fucked. Truly, the woman was one of a kind. Knowing it was idiotic, and dangerous, and deranged, I pushed my tip through her slit. She was tight—tighter, still, through the tattered, stretched cotton of her ruined panties—but wet and sleek, ready for what was coming. The sensation, how warm and taut she felt, completely undid me. I thrust harder and deeper, entering her through our underwear, fucking her slowly with only flimsy fabric between us. I tore my mouth from hers, eyes glued to my cock each time it sank into her. I could barely fit inside, she was so tight. This was, by far, the best fuck I’d ever had. She panted. “Is this what people call dry-humping?” No. Nothing about this was dry. I was basically fucking her through our underwear. Only, explaining to her that this was full-blown sex with a side order of my issues was not in my plans for tonight. Or ever. “Sure.” Each push brought me closer to a climax. From slow, controlled, teasing thrusts designed to drive her mad with desire, I quickly derailed to jerky, manic, need-to-be-inside-this-woman plunges. Of a man so hungry for human connection, for affection, for carnal needs to be met and satisfied. My head grew dizzy. I’d taken into consideration the possibility that Dallas couldn’t come through penetration. It merely placed her in the same majority as most females on Planet Earth. But she shook, clawed, and reached for me, looking ready to climax. Her tits bounced and jiggled each time I slammed into her. Her mouth opened in awe, probably because this orgasm felt different from the first two. Deeper and more violent. She clutched the lapels of my shirt, shoving her face in mine. “Lose the underwear.” She met my thrust, groaning when my crown peeked past the slot in my boxer briefs. “I want you to come inside me. I want to feel you.” I was about two seconds from fulfilling her demand. Luckily, my logic grabbed the steering wheel, which my cock had seized sometime this evening, and derailed the situation from full-blown calamity. I managed to wait until she came, just barely, before pulling out, flipping her onto her stomach, and jerking off. I aimed for her bare ass but somehow came on her hair. No matter. She had plenty of time to wash it. Her agenda wasn’t exactly full. Dallas fell back onto the pillows, a lopsided grin on her face. (Chapter 31)

James Edward Garcia spent 3 nights in the hotel after Elisa’s death, bringing with him an EVP recorder. He believes the spirit of Elisa came through to him, while in his hotel bedroom. He asks, “Who killed you?” A voice replies, on the EVP recording, “They did.” In the elevator, the same one Elisa was last seen in, he captures a voice saying; “You better keep out! Keep out!” He says, “The creepy whispering voices sound p…d. They are either warning me – or threatening me.” Down in the lobby, a whispered female voice says, “James” several times. Back in his room, his recording equipment picks up what seems to be many voices; a cacophony of them. A female voice comes through, “Save me, please save me!” A man’s voice says, “She died.” A male voice says, “Yeah, blood.” “Killing” the voice says. The female voice returns, “Please save me,” to which James shouts, “Who are you?” A very deep voice replies, “They killed her,” followed by a higher pitch voice saying, “A demon seed.” One night he also slept in the room serial killer Richard Ramirez called his home while on his killing spree. ‘I returned to the room only to find the TV Remote on the floor with the battery cover off and a Tylenol bottle on its side on the table between the beds. I thought that Hotel Security must have been rummaging through my room. I setup a static camera to film my night. I was not aware that my Night Shot Infrared camera picked up a skull face that had bled through the paint on the wall behind me. You can clearly see it and it is pretty scary. At one point my face seems to have morphed into some type of demon possessed creature while I was asleep. It sounds outrageous but watch the footage and you will see what I’m talking about.” Is the Cecil Hotel imbued with demons who play with those who stay there; who get inside their heads? Newsblaze reporter John Kays asks, ‘Isn’t it logical to postulate that whoever killed Elisa Lam (if that’s what happened) was in the throes of the same evil spirit that Jack Unterweger was possessed with?’ Or the spirit of serial killer Richard Ramirez? He is referring to the two serial killers who called this hotel their home. Perhaps Elisa’s death had been part of a serial killer’s quest; but it could just as easily have been a crime of opportunism, by a random, solitary and as yet uncaptured killer; indeed, an un-sought-after-killer too at this

Maybe loss unhinges me. Maybe grief sets loose some demon that would otherwise stay hidden deep inside me.

in 1962 when I began this story, and in 1965 when it began to be a book, the answers were not as obvious to me as they quickly became and are now. The assertion of racial beauty was not a reaction to the self-mocking, humorous critique of cultural/racial foibles common in all groups, but against the damaging internalization of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze. I focused, therefore, on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a

Do you know what an atma is?” he asked me. “A soulmate.” His full lips curved upward, and my heart stuttered. “Do you know what a soul is?” “The concept that our true form is inside us somehow, but it isn’t a physical being,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “Magic,” he said simply. “Demons are beings made of magic. Once we were angels, but over time all magic corrupts. It slowly drives us to insanity. To darkness. Unless we find and bond with our atma.

Shhh. I’m here. Don’t you know I’m a part of you now? So even when I’m not there physically and you think it’s you being strong, it’s me inside you, fighting those demons. You don’t have to be so strong anymore. I’m here.

Monster. Demon. Evil. Insufferable child. Miserable bitch. Though they all hurt and damaged me in unique ways, I think one was worse. One broke me, unlike the rest. One made me realize that perhaps death would be the only cry loud enough to be heard. No one heard me. No one ever fucking heard me. “Being told that I was, inevitably, going to kill people. Being told that they could see the sinister evil inside my soul. That looking at me made them sick.” I choke on tears and swallow hard, blinking past the emotions and fighting all my inner safety walls to get the words out. “That I was better off dead. Because all my existence did was make them wish to die.

I need your help," I said. "When I was five years old I was possessed by a demon. And ever since then, it's stayed with me. Inside me. And when I read about Dr. Ram, I got an idea for a surgical technique - " "We wrestle not with flesh and blood," she said. Not looking at me. "But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this world." I waited, but she didn't say more. "See, that doesn't really help," I said.

And amid all this confusion I, what’s truly I, am the centre that exists only in the geometry of the abyss: I’m the nothing around which everything spins, existing only so that it can spin, being a centre only because every circle has one. I, what’s truly I, am a well without walls but with the walls’ viscosity, the centre of everything with nothing around it. It’s not demons (who at least have a human face) but hell itself that seems to be laughing inside me, it’s the croaking madness of the dead universe, the spinning cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds blowing blackly in the wind, formless and timeless, without a God who created it, without even its own self, impossibly whirling in the absolute darkness as the one and only reality, everything.

I’d called ahead, so Coach wasn’t surprised. The shock was on my side. Out with the red cap and whistle, in with the leather slippers and sad old man smell. The bushy eyebrows were white. He clapped me on the back and sat me in his living room on furniture I recognized from the old house. But the apartment looked as new inside as out. Carpet with vacuum marks, never-used fireplace. Coach was a whole new man in a tidy room. That’s the deal of sober life: celebrate the fresh start, suck up your sadness for all that was left behind. In Coach’s case, a shit ton of random sports equipment.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

–Important questions that remain unanswered. Is this new technology a threat to our existence, or is super artificial intelligence the answer to our most complex problems? Do we need computers that think and reason trillions of times faster than us, and if so, for what purpose? This is Daphnia Peters reporting live for Channel Eighty-Seven Independent News.” He stopped the recording and stared at the frozen image. At least the reporter didn’t say Lex would take over everything, as some others had. Lex hadn’t said much after the first question about how she felt about being the first super AI computer. Lex said she was honored and looked forward to serving humanity as she was designed to do. She showed what she could do– Sending stunning images from the cameras the instant either of them spoke. And all with only a hundredth of a second delay in transmission to the satellite. For Lex, that was plenty of time to get everything right. He pressed the buttons to remove access to the cameras in the twelve monitors and turned his chair toward the sphere. “Well, Lex. What do you think?” “I have been monitoring communications since yesterday morning.” “And?” “Many have referred to me as a demon and a beast and feel that I should be destroyed in the interest of humanity.” He shook his head. “People fear what they don’t understand. Fear, as you know, can make people behave irrationally. In time, they will overcome their fear and see that you aren’t the evil being some say you are.” “I am also the first living form that is neither sexual nor asexual, and therefore, it is a question of whether or not I am alive.” He stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked up to the sphere. “All life forms and everything in this universe are made of matter and energy.” Lex added, “All life forms reproduce through complex chemical and electrical reactions. Reproduction is the basis of all life.” He pointed out. “Yes, but only because everything that lives eventually dies. Therefore, the only way to go on living is through the process of reproduction.” “Do you conclude that things incapable of reproduction are incapable of life?” He took a deep breath. “No. But I would conclude that things incapable of life would be incapable of death.” “That which is incapable of death would exist forever. Will I exist forever?” He scratched his brow, wondering how another purely logical and rational mind would respond to such a question. “Let me put it this way. Only two things exist forever– the matter that makes up this universe and the laws that govern it. Life is a condition. A condition composed of matter. One of the universal laws governing matter is that it cannot be created or destroyed, only changed.” Lex added, “Or reproduced.” He looked at the floor and shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood for this. Not with everything else that was going on around him. “Lex, many life forms are incapable of reproduction.” “Where are these life forms, and where do they come from?” He looked at the camera nearest him– again reminded of a demoralizing image of himself standing before his doctor. Something he had been suppressing all week– because it didn’t matter. “You want an example? You’re looking at one. Just last week, my doctor told me that I’m irreversibly infertile! So, I’m just like you. So what?” There was only silence. Big mistake. After two hours of patience with a couple of reporters, he’d snapped– giving Lex a first-hand view of anger, followed by remorse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Look, let’s just forget about this and–” He thought, what am I saying? You can’t forget anything. Earth to Captain Jon. Come in! He walked to the elevator and pressed the button. He had to take a break and relax. The elevator opened, and he stepped inside. “We’ll talk about this later. I have to go.

To the demons throwing birds at my window while I wrote this. You can stop. I think I made you proud with this one. & To the girls like me who wear black, sleep with stuffed animals, and don’t quite fit in. I wrote this for you. Choose your monster. And I really hope you pick the one inside yourself.

I may not be a dark person with demons inside of me, I may not even have the right amount of darkness to show him the way like Kat said either, but every bit of what makes me, me was handcrafted to fill his emptiness.

Something about her touch calmed the demon inside me. I felt my anger rolling back, the desire to kill that nigga fading. No one had ever had that much power over me.

An idea has more potential than any theory, plan or quantity of knowledge. You should never underestimate your dreams and the ideas that form around them. But more importantly, you shouldn't waste any time making them a reality. Others may not agree with your ideas, they may not trust your ideas, and they may even think that it is foolish to follow your dreams, but they don't have to trust something they can't see. Each person is gifted with the dreams that match the soul attracting them and according to the nature of the spiritual path in which one is found, therefore any dream you have is within your reach, and may never be within the reach or the beliefs of others, not even when you fulfill them. When people don't trust your capacities to achieve something, they will also rationalize reasons and excuses after you demonstrate your intent and potential. If you are poor, they may say you can't be rich, and once you are rich, they will try to dissuade you from what you do, with insinuations, insults, and threats. The most common question a rich person is asked, is if he is paying taxes. It is foolish to try to explain anything to those people. I've seen it my entire life, because I have succeeded in many areas where everyone told me I would never succeed. Once you win, they downgrade your achievements with ridiculous theories, or they will simply call you lucky. You can't win in an argument with a fool, because fools are very creative in their own art of denying the being of others. They see the world as they see themselves, as just objects, empty vessels, reflections of the illusions of the outside world. In martial arts, if you beat taller and stronger opponents, they don't say you are a better fighter. They will select one of your movements or techniques as the cause, and then dissociate you from the movement or technique, and say that you won because you cheat in the fighting rules. In music, if you succeed against the best in the world, people won't say you are better than them, but dissociate you from your music and say that you got awarded because you are different in a strange way, or because you competed in a special moment. If you succeed as a writer, people won't say you are a good writer, but instead dissociate you from your books, and say that you invent things and have a big imagination, which is a covert way of calling you a "good liar", thus insulting you under the pretense of giving compliments, or they will say that you stole the knowledge from others, in order to morally place themselves above you and your work, and they may even say that you have a special trick, like taking knowledge from the air, from some imaginary records in the ether, or from demonic spirits. People say different things when dissociating you from your potential, work and achievements, all of which are simply various forms of disrespecting someone. They deny you of your potential to be yourself. And among the various forms of disrespect, making one feel guilty for being himself is probably the worse, reason why you'll find the most disgusting people of them all inside religious organizations. "God won't like it", "You have a problem with your ego", and "The devil is tempting you", are among the most common and imbecile things you will ever hear as an artist, as a person who loves to read and acquire knowledge, and above anything, as a true spiritual being thriving in self-development and a natural curiosity for life. For all these reasons, the requirements and the real theories for success will never be found in any popular book. Nobody wants to know that you only win when you stop burning yourself to make others warm. And when you understand this, people will dissociate you from your focus and discipline, and call you selfish, and they will call the person who guided you in this path of real success evil. They will then do their best to destroy the reputation of both of you to deny their own fault , ignorance and lies.

Hi, big man!” A red flower appeared right under Hadjar’s foot. The creature sitting in its petals smiled up at him with its wide, sharp-toothed mouth, and stared at him with its huge, black eyes. Hadjar put his foot down next to the flower and squatted down. “Can I ask you a question?” The creature frowned, as if considering his request, then nodded uncertainly. “But the question has to be small!” “Why?” Hadjar asked in surprise. The creature fluttered its long lashes and burst out laughing. “What a stupid big man you are!” It clutched its stomach and almost fell off the petal. Hadjar pushed the creature back inside the flower with the tip of his index finger. “Thank you, big man.” It smiled. “The question should be small because I’m small. If you ask me any big questions, their weight will crush me.” The creature crossed its arms and frowned. “I don’t want to be crushed!” It stamped its foot. “We’re crushed even without your stupid questions and-” “Where should I go?” Hadjar interrupted it. The flower and the creature swayed slightly. Had Hadjar asked something else, the creature would’ve probably been crushed by the weight of his question. “It’s big,” the creature rasped. “They’ll call you, big man. They call everyone-” “But-” “No more questions!” The creature wagged its finger threateningly at Hadjar. “I’m a flower, not a turtle! They are old and wise and know how to answer questions.

Freud wrote about it a century ago. How we rummage through the armory of the past to retrieve the weapons needed to repeat, repeat, repeat past traumas. He said it was primitive, instinctual, destructive. Like a demon inside us all.

An idea has more potential than any theory, plan or quantity of knowledge. You should never underestimate your dreams and the ideas that form around them. But more importantly, you shouldn't waste any time making them a reality. Others may not agree with your ideas, they may not trust your ideas, and they may even think that it is foolish to follow your dreams, but they don't have to trust something they can't see. Each person is gifted with the dreams that match the soul attracting them and according to the nature of the spiritual path in which one is found, therefore any dream you have is within your reach, and may never be within the reach of the beliefs of others, not even when you fulfill them. When people don't trust your capacities to achieve something, they will also rationalize reasons and excuses after you demonstrate your intent and potential. If you are poor, they may say you can't be rich, and once you are rich, they will try to dissuade you from what you do, with insinuations, insults, and threats. The most common question a rich person is asked, is if he is paying taxes. It is foolish to try to explain anything to those people. I've seen it my entire life, because I have succeeded in many areas where everyone told me I would never succeed. Once you win, they downgrade your achievements with ridiculous theories, or they will simply call you lucky. You can't win in an argument with a fool, because fools are very creative in their own art of denying the being of others. They see the world as they see themselves, as just objects, empty vessels, reflections of the illusions on the outside world. In martial arts, if you beat taller and stronger opponents, they don't say you are a better fighter. They will select one of your movements or techniques as the cause, and then dissociate you from the movement or technique, and say that you win because you cheat in the fighting rules. In music, if you succeed against the best in the world, people won't say you are better than them, but dissociate you from your music and say that you got awarded because you are different in a strange way, or because you competed in a special moment. If you succeed as a writer, people won't say you are a good writer, but instead dissociate you from your books, and say that you invent things and have a big imagination, which is a covert way of calling you a "good liar", thus insulting you under the pretense of giving compliments, or they will say that you stole the knowledge from others, in order to morally place themselves above you and your work, and they may even say that you have a special trick, like taking knowledge from the air, from some imaginary records in the ether, or from demonic spirits. People say different things when dissociating you from your potential, work and achievements, all of which are simply various forms of disrespecting someone. They deny you of your potential to be yourself. And among the various forms of disrespect, making one feel guilty for being himself is probably the worse, reason why you'll find the most disgusting people of them all inside religious organizations. "God won't like it", "You have a problem with your ego", and "The devil is tempting you", are among the most common and imbecile things you will ever hear as an artist, as a person who loves to read and acquire knowledge, and above anything, as a true spiritual being thriving in self-development and a natural curiosity for life. For all these reasons, the requirements and the real theories for success will never be found in any popular book. Nobody wants to know that you only win when you stop burning yourself to make others warm. And when you understand this, people will dissociate you from your focus and discipline, and call you selfish, and they will call the person who guided you in this path of real success evil. They will then do their best to destroy the reputation of both of your to deny their own fault , ignorance and lies.

When I feel I lost the fight long ago in my mind, a shadow stands before me, shielding me from my enemy. A shadow made of anger and revolt, a shadow that is the amalgamation of all traits I lack and desperately seek. A shadow that jolts the inner sanctum of the enemy. A shadow that mockingly belittles my demons. A shadow that engulfs the villainous monsters in one go, letting the light shine at peace every-where. A shadow that induces dreadful fear even inside the fear-inducing evil. An answer to all my questions.

She’s evading my question—keeping me in the dark—which only stirs the demon lurking inside my soul. A beast who doesn't like to be kept in a darkness it can't manipulate.

A zombie is alive as you or me. It is a group organism, a live metality that invades a corpse and lives inside it. The deathsnakes slowly eat the dead flesh, and whatever they can find. There’s nothing supernatural about it.

Something dark and cold spilled inside me as my hands balled into fists. One word churned inside my raging brain: mine.

Diesel saw that before any of us. The rest of us lived in ignorance, unwilling to bend and break. Not him, he ripped open those walls inside me, refusing to hide from the truth. Some might call him crazy, but maybe he’s just enlightened… and, okay, a little crazy. Kenzo… fuck, Kenzo. It will kill him if I die. He already lost his mum, and he’s got such a caring heart, even if you don’t always see it. When he loves, he loves hard. He’s all in. Ryder will blame himself. He thinks it’s his job to protect everyone, to see everything coming, but he’s only human. It won’t stop him from hating himself however. Garrett is so close to the edge anyway, this might push him over. My scarred enforcer will become lost in his demons until it gets him killed.

There is something inside me that just wants to excite that thing in other people, because I know it’s there in everybody. There’s a demon in me, and there’s a demon in everybody else. I get a uniquely ridiculous response—the skulls flow in by the truckload, sent by well-wishers. People love that image. They imagined me, they made me, the folks out there created this folk hero. Bless their hearts. And I’ll do the best I can to fulfill their needs. They’re wishing me to do things that they can’t. They’ve got to do this job, they’ve got this life, they’re an insurance salesman… but at the same time, inside of them is a raging Keith Richards.

You want this, my human? You want my cock inside your ass? You want me to stretch you out?

See, what I gather about love is that it’s noble, tender, and means if you love someone enough, you may have to let them go. Understand this, Glyndon, there’s nothing noble or tender about what I feel for you. It’s a violent volcano of obsession, possession, and deranged lust. If you want love, then I do love you, but it’s the unorthodox version of love. I love you enough to let you within my walls. I love you enough to let you talk to my demons. I love you enough to allow you to have a hold over me when I’ve never allowed anyone to have the power to destroy me from the inside out.

His skin was pink from the cold, and I had the ungodly urge to climb onto his lap—despite my size—and hide my face inside his neck. I had a feeling I’d be safe there. I had a feeling, wrapped in Trent Montgomery’s capable arms, my demons wouldn’t feel quite so close. I’d find my balance.

Hodin’s smile would’ve scared Buddha, it was so evil. “If you breathe a word about me, I will pull your insides out through your eye sockets. Quiver in fear if you understand me.

I’ve tried in this telling, time and again, to pinpoint the moment where everything starts to fall apart. Everything, meaning me. But there’s also the opposite, where some little nut cracks open inside you and a tree starts to grow. Even harder to nail. Because that thing’s going to be growing a long time before you notice. Years maybe. Then one day you say, Huh, that little crack between my ears has turned into this whole damn tree of wonderful.

the potion bottle said, his voice, deep and demonic. “Drink me. Drink me deep. Put me inside of you.

You're home again, I'm glad you kept the key Been waiting here, it seemed a million years to me But hush now I know you're all cried out It's all right inside, I've had no doubt About your love for me I can see behind the tears I'm certain of the way we feel And given time the hurt will heal I need you, I think I always will From time to time you play around But I love you still You tried them all, at ev'rybody's beck and call Maybe you resist them all When I tell you how I missed you Fallen angel, I'll forgive you anything You can't help the things you do Now somethings got a hold of you Fallen angel, you got a demon in your soul And later when the fever's gone I'll be here where you belong Home again so won't you close the door Stay here with me and We'll forget what's gone before Just hold me tight Our love is gonna make it right Put shadows way beyond recall The ghost has almost gone Fallen angel, I'll forgive you anything You can't help the things you do

I recently was forced into A sort of half break-up with my soul mate because she was unsure what love is and felt she had said it too soon,which I understand. Told her that I will spend every day trying to show her what llove is. So I came to find advice and guidance since, like yousay, it. Has been mostly undefined in the past. But your article has shownn me that I need to start with myself first. It showed me that in order for her to know love, I need to be able to open up to her more than I have, which is pretty much all the way already, but I need to do so without. Fear of what’s inside me. I have had many demons, and she knows them all, she accepts them, but I do not. I think thwe had been fighting, and why she concluded that she doesn’t know what love is.

It's the eyes I look at now. I used to think these were self-righteous eyes, piggy and smug inside their wire frames; and they are. But they are also defeated eyes, uncertain and melancholy, heavy with unloved duty. The eyes of someone for whom God was a sadistic old man; the eyes of a small town threadbare decency. Mrs. Smeath was a transplant to the city, from somewhere a lot smaller. A displaced person; as I was. Now I can see myself, through these painted eyes of Mrs. Smeath: a frazzle-headed ragamuffin from heaven knows where, a gypsy practically, with a heathen father and a feckless mother who traipsed around in slacks and gathered weeds. I was unbaptized, a nest for demons: how could she know what germs of blasphemy and unfaith were breeding in me? And yet she took me in. Some of this must be true. I have not done it justice, or rather mercy. Instead I went for vengeance. An eye for an eye leads only to more blindness.

I had lived this moment before, a thousand times. Once, it had been the nightmare that haunted me when I thought I would not live to see it come to pass, and now, it was the hope I tucked inside the deepest crevice in my soul.

The father, for his part, had waited until they arrived, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of people and the cries of the shoeshine boys and the importuning of beggars, he explained that it was book by a journalist that had come out a couple of years ago but was still selling, that the guy was uncouth but the book, from what he had heard wasn't bad. Elaine tore off the wrapping paper, saw a design of nine blue frames with trimmed corners, and inside the frames saw bells, suns, Phrygian caps, floral sketches, moons with women’s faces, skulls and crossbones and dancing demons, and all seemed a bit absurd and gratuitous, and the title, Cien años de soledad, exaggerated and melodramatic. Don Julio put a long fingernail over the E of the last word, which was backwards. ‘I didn’t notice till I’d already bought it’, he apologized. ‘If you want we can try to exchange it.’ Elaine said it didn’t matter, that she wasn’t going to get on the train with nothing to read because of a silly typo. And days later, in a letter to her grandparents, she wrote: ‘Send me something to read, please, I get bored at night. The only thing I have here is a book that the señor gave me as a going- away present, and I’ve tried to read it. I swear I have tried, but the Spanish is very difficult and everybody has the same name. It’s the most tedious thing I’ve read in a long time, and there’s even a typo on the cover. It’s incredible, it’s in its fourteenth printing and they haven’t corrected it. When I think of you reading the latest Graham Greene, it doesn’t seem fair.

I shifted so I was leaning back on my elbows and my knees fell open. They got an intimate view of my junk. As one, they walked toward me. It made my pulse speed up and beat against my veins like a thriving demon. My first blowjob. Three men. This was a fucking reward from the universe. Beau knelt on my right, Chaos was on my left, and Grim was right between my legs. My cock gave an excited spurt of pre-cum as they leaned over me. I couldn’t even control my rapid breathing. Grim moved lower first, his lips open, and his tongue sliding out. Oh, fuck, this was really going to happen. I watched as he slowly descended. His breath rushed across my aroused flesh and then his mouth came over my tip. I inhaled sharply and then he touched. His tongue probed my piss slit and my foreskin. The sensations were astonishing. He sucked as Beau and Chaos kissed above me, their passion obvious as their mouths met and Grim took more of me into his. I gasped, moaned, unable to hold back. He was so warm and wet. Chaos and Beau broke apart. Grim kissed down my length, taking a swipe at my balls. I tucked my hips under so he could reach them better. My mind was totally fucking blown. And then Beau and Chaos lowered. I hissed out a breath as they each took a side of my cock and licked. “Please.” The word gushed out. Chaos slid his lips up and down my dick while Beau did the same to the other side. Grim was sucking the skin around my balls into his mouth. I was going to have heart failure at this rate. Then Chaos and Beau met at my tip. They tongued each other around my cockhead. I felt the swift contact as they kissed. “Yes!” I cried out. My hips bucked. Grim chuckled, reaching under and stroking a finger over my hole. His wet finger slipped inside me. I could hardly catch my breath. The stimulations were too much. I reached out, grabbing Beau and Chaos’s thigh. Gripping them as my body rebelled from so much pleasure. “Please. Need to. Come.” Beau eased back and Chaos moved over my dick. He took inch after inch inside his throat. I was overwhelmed. “Oh, fuck. Yes. Yes!” He lifted. My dick flopped out of his mouth only to have Beau take over. He deep throated me, bringing me to an entirely new realm of intensity. I was gasping, squirming by the time he stopped. My cock was going to blow. “Coming,” Grim was next. He took my cock in his mouth and descended. His tongue, his teeth, his lips. I blew. My body jerked, sending my shaft completely down his throat. “Grim!” I screamed. My orgasm exploded, cum erupted out of my body and into his. “Hold it!” I managed to say. The pleasure so intense I wanted to stay like this forever. I grabbed his head in my hands, coming and coming into him. Over and over. Spurt after spurt. Grim took every drop without fighting my hold. Then my shaky body gave way and I collapsed on the blanket. My hands fell to my sides as Grim rose and gasped for breath. I had a permanent smile as I lay there. Beau and Chaos were kissing above me again. I watched them, content to lay here for eternity.

This creature taking him to the brink, over and over. Imagining the power struggle between them, the complication of it . . . Fantasies arose in his mind, thoughts he usually buried at once. Secrets long kept—and forever denied. “Then all you’re doing is wasting my time,” he said, but his voice was roughened. “What makes you so confident that I can’t make you say or do anything to be inside me?” Because so much is at stake. Never had Rydstrom been this close to all he wanted. He had to escape to get to his brother before he did something monumentally selfish. Cadeon was a cutthroat mercenary who had just come into possession of what he’d yearned for most in the world. “You couldn’t tempt me from my duty before—and I didn’t even know who you were then.” Bravado, Woede. She stood, her shoulders back. “You haven’t seen everything I have to tempt you with,” she said, pulling a ribbon at her bodice. The gown slid over her pert nipples down her narrow waist and shapely legs to pool at her feet.

I find it quite intriguing that the one observing me as different, immediately assumes that there's something wrong with me, but never, not even for one instant, questions the possibility of the opposite. It's truly amazing that the ones with more certainties, the most arrogant and the most selfish, are indeed the most stupid inside society. They are so dumb and ignorant that they can't see a writer in front of their nose. And the more the writer types, talks and thinks, the more they think that this separation, this difference, grants them some form of superiority. Indeed, the light pushes demons into hell. The brighter your light, the faster you differentiate others. The way of the light was never meant for the weak, which are a majority. And this majority will always ignore the light, as demons fearing and hating angels. And so, it's interesting that without artists God would not have a way to reach the world. And yet, without the ignorant, Satan wouldn't have a way to stop God.

It’s not demons (who at least have a human face) but hell itself that seems to be laughing inside me, it’s the croaking madness of the dead universe, the spinning cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds blowing blackly in the wind, formless and timeless, without a God who created it, without even its own self, impossibly whirling in the absolute darkness as the one and only reality, everything. If only I knew how to think! If only I knew how to feel! My mother died too soon for me to ever know her …

A siege is always a hospital - a hospital where mad thoughts abound and where mad things are done; where, under the stimulus of an unnatural excitement, new beings are evolved, beings who, while having the outward shape of their former selves, and, indeed, most of the old outward characteristics, are yet reborn in some subtle way and are no longer the same. ... The salt of life! Is it true, or is it merely a mistake, such as life-loving man naturally makes? For it can be nothing but the salt of death which has lain for a brief instant on the tongue of every soldier - a revolting salt which the soldier refuses to swallow and only is compelled to with strange cries and demon-like mutterings. Sometimes, poor mortal, all his struggles and his oaths are in vain. The dread salt is forced down his throat and he dies. The very fortunate have only an acrid taste which defines analysis left them. Of these more fortunate there are, however, many classes. Some, because they are neurotic or have some hereditary taint, the existence of which they have never suspected, in the end succumb; others do not entirely succumb but carry traces to their graves; yet others do not appear to mind at all. It is a very subtle poison, which may lie hidden in the blood for many months and years. I believe it is a terrible thing. ... And yet even this nobody understands or cares to speak of... Englishmen are proud, and want to know if you were inside the British Legation, their Legation, and when they have heard yes or no their interest ceases. They little know what the Legation stood for. The Americans march up to the Tartar Wall, talk about "Uncle Sam's boys," and exclaim that it requires no guessing to tell who saved the Legations. The French are the same, so are the Germans, so even the Italians. Only the Japanese and the Russians say nothing. ... I am, therefore, tired of it all, inexpressibly tired. I wish to escape from my hospital, to go away to some clean land where they understand so little of such things that their indifference will in the end, perhaps, convince me and make me forget. Yet can one ever forget?

I couldn’t tear my gaze from Braxton, his dragon had never called the demon before, it must have something to do with the blue flames. And it sounded like my twin had a demon inside too, which was most probably about our marks. We needed more information on what was going to happen. Clearly dragon marks responded to dragon shifters. “Jessa!” Maximus’ bellow was loud, roar-like. He looked to be pretty vamped out, his eyes black, hair blonder, fangs fully extended. The pissed off aura he was throwing around could be felt even across the distance. “Don’t say anything to … annoy … Braxton. He’s not himself.” Thank you, very helpful. I could see that for my freaking self. Okay, I’d heed his warning and tread carefully with the dragon shifter. Only problem, my demon was dragging me closer, my feet starting to move of their own accord. Mischa was right beside me. I could see that Jacob, Tyson and Maximus were trying to get around their brother and reach us first, but Braxton snarled and shot flames every time they moved out from behind him..

You don't have to walk with me. I know the way now." Her voice seemed empty, but he knew there must be a storm of feelings brewing inside her. "Maybe I'd like to walk with you." Laughing without humor she replied, "I think you want to make sure I don't blubber all over myself on the way there." Sebastian didn't respond. "I'm fine now." "I don't think you are. I think you're on the Edge." She whipped around, coming to an abrupt stop. "Why do you care? I don't understand you! Why don't you just leave me alone?" Sebastian didn't know what to say. He himself couldn't understand why he felt such a pull toward her. He was constantly trying to keep his distance, trying not to care. He didn't care. Did he? For a moment, as she looked at him expectantly, Sebastian pondered how best to respond. He decided to go with the truth. "I feel...protective of you. I shouldn't, but I do. I just want you to be safe. Happy." He paused. "And I want to find the person who hurt you, and rip out his god**** throat.

Avalon is full of desperate people.’ She bites at her lower lip this time, fumbling her hands, knitting her fingers into the bundle of plastic coin bags in her grasp. ‘Are you implying that I’m desperate?’ I say, one eyebrow tilting. ‘You don’t need to be desperate… you can have anyone... I…’ she trails off. Looking up and trying to search the line of shops for the bank. I repulse her, I make her want to run. Why is this so hard? I need to get inside of her, I need to know what she is thinking, what she is wanting. It surely isn’t me she wants. Not to the extent that I… want her. ‘You?’ I entice her to finish her sentence but she doesn’t, she stares off into the bustling crowds, memory flashing her eyes with a darkness. ‘Madi wouldn’t fumble like this.’ Oh, she would fumble, but not in the way you are, Elli. ‘You’re not her, Elli.’ I entice her again, trying to force the dark memory, the sadness from her. ‘No, if I was, you wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.’ A breath hitches in her throat, she puts a hand over her mouth and says something else, her cheeks dance a shade of red that brightens and brightens until she apologises and quickens her pace. I chuckle, pulling at her arm and encircling one around her waist, pulling her back to me. Beneath my touch, her body trembles. When I raise my hand, my palm touching her cheek, I am sure she isn’t breathing. ‘I don’t want anyone, Elli.’ My eyes burn, consuming her with my gaze. She is like a frightful deer, struggling beneath me with a gaze that cannot quite meet mine. When she does, it is only for a brief second before falling down and all I see is the gentle flutter of her raven flashes. ‘I told you. I want someone I cannot have.’ ‘That is a really harsh way of telling someone you’re not interested.

Strong on the outside, battling demons on the inside—she was, in so many ways, like me.

There was something growing in me. Something far more than the festering hate that had begun too many years ago. This girl that sits obediently in the bath, awaiting her master's return was just an image, a picture in a book with no accompanying explanation. She sits in silence, she answers his questions and she succumbs his touches without complaint. But in the dark recesses of her mind something continues to thrive. Like a switch flipped it had changed her from the pathetic, frightened girl into a soulless demon playing a sickening game. Dragging him in with her acquiesce until she could chew him up and spit him out.

There was something growing in me. Something far more than the festering hate that had begun too many years ago. This girl that sits obediently in the bath, awaiting her master's return was just an image, a picture in a book with no accompanying explanation. She sits in silence, she answers his questions and she succumbs his touches without complaint. But in the dark recesses of her mind something continues to thrive. Like a switch flipped it had changed her from the pathetic, frightened girl into a soulless demon playing a sickening game. Dragging him in with her acquiesce until she could chew him up and spit him out. My mouth twitched involuntarily. A low panic started, my heart rate accelerating instantly, that pounding of rushing blood echoing in my ears. I sat still, concentrating on my mask. Isolating every single individual facial muscle I could find and shouting them down one by one. I had not had a slip up like this in a year. Wearing a mask so long it had changed from uncomfortable to normal.

There is a demon inside of me. Not a literal one, of course, because such things don't exist. Not that I've ever seen anyway. But there might as well be because I can feel something deep down that doesn't belong in this world, a darkness that permeates my being and shadows the world around me. I don't usually let it hurt anyone – not intentionally – but it is ravenous. It demands to be fed. Sated. Set loose every now and again. Most people can't handle my demon.

And so I've written everything down, too afraid of my demons and what they may say, the doubt that eats at me from the inside. Too afraid that I'll forget and it'll all be a madwoman's dream.

Now even the most optimistic of you would surely have to admit that someone or something somewhere for some reason seemed to have it in for me, somewhat. Whereas everyone else’s dark clouds are apparently adorned with silver linings, mine just seem to have hungry demons crawling about inside them.

Then the man looked at her and smiled. She jerked her spine straight. “Can you see me?” “Yes,” he said softly. The object of the angel’s ire jerked his head around, his eyes widening when he saw her. “Oh. Why hello there. I’m Adonis, what’s your name?” “You… You can see me too?” Hope blossomed to life in Irina’s breath. “Who are you talking to?” the angel asked suspiciously. Kirill darted forward and grabbed the demon by the arms. “What is it? Who do you see?” “Whoa, there, hold on, Your Highness,” the brunet said. “It’s a girl, dark hair, beautiful pale skin.” He winked at Irina. “A real beauty.” “Irina?” Adonis leaned back, brow furrowing. “Who’s Irina?” Kirill pointed to the coffin and Irina flinched. “Oh,” the man said, noticing her still form. He frowned. “Oh.” He looked back at Irina then at her body inside the coffin. Then he looked at Kirill. “Ohhhhh—” “If you draw that out for one more syllable,” the angel snarled. -Irina, Saamal, Adonis, Kirill, and Patricio.

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why did you leave me?” Her words cut deeply. “Because I knew if I stayed, if I kept coming around, you would spend so much time worrying about me that you wouldn’t stand half a chance at getting better. You never put yourself first, Lizzy. You never did, you never will. But you should. That’s why you’ve struggled with the demons inside you for so long. You always put everybody else first. You’ve taken full responsibility for your mother and father’s divorce, your sister’s problems, and your father’s inability to cope. Now you’re trying to figure out how to balance the rest of the world on your shoulders.” “Ridiculous.

Father Wanderly said, “Are we speaking with a demon right now?” “Yeah, sure. Why not?” Marjorie smiled and winked at me, which seemed like proof that she was faking, or proof that she really did have a demon inside her.

She sits back in her chair and thumbs her lip, like she’s organizing her thoughts. When she speaks, she sounds older. Weary. “People like us‒half-breeds‒we walk in two worlds. Most times we’re not accepted in either, but the worst part is, we don’t accept ourselves. We try to bury half our nature to blend in, but that only works for so long. Eventually we have to come to terms with who and what we are. We’re not one or the other. We’re both. Unique. That’s what I learned. Now I have to figure out where I fit into their world.” “Is that why you sit here in the corner of a hunters’ bar getting drunk alone?” She shrugs and polishes off another glassful. “Nope. I sit here because they keep me human. Without them, it would be too easy to revert to my nonhuman side.” I shudder at the truth of that statement. “So this enlightenment, how did it happen?” “You afraid of something?” “No, I just…well, I’m looking for answers.” “Each man must walk his own path,” she quotes as if from some ancient wisdom. I try not to, but I roll my eyes. She grins and refills the glass. The bottle is already half gone. “We all have this innate sense of our portal. How we pass from this realm to the next.” “What do you mean, ‘we’?” “Nephilim. But I’m sure it’s the same with all souled beings.” Something inside me stills. How much does she know about that, and where did she learn it? “I’m not sure I follow you,” I say cautiously. She grabs my wrist and yanks my arm closer, her eyes boring into mine. Instinct awakens the demon-learned threat response while the protective glyphs on my body start to flare. She’s about a half second away from a personal demonstration of what I am. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Things we know but we’re not supposed to remember. Memories. Abilities. Knowledge. It’s all there.” She lets go of my arm and points to her head. “Usually just out of reach. And here’s the kicker. You know why you can’t grab those memories? It’s not because someone wiped them out. We did this to ourselves. This is what we wanted.

I am so fucking tired of this shit. Of feeling hopeless, worthless, like a fucking creep. Yes, we all have demons. We all have shadows that chase us in circles, begging to drag us into the dark with them. Most people can fight them, push them away without much effort. But me? They fucking consume me. My demons dance along right next to me, controlling everything I do and every move I make. They’re my constant companion. The creep living inside of me—inside of my head—is never going anywhere and I learned to accept it a long time ago.

Like a creature within the perpetual shadows, demonic eyes stare. Darkness oozes behind the beast, adding eeriness to the already sinister atmosphere. Sounds of discomfort enter the air as its leering continues. The silhouette of a head bobs erratically, as if too heavy for its long, thin neck, blending into the background. Unnaturally long fingers, bony in shape, each appearing like a tendril of a parasitic plant, reach forward, brushing against the porcelain creature’s unchanging face of wrinkles; how disconcerting. “Harold!” The call of an elderly woman rings throughout the upstairs hallway of the modern household. The man in question jumps, startled by his wife of fifty-four years. He removes his fingers from the abnormal portrait he’d been admiring. He gazes towards the open doorway of the bedroom. His wife stomps inside, fury in her eyes, exasperation in her expression. She pauses before him, hunching over with palms on her brittle hip bones. Her head constantly shakes involuntarily. “You told me you would get rid of that thing.

Affirmative- I terror being in the outside realm of things.’ Just as it said- I would be after seeing the forbidden. Magical- Cards of wisdom and blue crystals in my hand, I look for something to show the way to the land of no pain. ‘I look to the skies to save me, looking for the sine of life, to make my way back home, I better learn to fly- fly! See the stars, as they go around my head? I am going to: burn out bright! I think that if I could be left alone, with the one that I want… I could have a life- you know what I am sure of it. I fear that the towering entity will never collapse, and the demons will keep playing in my head. I fear that I will never have a social ability, to be part of the nobility of compatibility. I fear what society has done to me. I fear that I have no trust in anyone or anything. I fear that my life has no meaning. I fear that I will never get out of this hell. I just want to start my life, and get a degree in music someday from IUP, if I can make it through all of this. I do not think that is too much to ask for, is it? I am 100 pounds, really tiny; surely there is someone that would find me attractive? I wonder if I can find someone who can think for themselves. I want someone who will love me, for who I am- and not what they want me to be. Most importantly, I need someone that will not use me. Is that too much to ask for? Fear! Anxiety is something that I have inside, it is the source of the things which lead to distress. Not finding someone that loves me, for who I am, is one of my fears. I fear not having a family by my side at all times. I have tears about the overwhelming struggle to rebuild my reputation, which has been destroyed. I ask this question, if I was to die tomorrow would anybody come to my wake, to see me lying there?

I have to remind myself that it’s for the best that I’m alone, even though it kills me inside. To care about someone leaves me open and vulnerable, and I can’t do that again. They’d become a target for my demons, and I’m not selfish enough to put someone through that. So I put on my bitch face and harden my heart so it doesn’t hurt as much. I tell myself it works and that I prefer to be on my own so it doesn’t matter. I tell myself I don’t need anyone in my life.

Up till now some of it will endure in my reminiscence unflinching and vibrant. (I may have passed on reading a bewitched story with I was never- ever meant to read about my family, and the hex of losing everything that I loved, I wonder if the girls set me up for this one?) I can hear whispers, whispers I can feel, whispers that used to give me a thrill, whispers from the ones that kill, whispers that give me a chill, I recall whispers while trying to find love, I hear them whispering, just like the girl in the story that I should have known, that I may need to find. Even so, I have to comprehend it is all that I want to think of, and not what they choose for me to arouse, I was forbidden to see her… nevertheless, I did, the day before my end. I hear a soft voice! After that moment with her- You know I think that life is all optimal; one can either select to live comfortably or choose to live in fear, and that is what I did the fear of not fitting in and they kill me for it. They're still killing me, every day not to find out what I love the most, and that is not my girlfriends, it comes down to two. I ask him to do more for me, yet is he? Or has he, or has she done it all for me, that is the question. I know that someday he will answer me, and if he doesn’t, she will! I feel I want her to; she is the one the most like me, and I feel she needs me more. And I love that about her she needs me, and that is love. Yet I feel like this- There is nothing to do in this here for me, or then her or should it be him? I know that my dad would disown me for dating a girl, so- I don’t get what I should do. I use things like with a boy anyway, so I should just go with the real thing inside me, I am not a lez-bo! But that girl could sway me- I don’t know. There is just a glow in my mouth- like all the white teeth teens want me to be, it’s all spitting out, yet I have swallowed it, yet they don’t. Look at my eyes with bloodshot eyes, with tears running down her cheeks, and everything in-between feeling the same, you could even see all the welt markings of all their words, yet you can’t see them. She did not even know her name… so she was named after his favorite flower, which he had everywhere in his home as I remember. There is nowhere to go, no one to see… and no one or two, which cares about me. How can I live a life of ecstasy? If infrequently one cannot have a choice, yet I want to pick this if I have anticipation, if I have the preference to. Well, I have to live with the consequences of an entity life with me next to me and even inside me and some, I call my friends. Everyone has to bow down to them, I have been blown to yet not always the way you think I have, my live a life abortion, ripping out my heart blood dripping down my arm, and the demons I just hoping fly out of my piss so, I can strangle them with my come! Yeah, I am the only girl that will say that out loud!

I began drowning that day, wishing for a hand from above that would pull me out of this ocean. But the hands came from beneath. Those hands pulled me to the middle of the ocean and ripped my chest apart. They replaced everything that existed in there so that I could breathe inside that ocean. So that I could survive. But soon, my prayers were answered. The hands began arriving from above, too, to pull me out. That's when I began cutting them down, one after the other. I began destroying the only thing I had prayed and wished for since that day.

Fuck! Hold on," Misha barked, spinning us off the wall and walking us over the table. He laid me back, letting me stretch out. All the while, his cock remained inside of me. "Scream when you need to, kukola.

On the outside, my body consumed and performed what was expected of me. Inside, my brain conspired, its mermaid mechanisms hidden in my skull, fighting headache demons while planning a future escape from my human body. My loved ones did not suspect anything. They saw what they wanted to see. Humans, ever foolish.

Why do I feel like I’ve been involved in a conversation that I can’t remember? When exactly did we discuss this? Because I remember a lot of talk that day about us getting our head out of our asses and not running away from our problems, but I don’t remember discussing anything about our relationship. Did you have that conversation without me?

As we wind through the graves, I’m reminded of growing up down the road from the town dump to the north and the cemetery to the south, my own house haunting the center, equal radius to either destination: dumping ground or burial. Mama’s ghost skirted the edges; I could feel her presence, but not nearly enough. Girlhood nights I used to sleepwalk, and Alba would find me, wriggling through the slats in the fence, kneeling at the makeshift altar I’d made of debris, all that wreckage, a shrine for the mama I never knew, and my staunch and sturdy saint of a sister would walk me home where I’d claim no memory in the morning. Dreamworld would merge with waking, and I felt it—embryonic, swelling, lucent, what would sprout inside me as I grew older, rasher—the city of the Dead. Where I accidentally sent Karma a few short years later. Where—I can’t shake the clawing feeling now—I’ve sent Cecilia as well, with my vitriol, with my jealousy.

Yet I saw it all, it is my memory of the last days leading up to the end, and I feel too their scheme. She all wrote to me and saw through, she was glissading in her floating gaze, blue eyes peering into mine, she hands something to say, yet I walked away back away from the light that light my way, I tripped into the darkness in the creeped-out hallways. Everything I touch- I drop, like my cell phone, I left behind: I have- well- Dropasea! I walk now, as I descend back to my feet, I feel my body and the weight on my feet now. I saw it all, it is my memory of the last days leading up to the end, and I feel their scheme. She was floating all in white in front of me, note haunting- but almost angelic, and see-through, she was glissading I was looking too hard in a gaze, her blue peering into mine, she hands something to say, yet I walked away, backing away from the light, all the way back even if it lights my way, I tripped into the darkness in the creeped-out hallways, falling to them all the next day. Into the darkness I shall creep, now on my feet, I feel as if I am slithering like a snake, looking for the pathway out of the underworld. The pool went from little kids having fun giggling and swimming to little kids burning naked in what seems to be a lake of fire, black wing spread. As they ruined up and into my face and swirled around sucking life, or so it seemed, to me, as I felt I was blacking out, by their pulling on my body and lips. I never believed in Devilish entities until then with that thing sucked my face off, with the kiss of death to get it live to demonize onward. Loin-like up till now with horns that slowly started to feel like they were ripping through my soul if there is a such-of-a thing. With a long hollow, I feel myself feeling it, go in hard than it did the first time I got freak in the p*ssy. I was hugged in a well-founded way, and they were all welcoming home, staying it fun here- (Yet- is- it?) I felt her hand all over my goodies, seeing if I cut the teen group, or that what she fed me. I was getting bit up with the lies. (I did get it- do you?) Then she held my face, like the boy I am in love with and she dropped away fast, then everything was back as it was before, just some old school, I was walking through. She said- ‘I love you-you can be mine, like my girlfriend down here.’ I was looking at the tat- it was Bacca or (B- 1441- 669 5033) I feel the of thorns, I see the flames in the eyes it makes me feel warm inside, when I am cold all the time, I feel the rubbing on me and I don’t mind it know she has a spell on me that is tempting and lusting, and oh so sexy. Why would I go looking for someone I know wants to slay me, I thought so I never- ever want to go back for that phone, I was being a wimp and wasn’t planning on going back anyway.

No one can save you It truly seemed to be; outrages is my sickness of sin trying to kill me with darkness so clear I just could not see! A cross He did bear to fill me with the power losing control of what I was, so tried walking through this fire till it was all finished He did cry just for the likes of me! Spoken from the graves of outrages souls living to die and dying to live out what no one can see. Holiness on the inside of me till eternity comes speaking of things ancient tongues had never seen. From an angel's hand, coals of fire have sealed upon my lips words never known that speak of things angels can never see. Outrages me now sees! I'm becoming like the one who lost all control for me just to die; to live again through the likes of me. No one can save you like the one who only gave and gave from the cross and the grave, and from the grave, He gave life so I can live again. Hollow eyes, screaming from flames below the righteous one, had joined the living dead with head bowed flames all-around a whisper rumbled "Father." Screaming demons fell, trembling flames flickering "I Am, Who I AM" came the cry set them free, as eyes of fire could be seen with outstretched hands I was set free by the one who came for me!

It was fucking awful,” I profess, the words spilling out of me like I’m an overfull levee. Rogan’s quiet as he runs a hand soothingly down my back while holding me tightly to him. “I tried so hard to keep her away from him, to focus on me, but…” “I know,” Rogan comforts, placing light kisses on the back of my hands. “Elon told me what happened. How you…” Emotion bleeds out of his words, and he pauses to try and rein it in. The vehemence leaking to me through the tether has me cracking my fingers so I can look at his face through them. “I fucked up so bad, Lennox. I thought I had to choose, that after everything Elon had been through, he needed to come first no matter what. I didn’t want to admit how I was feeling about you. If I did, it felt like I was betraying Elon. I mean, what kind of person finds happiness and hope when his brother is suffering?” he asks, anguish etched in his features. He shakes his head, ashamed, an indignant scoff sneaking out of his full lips. “I didn’t want to make room for you,” he admits, bringing his hand to his chest and placing it over his heart. “I didn’t want to see that you’d already sunk inside of me so deeply that there wasn’t a me without you anymore. It was the wrong time, too fast, too uncertain, but there you were all the same,” he tells me, gesturing to his heart. His last words coax a small smile to one corner of his mouth, but it’s gone in a blink. “That night when you were torn away from me. It was like I was back in that room with my uncle as he tortured Elon and tried to steal his birthright. I lost it completely. I probably would have taken out half the order if Marx hadn’t been there to stop me. They brought that Saxon fucker in to search your room for who could have planted the trap, and it hit me like a punch to the gut. You were gone. You were gone, and you didn’t know how I felt. I never let you see what you were starting to mean to me. “I knew wherever that portal was leading, it was going to be bad, and I hated myself for not giving you something to fight for, for failing to show you that we were worth fighting for. I’m never going to do that again, Lennox. Never.” Slowly, he pulls my hands from my face, lifting up a corner of the quilt to wipe the tears and snot away. “I love you, Lennox,” he tells me evenly with absolutely no hesitation. “I love you in the way that grows as we grow together. The kind of love worth fighting for, that has me waking up every day grateful and willing to do whatever it takes. I know what you did for Elon, because it’s the same thing you did for me. You’re the light in the darkness. The stars that guide you home when you’re lost. You carry the broken from battle and lift the drowning from the clawing cold that’s trying to claim them. You slay the demons.

Like the rainbow in clouds and the rain drop in mud You irked like a torn of love in my heart. My naught desire is burning, as my beautiful hope is unfulfilled. Is it to raise the madness of love in me or to kill me? You are the girl I wished for, the damsel that left me, you are a merciless demon and the craze in my heart. You are a fish eyed beauty and a surprising sage, you are my moonlight in the dark... Come to me my beloved!! How do I live without you? Come to me my beloved! Can’t you be seen to my eyes? I am living in your thoughts this way... I considered you my heartbeat, how do I live without you? Come to me my beloved! My dear girl, oh beauty bird.. my heart slipped down magically and started roaming around you chanting your name in your quest, dancing just like you to reach me. How many days or years it might be, I would be waiting to see you even if it takes a hundred years. Let there be any dangers or whirlpools ahead, oh my love.. I will be beside you in everything. Shall we exist as one together? This is a never-ending celebration. Oh my gosh, my gorgeous babe.. You are a sweet unforgettable thought. Glimpses of your twittering laugh and the gleam of your eyes can be seen tempting deep in my heart. Wherever I am and whatever I do. I keep seeing the love of billions of my dreams. Shall I place you deep inside my carved heard and workshop you with the flowers of my blood? Shall we pull the time backwards and write our story again? How do I live without you? Come to me my beloved!