Drip King Quotes

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Ronan, I think you need to tell them, too.” Ronan’s expression, if anything, was betrayed. This was wearying; Gansey could see precisely the argument that it was heaving towards. Adam would shoot something cool and truthful over the bow, Ronan would fire back a profanity cannon, Adam would drip gasoline in the path of the projectile, and then everything would be on fire for hours.

How do they not hear the trickle of my heart’s blood dripping out of my chest, how do they not see the scooped-out pain in my eyes, how can they not hear every desperate plea and every rasping sob I’ve let out in the last twenty-four hours?

Gansey could see precisely the argument that it was heaving toward. Adam would shoot something cool and truthful over the bow, Ronan would fire back a profanity cannon, Adam would drip gasoline in the path of the projectile, and then everything would be on fire for hours.

The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice. So there is magic beyond the Wall after all.

Water splashed over my jeans, and I yelped as something burned my skin. We examined my leg. Tiny holes marred my jeans where the drops had hit, the material seared away, the skin underneath red and burned. It throbbed as if I’d jabbed needles into my flesh. “What the heck?” I muttered, glaring into the storm. It looked like ordinary rain—gray, misty, somewhat depressing. Almost compulsively, I stuck my hand toward the opening, where water dripped over the edge of the tube. Ash grabbed my wrist, snatching it back. “Yes, it will burn your hand as well as your leg,” he said in a bland voice. “And here I thought you learned your lesson with the chains.” Embarrassed, I dropped my hand and scooted farther into the tube, away from the rim and the acid rain dripping from it. “Guess I’m staying up all night,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “Wouldn’t want to doze off and find half my face melted off when I wake up.

But who can foresee such things? None of us can predict the final outcomes of our actions, and few of us even try; most of us just do what we do to prolong a moment's pleasure or to stop the pain. And even when we act for the noblest reasons, the last link of the chain all too often drips with someone's blood.

Strange that men, from age to age, should consent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to the law! Oh, God! give me poverty! Shower upon me all the imaginary hardships of human life! I will receive them with all thankfulness. Turn me a prey to the wild beasts of the desert, so I be never again the victim of man, dressed in the gore-dripping robes of authority! Suffer me at least to call life, the pursuits of life, my own! Let me hold it at the mercy of the elements, of the hunger of the beasts, or the revenge of barbarians, but not of the cold-blooded prudence of monopolists and kings!

Give us another chance,” he begged. “One last chance. I swear I won’t fuck it up. I know my word doesn’t mean much to you anymore, but tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” His tears dripped into my own. “Anything. Please.

Look at this sweet pussy,” he murmured. “It’s fucking dripping for me, amor.

So," she said at last, her voice dripping poisoned icicles, "this is Oberon's little bastard." -Queen Titania

The young man is currently standing in the hallway, dripping on the handmade silk rug that the Emperor of the Indies presented to His Majesty's grandmother. He is insisting on speaking with His Majesty." "It's a very ugly rug," Mendanbar said. "That's why we put it in the entry hall.

I will tell you about the lady I loved." The girls settled together on the entrance steps, not even breathing, for fear it would rustle the rosebushes about them and mask Mr. Keeper's words. Mr. Keeper stood unmoving on the dance floor. "Once upon a time," he said. His voice dripped in silk strands. "There was a High King, who wanted more than anything to kill the Captain General who incited a rebellion against him. It consumed him. The desire to kill the Captain General filled him to his core, and he spent every breath, every step, thinking of ways to murder the Captain General. "But he was old, and time passed, as it always does." Mr. Keeper paused. Bramble cast a slightly bemused glance at Azalea, her eyebrow arched. "So," Mr. Keeper continued, "he took an oath. He filled a wine flute to the brim with blood. And he swore, on that blood, to kill the Wentworth General, and that he would not die until he did. "And then, he drank it. "The end." There was a very ugly, naked silence after that. The girls' mouths gaped in perfect Os. "Sorry?" said Delphinium. "I missed the part about the lady?" "Ah," said Mr. Keeper. "The blood. It was hers.

We smiled, and when we stood, the world around us faded, time and space, Prince and King, child and spirit. All that remained was magic - black as ink. Powerful, vengeful, and full of fury. Our voice dripped oil, Hauth fixed in our gaze. We stalked him, pinning him in the corner of the room. "They came in the night," we said, "the black and red horde. They burned down my castle, put my kin to the sword. The usurper was crowned, though my blood had not dried. But he did not account for the turn of the tide. For nothing is safe, and nothing is free. Debt follows all men, no matter their plea. When the Shepherd returns, a new day shall ring. Death to the Rowans... "Long live the King.

Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time he learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but spring out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. You happy foot or you gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God's eye, and the fangs dripping.

Running in the rain steals my breath. Ruins it. Smashes it. Nearly eradicates it. When I arrive home, my soaked clothes are stuck to my skin. My shoes are slouching. My toes are cold and stiff. Erratic strands of my hair stick to my temples and forehead, dripping all over me. I stand in our small garden, catching my breath, and press a shaky palm to my chest. My heart’s palpitations grow uneven and out of beat as if protesting. I close my eyes and tip my head back, letting the rain beat down on me. Soak me. Rinse me. The droplets pound on my closed lids almost like a soothing caress. I’ve always loved the rain. The rain camouflaged everything. No one saw the tears. No one noticed the shame or the humiliation. It was just me, the clouds, and the pouring water. But that’s the thing about the rain, isn’t it? It’s only a camouflage, a temporary solution. It can only rinse the outside. It can’t seep under my skin and wash away my shaky insides. Wiping away my memories isn’t an option either. It’s been barely an hour since Aiden had his hands on me – all over me. I can still feel it. His breath. His nearness. His psychotic eyes.

The refrigerator whirred, the water dripped in the sink, and the raw seconds passed. This was the Darker Life, where every truth was written backward.

Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond.

I’m an asshole, yet you’re dripping all over my hand.” I kept my thumb on her clit while I slipped a finger inside her. “What does that say about you?

Don’t stride so, Russell!” Holmes whispered fiercely. “Throw your boots out in front of you as you walk and let your elbows stick out a bit. It would help if you let your mouth hang open stupidly, and for God’s sake take off your glasses, at least until we get out of town. I won’t allow you to walk into anything. Do you think you could persuade your nose to drip a bit, just for the effect?

Never felt nothing like this, Ti. Wanna fuck you and smack the living shit out of you all at the same time. Don’t know what this is, but it makes me want to keep you filled with my cock all day long and dripping with my cum. I want to mark you. I want to fucking own you.

David’s mouth dripped open slowly. He stood with his heels dug into my carpet, a dashed hope, a broken dream. No amount of money could top the priceless look that gathered on his face like an unmade bed. His eyebrows crumpled and furrowed like disheveled sheets. His lips curled into an acidic smirk. Confusion and shock collided in the cornea of his dilated pupils. He was a B.B. King song, personified. His entire body sang the blues.

Late December, in Bridgwater, Somerset, Western Province, a middle-aged man named Thomas Wharnton, going home from work shortly after midnight, was set upon by youths. These knifed him, stripped him, spitted him, basted him, carved him, served him—all openly and without shame in one of the squares of the town. A hungry crowd clamoured for hunks and slices, kept back—that the King's Peace might not be broken—by munching and dripping greyboys.

She watched the blood drip from the man hanging upside down as she mindlessly touched the top of her ear.

To get to Solitary Wing you were led down twenty-three steps to a basement level where the only sound was the drip of water. The only light was supplied by a series of dangling sixty-watt bulbs.

Give us another chance," he begged. "One last chance. I swear I won't fuck it up. I know my word doesn't mean much to you anymore, but tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it." His tears dripped into my own. "Anything. Please.

Exoneration of Jesus Christ If Christ was in fact God, he knew all the future. Before Him like a panorama moved the history yet to be. He knew how his words would be interpreted. He knew what crimes, what horrors, what infamies, would be committed in his name. He knew that the hungry flames of persecution would climb around the limbs of countless martyrs. He knew that thousands and thousands of brave men and women would languish in dungeons in darkness, filled with pain. He knew that his church would invent and use instruments of torture; that his followers would appeal to whip and fagot, to chain and rack. He saw the horizon of the future lurid with the flames of the auto da fe. He knew what creeds would spring like poisonous fungi from every text. He saw the ignorant sects waging war against each other. He saw thousands of men, under the orders of priests, building prisons for their fellow-men. He saw thousands of scaffolds dripping with the best and bravest blood. He saw his followers using the instruments of pain. He heard the groans—saw the faces white with agony. He heard the shrieks and sobs and cries of all the moaning, martyred multitudes. He knew that commentaries would be written on his words with swords, to be read by the light of fagots. He knew that the Inquisition would be born of the teachings attributed to him. He saw the interpolations and falsehoods that hypocrisy would write and tell. He saw all wars that would be waged, and-he knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these rackings, these burnings, these executions, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. He knew that hypocrisy would be robed and crowned—that cruelty and credulity would rule the world; knew that liberty would perish from the earth; knew that popes and kings in his name would enslave the souls and bodies of men; knew that they would persecute and destroy the discoverers, thinkers and inventors; knew that his church would extinguish reason’s holy light and leave the world without a star. He saw his disciples extinguishing the eyes of men, flaying them alive, cutting out their tongues, searching for all the nerves of pain. He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women’s breasts unbabed for gold. And yet he died with voiceless lips. Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world: “You shall not burn, imprison and torture in my name. You shall not persecute your fellow-men.” Why did he not plainly say: “I am the Son of God,” or, “I am God”? Why did he not explain the Trinity? Why did he not tell the mode of baptism that was pleasing to him? Why did he not write a creed? Why did he not break the chains of slaves? Why did he not say that the Old Testament was or was not the inspired word of God? Why did he not write the New Testament himself? Why did he leave his words to ignorance, hypocrisy and chance? Why did he not say something positive, definite and satisfactory about another world? Why did he not turn the tear-stained hope of heaven into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did he not tell us something of the rights of man, of the liberty of hand and brain? Why did he go dumbly to his death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt? I will tell you why. He was a man, and did not know.

O King, may the world bow to your command; May lips drip with expressions of thanks and salutations; Since it is your spirit that watches over the people, Wherever you are, may God watch over you! —Chandar Bhan Brahman, a Hindu Persian-medium poet in Aurangzeb’s employ

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

None of us can predict the final outcomes of our actions, and few of us even try; most of us just do what we do to prolong a moment's pleasure or to stop the pain. And even when we act for the noblest reasons, the last link of the chain all too often drips with someone's blood.

None of us can predict the final outcomes of our actions, and few of us even try; most of us just do what we do to prolong a moment’s pleasure or to stop the pain. And even when we act for the noblest reasons, the last link of the chain all too often drips with someone’s blood.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. ‘I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down to gether at the table of brotherhood – I have a dream. ‘That one day even the state of Mississippi – a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of op pression – will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream.’ He had hit a rhythm, and two hundred thousand people felt it sway their souls. It was more than a speech: it was a poem and a canticle and a prayer as deep as the grave. The heartbreaking phrase ‘I have a dream’ came like an amen at the end of each ringing sentence. ‘. . . That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character – I have a dream today. ‘I have a dream that one day down in Alabama – with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification – one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers – I have a dream today. ‘With this faith we will be able to hew, out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. ‘With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. ‘With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.’ Looking around, Jasper saw that black and white faces alike were running with tears. Even he felt moved, and he had thought himself immune to this kind of thing. ‘And when this happens; when we allow freedom to ring; when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city; we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands . . .’ Here he slowed down, and the crowd was almost silent. King’s voice trembled with the earthquake force of his passion. ‘. . . and sing, in the words of the old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! ‘Free at last! ‘Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

He shrugged. “Trying to write a novel.” She was instantly alight with excitement. “In the Lot? What’s it about? Why here? Are you—” He looked at her gravely. “You’re dripping.” “I’m—? Oh, I am. Sorry.” She mopped the base of her glass with a napkin. “Say, I didn’t mean to pry. I’m really not gushy as a rule.

Carole King sings on the radio. A white cop beams a light through the window. The little boy’s father is dragged out of the car.” He yells, punching the wind with his words. “Crunching. Beating. Screaming. ‘Shut the fuck up, Injun, go back to your land!’ ‘This is my land!’ ‘Don’t you talk back to us!’” Pools of sweat drip from his forehead. “More screaming. Crunching. Beating. The little boy crawls in the back seat, curls up, cries. The cops drive away. A huge dust cloud blows all around the father and son. The little boy opens the back door. He looks down. His father lies in a river of blood. His eyes, dilated. The little boy’s superhero was dead.

Dripping charnel  grounds of light - I examine hope &  fear - blue-black body  monster of enlightenment - call me Youthful Lightning Bolt -  tired I slump - desire's already  here - I don't care - my wrathful rosary coiled      snake   on my cushion -  I close my tired   eyes -  sleep has been  troubled but   my mother's  cancer hasn't  spread -      still I  am the Cemetary King

The time for equivocation has passed. You can stop this at any point by telling me we will rule the court apart from a distance, but until you do so"-he let liquid sunlight drip onto her skin-"I'm playing for keeps. I'm not a mortal, Aislinn. I'm the Summer King, and I'm done pretending to be anything other than that." He leaned down and said, "We could be amazing together." Then he was gone.

I moaned. “Gonna make this fast and hard,” he murmured against my skin. He lifted up my leg and pushed inside of me, stretching and filling me in two hard long thrusts. He started pumping into me before my body was ready for him and the bite of pain made each stroke torturously erotic. “Never felt nothing like this, Ti. Wanna fuck you and smack the living shit out of you all at the same time. Don’t know what this is, but it makes me want to keep you filled with my cock all day long and dripping with my cum. I want to mark you. I want to fucking own you.” He grunted as his thrusts became harder, more frantic, more erratic. Just more. “What the fuck are you doing to me?” he asked on a ragged exhale. Sparks

They were still quite near the ship; she saw its green side towering high above them, and people looking at her from the deck. Then, as one might have expected, Eustace clutched at her in a panic and down they both went. When they came up again she saw a white figure diving off the ship’s side. Edmund was close beside her now, treading water, and had caught the arms of the howling Eustace. Then someone else, whose face was vaguely familiar, slipped an arm under her from the other side. There was a lot of shouting going on from the ship, heads crowding together above the bulwarks, ropes being thrown. Edmund and the stranger were fastening ropes round her. After that followed what seemed a very long delay during which her face got blue and her teeth began chattering. In reality the delay was not very long; they were waiting till the moment when she could be got on board the ship without being dashed against its side. Even with all their best endeavors she had a bruised knee when she finally stood, dripping and shivering, on the deck. After her Edmund was heaved up, and then the miserable Eustace. Last of all came the stranger--a golden-headed boy some years older than herself. “Ca--Ca--Caspian!” gasped Lucy as soon as she had breath enough. For Caspian it was; Caspian, the boy king of Narnia whom they had helped to set on the throne during their last visit. Immediately Edmund recognized him too. All three shook hands and clapped one another on the back with great delight.

two Florida Highway Patrol cars and a third, black car pulled up in front of the house, and several white men emerged, among them the deputies Campbell and Yates. “Where is the guy that was with you last night?” Yates asked Shepherd, and what began with that question led to the beatings he and Irvin endured on the deserted clay road outside of Groveland. “They must have beat us about a half hour,” Shepherd told the lawyers, who were at once riveted and appalled by his testimony. After the beating, he and Irvin were shoved back into the patrol car. Irvin’s shirt was drenched in blood, and when he reached his hand up to his head he felt “a big chunk knocked out of it.” A patrolman told them to scoot up to the edge of the seat so their blood wouldn’t drip onto the upholstery.

Vanessa was clearly enjoying the bath. Her brown hair flowed around her in slippery wet ringlets that very much brought to mind the arms and legs of a squid. Great quantities of bubbles and foam towered over the top of the tub and spilled out onto the floor, slowly dripping down like the slimy egg sac of a moon snail. Vanessa was splashing and talking to herself and playing in the bath almost like a child. Ariel remembered, with heat, when she had been in that bath, and was introduced to the wonders of foam that wasn't just the leavings of dead merfolk. The whole experience had been marvelous and strange. Imagine the humans, kings of the Dry World, keeping bubbles of water around to bathe and play in. There was no equivalent under the sea; no one made "air pools" for fun and cleanliness.

You’re delusional,” Cormac’s grin promised violence. “I am stooping to marry your sister. Many of my people will consider the union a disgrace.” “Careful,” the Autumn King warned, true anger sparking in his whiskey-colored eyes. “Regardless of her human lineage, Bryce is an heir to the Starborn line. More so than my son.” He threw a frown dripping with disdain at Ruhn. “We have not seen starlight with such force for thousands of years. I do not take handing her over to Avallen lightly.” “What the fuck are you getting from it?” Nausea clawed its way up Ruhn’s throat. His father answered, “Your sister has one value to me: her breeding potential. Both of our royal houses will benefit from the union.” Cormac added, “And the continued commitment to the alliance between our peoples.” “Against what?” Had everyone lost their minds? “A weakening of magic in the royal bloodline,” Cormac said. “As recent generations have demonstrated.” He waved with a flame-crusted hand toward Ruhn and his shadows.

A dark-haired, pale creature that could have been the relative of the nøkk in Jesiba’s gallery dragged a bound and gagged Fionn into the inky depths of the bog, the once-proud king screaming as he went under. Horror rooted Bryce to the spot. Theia and Pelias stood at the water’s edge, faces impassive. Petals began falling from the trees. Leaves with them. Birds took flight. As if sudden winter gripped the bog. As if the land had died with its king. Then the Starsword was thrust from the center of the pool, sparkling in the gray light. A heartbeat later, a scaled hand lifted a dagger—Truth-Teller. Debris or a gift from the creature, Bryce could only guess as they sparkled in the grayish light, dripping water. It didn’t matter—in the face of such treachery and brutality, who fucking cared? My father had never shown himself to be giving—long had he kept Gwydion and never once offered it to my mother. The dagger that had belonged to his dear friend, slain during the war, hung at his side, unused. But not for long.

Ah!" said the doctor, in his most complacent manner, "here is the opportunity I have long been waiting for. I have often desired to test and taste the indian mode of cooking. What do you suppose this is?" holding up the dripping morsel. Unable to obtain the desired information, the doctor, whose naturally good appetite had been sensibly sharpened by his recent exercise á la quadrupède, set to with a will and ate heartily of the mysterious contents of the kettle. "What can this be?" again inquired the doctor. He was only satisfied on one point, that it was delicious - a dish fit for a king. Just then Gurrier, the half-breed, entered the lodge. He could solve the mystery, having spent years among the Indians. To him the doctor appealed for information. Fishing out a huge piece and attacking it with the voracity of a hungry wolf, he was not long in determining what the doctor had supped so heartily upon. His first words settled the mystery: "Why this is dog." I will not attempt to repeat the few but emphatic words uttered by the heartedly disgusted member of the medical fraternity as he rushed from the lodge.

Separated from everyone, in the fifteenth dungeon, was a small man with fiery brown eyes and wet towels wrapped around his head. For several days his legs had been black, and his gums were bleeding. Fifty-nine years old and exhausted beyond measure, he paced silently up and down, always the same five steps, back and forth. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . an interminable shuffle between the wall and door of his cell. He had no work, no books, nothing to write on. And so he walked. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . His dungeon was next door to La Fortaleza, the governor’s mansion in Old San Juan, less than two hundred feet away. The governor had been his friend and had even voted for him for the Puerto Rican legislature in 1932. This didn’t help much now. The governor had ordered his arrest. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . Life had turned him into a pendulum; it had all been mathematically worked out. This shuttle back and forth in his cell comprised his entire universe. He had no other choice. His transformation into a living corpse suited his captors perfectly. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . Fourteen hours of walking: to master this art of endless movement, he’d learned to keep his head down, hands behind his back, stepping neither too fast nor too slow, every stride the same length. He’d also learned to chew tobacco and smear the nicotined saliva on his face and neck to keep the mosquitoes away. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . The heat was so stifling, he needed to take off his clothes, but he couldn’t. He wrapped even more towels around his head and looked up as the guard’s shadow hit the wall. He felt like an animal in a pit, watched by the hunter who had just ensnared him. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . Far away, he could hear the ocean breaking on the rocks of San Juan’s harbor and the screams of demented inmates as they cried and howled in the quarantine gallery. A tropical rain splashed the iron roof nearly every day. The dungeons dripped with a stifling humidity that saturated everything, and mosquitoes invaded during every rainfall. Green mold crept along the cracks of his cell, and scarab beetles marched single file, along the mold lines, and into his bathroom bucket. The murderer started screaming. The lunatic in dungeon seven had flung his own feces over the ceiling rail. It landed in dungeon five and frightened the Puerto Rico Upland gecko. The murderer, of course, was threatening to kill the lunatic. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . The man started walking again. It was his only world. The grass had grown thick over the grave of his youth. He was no longer a human being, no longer a man. Prison had entered him, and he had become the prison. He fought this feeling every day. One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . He was a lawyer, journalist, chemical engineer, and president of the Nationalist Party. He was the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and spoke six languages. He had served as a first lieutenant in World War I and led a company of two hundred men. He had served as president of the Cosmopolitan Club at Harvard and helped Éamon de Valera draft the constitution of the Free State of Ireland.5 One, two, three, four, five, and turn . . . He would spend twenty-five years in prison—many of them in this dungeon, in the belly of La Princesa. He walked back and forth for decades, with wet towels wrapped around his head. The guards all laughed, declared him insane, and called him El Rey de las Toallas. The King of the Towels. His name was Pedro Albizu Campos.

There was no modern cement until 1870 or so, and no modern concrete until after the turn of the century. Mixing concrete is as delicate a business as making bread. You can get it too watery or not watery enough. You can get the sand-mix too thick or too thin, and the same is true of the gravel-mix. And back in 1934, the science of mixing the stuff was a lot less sophisticated than it is today. The walls of Cellblock 5 were solid enough, but they weren’t exactly dry and toasty. As a matter of fact, they were and are pretty damned dank. After a long wet spell they would sweat and sometimes even drip. Cracks had a way of appearing, some an inch deep. They were routinely mortared over. Now here comes Andy Dufresne into Cellblock 5. He’s a man who graduated from the University of Maine’s school of business, but he’s also a man who took two or three geology courses along the way. Geology had, in fact, become his chief hobby. I imagine it appealed to his patient, meticulous nature. A ten-thousand-year ice age here. A million years of mountain-building there. Plates of bedrock grinding against each other deep under the earth’s skin over the millennia. Pressure. Andy told me once that all of geology is the study of pressure.

In a few minutes the Dawn Treader had come round and everyone could see the black blob in the water which was Reepicheep. He was chattering with the greatest excitement but as his mouth kept on getting filled with water nobody could understand what he was saying. “He’ll blurt the whole thing out if we don’t shut him up,” cried Drinian. To prevent this he rushed to the side and lowered a rope himself, shouting to the sailors, “All right, all right. Back to your places. I hope I can heave a mouse up without help.” And as Reepicheep began climbing up the rope--not very nimbly because his wet fur made him heavy--Drinian leaned over and whispered to him, “Don’t tell. Not a word.” But when the dripping Mouse had reached the deck it turned out not to be at all interested in the Sea People. “Sweet!” he cheeped. “Sweet, sweet!” “What are you talking about?” asked Drinian crossly. “And you needn’t shake yourself all over me, either.” “I tell you the water’s sweet,” said the Mouse. “Sweet, fresh. It isn’t salt.” For a moment no one quite took in the importance of this. But then Reepicheep once more repeated the old prophecy: “Where the waves grow sweet, Doubt not, Reepicheep, There is the utter East.” Then at last everyone understood. “Let me have a bucket, Rynelf,” said Drinian. It was handed him and he lowered it and up it came again. The water shone in it like glass. “Perhaps your Majesty would like to taste it first,” said Drinian to Caspian. The King took the bucket in both hands, raised it to his lips, sipped, then drank deeply and raised his head. His face was changed. Not only his eyes but everything about him seemed to be brighter. “Yes,” he said, “it is sweet. That’s real water, that. I’m not sure that it isn’t going to kill me. But it is the death I would have chosen--if I’d known about it till now.

I owe you nothing.” “You’ve given me less than that, all my life, but you’ll give me this. What did you do with Tysha?” “Tysha?” He does not even remember her name. “The girl I married.” “Oh, yes. Your first whore.” Tyrion took aim at his father’s chest. “The next time you say that word, I’ll kill you.” “You do not have the courage.” “Shall we find out? It’s a short word, and it seems to come so easily to your lips.” Tyrion gestured impatiently with the bow. “Tysha. What did you do with her, after my little lesson?” “I don’t recall.” “Try harder. Did you have her killed?” His father pursed his lips. “There was no reason for that, she’d learned her place… and had been well paid for her day’s work, I seem to recall. I suppose the steward sent her on her way. I never thought to inquire.” “On her way where?” “Wherever whores go.” Tyrion’s finger clenched. The crossbow whanged just as Lord Tywin started to rise. The bolt slammed into him above the groin and he sat back down with a grunt. The quarrel had sunk deep, right to the fletching. Blood seeped out around the shaft, dripping down into his pubic hair and over his bare thighs. “You shot me,” he said incredulously, his eyes glassy with shock. “You always were quick to grasp a situation, my lord,” Tyrion said. “That must be why you’re the Hand of the King.” “You… you are no… no son of mine.” “Now that’s where you’re wrong, Father. Why, I believe I’m you writ small. Do me a kindness now, and die quickly. I have a ship to catch.” For once, his father did what Tyrion asked him. The proof was the sudden stench, as his bowels loosened in the moment of death. Well, he was in the right place for it, Tyrion thought. But the stink that filled the privy gave ample evidence that the oft-repeated jape about his father was just another lie. Lord Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold.

I can’t be your king.” As reasons go, it’s a good one. But I know there’s more behind it, and that’s what I want. An actual explanation. “So, if I were just a simple girl, from a simple family, and not the princess…?” Rhys’s hand finds my waist, and he nudges me back until our faces are as close as they were before. “I wouldn’t be able to walk away from you.” He lets out a self-deprecating sort of laugh. “What am I saying? I know better, and I still haven’t been able to walk away.” My heart breaks a little. Why must life be so unfair? Why was Braeton taken from me; why was I sent in his place? I don’t want to be queen—I don’t want to choose our king. I just want Rhys. “Just for a few minutes, can’t we pretend there isn’t a title attached to my name?” I whisper, running my fingers through the damp hair at the nape of his neck. “Would that be so wrong?” “It would be,” Rhys answers, his voice full of conviction. Yet his hand tightens at my side, drawing me even closer, his physical response at odds with his answer. His eyes are on mine, the intimacy of it almost too much to bear. “But I don’t have the will to stop you right now. If I am what you want, then I give myself to you. However, please know these fleeting minutes are all we have.” I lick my lips, and his eyes follow the movement. My breaths are short and fast, and Rhys’s fingers press into my side in the most intoxicating way. Making a decision I’ll likely regret, I slowly pull back. Disappointment flashes in Rhys’s green eyes when I put space between us, but I stand strong. “If minutes are all you can give me, I won’t waste them now,” I tell him softly. “I’ll save them, hide them away. Outwardly, I will keep our relationship purely platonic, but sometime—when I need you the most—I’ll make my request.” “Amalia…” Rhys says, sounding pained. Unable to help myself, I lean in and press the briefest kiss to the very corner of his lips. For a moment, I wonder if the knight is going to lock his arms around me, hold me here, convince me to use those minutes now. But he doesn’t. “You can deduct a second from my total,” I tease softly when I pull back. I then climb out of the hot spring, dripping water along the stone.

DREAMLAND             BY a route obscure and lonely,             Haunted by ill angels only,             Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,             On a black throne reigns upright,             I have reached these lands but newly             From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime                 Out of SPACE—out of TIME.             Bottomless vales and boundless floods,             And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods             With forms that no man can discover             For the dews that drip all over; WHERE AN EIDOLON NAMED NIGHT ON A BLACK THRONE REIGNS UPRIGHT         Mountains toppling evermore         Into seas without a shore;         Seas that restlessly aspire,         Surging, unto skies of fire;         Lakes that endlessly outspread         Their lone waters—lone and dead,         Their still waters—still and chilly         With the snows of the lolling lily.         By the lakes that thus outspread         Their lone waters, lone and dead,—         Their sad waters, sad and chilly         With the snows of the lolling lily,—         By the mountains—near the river         Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—         By the grey woods,—by the swamp         Where the toad and the newt encamp,—         By the dismal tarns and pools                 Where dwell the Ghouls,—         By each spot the most unholy—         In each nook most melancholy,—         There the traveller meets aghast         Sheeted Memories of the Past—         Shrouded forms that start and sigh         As they pass the wanderer by—         White-robed forms of friends long given,         In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.         For the heart whose woes are legion         ’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—         For the spirit that walks in shadow         ’Tis—oh, ’tis an Eldorado!         But the traveller, travelling through it,         May not—dare not openly view it;         Never its mysteries are exposed         To the weak human eye unclosed;         So wills its King, who hath forbid         The uplifting of the fringèd lid;         And thus the sad Soul that here passes         Beholds it but through darkened glasses.         By a route obscure and lonely,         Haunted by ill angels only,         Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,         On a black throne reigns upright,         I have wandered home but newly         From this ultimate dim Thule.

Another general would have let them go and been glad of it. But he saw that if they secured that high ground they might regroup and come at us again, this time with their archers positioned to advantage. So he called us to ranks with a curdling cry. I glimpsed his face through the crowd of men. It was bloodied, dirt-streaked, avid. Then he turned, fist to the sky, and sprinted. He set the pace for the fleetest of his runners, youths who could give him a decade. Even uphill, he seemed to fly over the loose stones that slid out from underfoot and left me skidding and swearing. I fell behind, and lost sight of him. Others—younger men, better fighters—overtook me, swarming to him, compelled by his courage. When I finally glimpsed him again, he was above me on a long, slender ridge, in the thick of fierce fighting. Trying to narrow the distance between us, I lost my footing entirely on the uncertain ground. I slipped. Metal, leather and flesh scraped against rough limestone that bit like snaggleteeth. I could not control my fall until I planted my foot into something that gave softly under my weight. The man had been attempting to crawl away, dragging himself with his remaining hand while a slime of blood pulsed from the stump of his sword arm. My boot, mashing his neck flat into stone, had put an end to that. When I lifted my foot, the man gave a wet gargle, and was still. I scraped the mess off my boot onto the nearest rock and went on. When I reached the ridge, the king was making an end of another fighter. He was up close, eye to eye. His sword had entered just above the man’s groin. He drew it upward, in a long, slow, arcing slash. As he pulled the blade back—slick, dripping—long tubes of bowel came tumbling after. I could see the dying man’s eyes, wide with horror, his hands gripping for his guts, trying to push them back into the gaping hole in his belly. The king’s own eyes were blank—all the warmth swallowed by the black stain of widening pupils. David reached out an arm and pushed the man hard in the chest. He fell backward off the narrow ledge and rolled down the slope, his entrails unfurling after him like a glossy ribband. I was engaged myself then, by a bullnecked spearman who required all my flagging strength. He was bigger than me, but clumsy, and I used his size against him, so that as I feinted one way, he lunged with his spear, overbalanced and fell right onto the dagger that I held close and short at my side. I felt the metal grating against the bone of his rib, and then I mustered enough force to thrust the tip sharply upward, the blade’s full length inside him, in the direction of his heart. I felt the warm wetness of his insides closing about my fist. It was intimate as a rape.

Iofur had noticed. He began to taunt Iorek, calling him broken-hand, whimpering cub, rust-eaten, soon-to-die, and other names, all the while swinging blows at him from right and left which Iorek could no longer parry. Iorek had to move backward, a step at a time, and to crouch low under the rain of blows from the jeering bear-king. Lyra was in tears. Her dear, her brave one, her fearless defender, was going to die, and she would not do him the treachery of looking away, for if he looked at her he must see her shining eyes and their love and belief, not a face hidden in cowardice or a shoulder fearfully turned away. So she looked, but her tears kept her from seeing what was really happening, and perhaps it would not have been visible to her anyway. It certainly was not seen by Iofur. Because Iorek was moving backward only to find clean dry footing and a firm rock to leap up from, and the useless left arm was really fresh and strong. You could not trick a bear, but, as Lyra had shown him, Iofur did not want to be a bear, he wanted to be a man; and Iorek was tricking him. At last he found what he wanted: a firm rock deep-anchored in the permafrost. He backed against it, tensing his legs and choosing his moment. It came when Iofur reared high above, bellowing his triumph, and turning his head tauntingly toward Iorek’s apparently weak left side. That was when Iorek moved. Like a wave that has been building its strength over a thousand miles of ocean, and which makes little stir in the deep water, but which when it reaches the shallows rears itself up high into the sky, terrifying the shore dwellers, before crashing down on the land with irresistible power—so Iorek Byrnison rose up against Iofur, exploding upward from his firm footing on the dry rock and slashing with a ferocious left hand at the exposed jaw of Iofur Raknison. It was a horrifying blow. It tore the lower part of his jaw clean off, so that it flew through the air scattering blood drops in the snow many yards away. Iofur’s red tongue lolled down, dripping over his open throat. The bear-king was suddenly voiceless, biteless, helpless. Iorek needed nothing more. He lunged, and then his teeth were in Iofur’s throat, and he shook and shook this way, that way, lifting the huge body off the ground and battering it down as if Iofur were no more than a seal at the water’s edge. Then he ripped upward, and Iofur Raknison’s life came away in his teeth. There was one ritual yet to perform. Iorek sliced open the dead king’s unprotected chest, peeling the fur back to expose the narrow white and red ribs like the timbers of an upturned boat. Into the rib cage Iorek reached, and he plucked out Iofur’s heart, red and steaming, and ate it there in front of Iofur’s subjects.

Feeling each move carefully, Len climbed, hilt of the sword held in one hand blade hanging point down. A wet and dripping Rose King hovered above him. Being dripped on wasn't nearly as distracting as the constant sight of his watch on his left wrist. He wanted to look and see how much of the allotted hour he had left. He resisted the urge. He didn't want to risk having this knowledge affect his judgment. They had no time for speed born mistakes. The shaft they climbed down amplified the slightest sound sending it reverberating up and down its length. The slight clank of the sword against the iron rungs of the ladder became enormous. The click of Rose King's chattering teeth reverberated like castanets. Len stepped on a rung. The next second he found himself grappling for security as the rung moved then broke loose. The racket as the metal bar fell rang up and down the narrow oblong space like a pair of dropped cymbals. He looked down. They were approximately ten feet up from the bottom of the well. If he had fallen he would not have been hurt badly if at all. Discovery, however, had a danger all its own. Frozen in place, both he and Rose listened. Something large was down there. It was something large that dragged as it walked. As if investigating the source of the clatter, this something stopped by the grate at the bottom, blocking off the light. Twice there was a rushing of sound as if some huge bellows was blowing air into the grate then pulling it out. The thing seemed to move away from the grate. When he was sure it was well away from the opening Len began again to climb down. The nearer the grate the more he and Rose began to hear something beyond the ominous sounds of large animal. Len thought he knew what it was, but kept silent. He was about to jump the last three feet when a pain wracked cry echoed through the space on the other side of this new grate and up the stone well. Len jumped to the ground. A second later Rose was behind him. Wishing desperately they had more than one weapon between them, Len pushed hard at the grate, rushing through the space as fast as the cramped size of the opening would allow. They were in a large round open torch lit space with a high domed brick ceiling. To their left was an exit to a dark hallway blocked by a barred door; to their right, a curved cave like opening with what looked like a barred gate that could be raised or lowered. On the other side of the room was a barred wall with a door closing off the cell where Tyrone lay. Between them and their goal was a large, reptilian creature. "What the hell is that?" Rose gasped softly. Len swallowed hard and licked his dry lips. It was mad and at the same time made complete sense. "It’s just what it looks like, Major," he whispered. "It's a dragon.

The persistent myth that surrounds much of marketing today is that content is king. And if you can just produce enough of this scintillating, ripped-from-the-headlines, epic and amazing stuff … dripping with keywords, stuffed to the headlines with relevance, decorated with Pinterest-worthy graphics and videos, and podcasts and listicles … you’ll win.

I want you spread open on my bed, legs wide, cunt split and dripping, begging for my cock. But as much as I want that, and as much as I know you want that, I’ll never allow it to happen until you cut the shit and just be honest about what you want.

I submit that if Elohim is truly ‘sovereign over his creation,’” the Accuser said, his words dripping with venom, “then he is responsible for all the evil that exists in the world. If he is not so sovereign, then he is an impotent deity without the authority to back up his covenant.” The Accuser took a dramatic pause, pretending he was holding back a flood of empathetic tears. Then he finished, “A covenant is supposed to be constitutional, the very bedrock of truth and justice. This covenant is unconstitutional because its creator is a king who is a totalitarian oppressor, a cheat who makes the rules of the game to favor himself; a despotic dictator and tyrant who claims absolute ownership over creation; and worse, a genocidal emperor, who, mark my words, will soon kill everyone on earth who gets in the way of his imperialist empire!

His long black hair and beard dripping sweat under a blistering Mediterranean sun, Portheus shouldered his lambda emblazoned hoplon, snatched up his spear and barked, “Axios, arm yourself!

At the last, Viserys looked at her. "Sister, please...Dany, tell them...make them...sweet sister..." When the gold was half-melted and starting to run, Drogo reached into the flames, snatched out the pot. "Crown!" he roared. "Here. A crown for Cart King!" And upended the pot over the head of the man who had been her brother. The sound Viserys Targaryen made when that hideous iron helmet covered his face was like nothing human. His feet hammered a frantic beat against the dirt floor, slowed, stopped. Thick globs of molten gold dripped down onto his chest, setting the scarlet silk to smoldering...yet no drop of blood was spilled. He was no dragon, Dany thought, curious calm. Fire cannot kill a dragon.

I know I'm being a pain in the neck, sir - not to mention an ache in the ass and a milky drip from the tip of a sore dick - but if it's all the same to you, my dear friend, I'd like to give my chance to the young fellow on his knees before you. Let him apologize, let him polish your boots with his clout until you are entirely satisfied, and let him go on living his life.

[…] Although it’s hard to imagine it now, there was a time when horror was nearly unrivaled in popularity with the general reader. In the 1970s and ’80s, local bookstores had whole shelves devoted to it. You couldn’t miss them: they were the ones stocked between Mystery and Fantasy/Sci-Fi, with all the black and red covers, the raised titles dripping blood, and the leering skeletons. Lots and lots of skeletons. These books had notoriously short shelf lives, but because there was such a demand for them—owing largely to the success of books like The Exorcist and writers like Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub—it was possible to hack a living if you could turn them out fast enough. A lot of folks tried their hand, and a lot of bad books were published. So many that the market eventually collapsed under its own weight. Among those bad books, though, were some truly great ones written by great writers—writers like Ramsey Campbell, Robert R. McCammon, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, to name just three—who delivered lasting contributions to the genre. While it would be nice to think that all the deserving books were saved from being swept away in the vast tide, that just wasn’t the case. [...] Excerpt from ”Introduction” to Michael McDowell’s ”Blackwater: The Complete Saga” (2017, Kindle edition)

And all these people gathered to honour the one who had died, was it a man, a woman, a warrior, a king, a fool, and where were the statues, the likenesses painted on plaster and stone? yet so they stood or sat, the wine spilling at their feet, dripping red from their hands, with wasps in their dying season spinning about in sweet thirst and drunken voices cried out, stung awake voices blended in confused profusion, the question asked again then again - why? But this is where a truth finds its own wonder, for the question was not why did this one die, or such to justify for in their heart of milling lives there were none for whom this gathering was naught but an echo, of former selves. They asked, again and yet again, why are we here? The one who died had no name but every name, no face but every face of those who had gathered, and so it was we who learned among wasps swept past living yet nerve-firing one last piercing that we were the dead and all in an unseen mind— stood or sat a man, or a woman, a warrior, queen or fool, who in drunken leisure gave a moment's thought to all passed by in life. Fountain Gathering Fisher Kel Tath

We weren’t supposed to mean anything to anyone.” A slow, deep sigh escaped his lips, and his right eyelid opened, revealing a glowing, lamplight gaze. Brishen’s voice was hoarse from disuse but still clear. “Woman of day,” he said slowly. “You mean everything to me.” No amount of blinking this time held back Ildiko’s tears. They streamed down her cheeks to drip off her chin and onto Brishen’s shoulder. “Prince of night,” she said in a watery voice that echoed another moment when she’d greeted him with the same words. “You’ve come back to me.

My heart,” he said softly. “Keep it safe.” No longer caring that tears streamed down her face and dripped off her chin, Brida repeated his gesture, pressing his hand to her chest just above the edge of her bodice before curling his webbed fingers closed. “My heart,” she whispered. “Take it with you.

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time … until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead. King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life. But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

Are you okay?" King Warren asked. "Are you wounded?" I shook my head but I was lost for words. His dark eyes searched over me as if trying to find an open wound or any blood dripping. His jaw relaxed when he saw that I was okay. He saved my life, I thought.

I can smell you, little one. When anyone else would run away screaming, you just get so@king wet, dripping for me. Even now, when you get a peek at the truly monstrous parts of me.

Over and over again, growing increasingly hostile as he went, he blackened the earth, drawing with the magnet of his rage the storm of the bloody century to my demesne. Worms screamed in anguish as they burned. Moles, disturbed from slumber, whimpered once then crumbled to ash. I suffered the soft implosion of larvae not yet formed enough to rue the beauty they were losing; subterranean life in all its dark, earthy grandeur. The occasional burrowing snake hissed defiance as it was seared to death. Sean O’Bannion walks—the earth turns black, barren, and everything in it dies, a dozen feet down. Hell of a princely power. Again, what the fuck was the Unseelie king thinking? Was he? Incensed by failure, Sean insisted hotly, as we stood in the bloody deluge—it wasn’t raining, that scarce-restrained ocean that parked itself above Ireland at the dawn of time and proceeded to leak incessantly, lured by the siren-song of Sean’s broodiness decamped to Scotland and split wide open—that I was either lying or it didn’t work the same for each prince. Patiently (okay, downright pissily, but, for fuck’s sake, I could be having sex again and gave that up to help him), I explained it did work the same for each of us but, because he wasn’t druid-trained, it might take time for him to understand how to tap into it. Like learning to meditate. Such focus doesn’t come easy, nor does it come all at once. Practice is key. He refused to believe me. He stormed thunderously and soddenly off, great ebon wings dripping rivers of water, lightning bolts biting into the earth at his heels, Kat trailing sadly at a safe distance behind. I was raised from birth to be in harmony with the natural world. Humans are the unnatural part of it. Animals lack the passel of idiotic emotions we suffer. I’ve never seen an animal feel sorry for itself. While other children played indoors with games or toys, my da led me deep into the forest and taught me to become part of the infinite web of beating hearts that fill the universe, from the birds in the trees to the insects buzzing about my head, to the fox chasing her cubs up a hillside and into a cool, splashing stream, to the earthworms tunneling blissfully through the vibrant soil. By the age of five, it was hard for me to understand anyone who didn’t feel such things as a part of everyday life. As I matured, when a great horned owl perched nightly in a tree beyond my window, Uncle Dageus taught me to cast myself within it (gently, never usurping) to peer out from its eyes. Life was everywhere, and it was beautiful. Animals, unlike humans, can’t lie. We humans are pros at it, especially when it comes to lying to ourselves.

Tears roll down my face, dripping onto my arms as I kneel next to my bed, the pain piercing my heart as I try to keep my sobs quiet. Pain that's etched deep into my soul. Why am I so broken? What have I done to deserve this punishment?

Teller wrinkled his nose at Henri’s dripping sarcasm. “All they talk about is who will take over once the King dies. They’re even taking bets on it. The man’s on his deathbed, and they’re circling like vultures.” “Deathbed?” I frowned. “The King is dying?

Put these on, and walk home with my cum dripping out of you. I want you to feel a reminder of what just happened with every fucking step.

Gods, no.” Ari’s soft gasp sent a hot rush of panic to my head. He grabbed my hand then his queen’s. “Run.” Ari tried to flee with us out of the clearing, back to the darkness, but at the line of trees he skidded to a stop. By the hells. Slender, pale as ice creatures stepped lithely from the shadows of the trees. Red-rimmed eyes glowed a sickly looking green in the night, and their skin hung off their bones like dripping wax. Human in shape and size, their ears like the fae, but it was their jagged teeth I could not ignore.

Look at you,” he said, slowing his pace. “Dripping wet, hugging my cock like such a good girl.

I’ve loved you every day. The more I fought it, the more I wanted you.” I clutched her arm, feeling blood dripping down it and I healed the wound with a curse as it rushed over her wrist, coating the bracelet there in red. “If I could meet you for the first time again, I’d do it all differently. I’d love you as you deserved to be loved from day one,” I gritted out as she swallowed mouthful after mouthful of my blood and I prayed my words would reach her as I started to weaken. “I’d make sure you never felt alone, and we would have worked to find King together from the very beginning. I fucked up, angel. I’m not your equal, I’m not your mate. But I do love you with the entirety of my heart and there isn’t a force in this world which could change that. I just figured it out all too late and I’m sorry for how I treated you. I’m sorry I caused you pain. But I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere. If I’m destined for someone else, let them wait forever, because I’m never going to leave your side, Elise.

The tall, stately pines that grew in drier soils soon gave way to the curving, dripping beauty of the cypress that thrived in the swamp. The ground sloped downward, giving a body the subtle sense of being pulled into the bottomlands that waited patiently just around the corners, where the dark heart of the marsh beat with a symphony of life. Stinging, singing, ancient, and deadly life, where the alligators were king, the snakes and snapping turtles were barons, and the woodpeckers were court jesters jangling their bells from the tops of the trees.

I suppose you must feel some bitterness against the historians," Roger ventured. "All the writers who got it wrong--made him out to be a hero. I mean, you can't go anywhere in the Highlands without seeing the Bonnie Prince on toffee tins and souvenir tourist mugs." Claire shook her head, gazing off in the distance. The evening mist was growing heavier, the bushes beginning to drip again from the tips of their leaves. "Not the historians. No, not them. Their greatest crime is that they presume to know what happened, how things come about, when they only have what the past chose to leave them behind--for the most part, they think what they were meant to think, and it's a rare one that sees what really happened, behind the smokescreen of artifacts and paper." There was a faint rumble in the distance. The evening passenger train from London, Roger knew. You could hear the whistle from the manse on clear nights. "No, the fault lies with the artists," Claire went on. The writers, the singers, the tellers of tales. It's them that take the past and re-create it to their liking. Them that could take a fool and give you back a hero, take a sot and make him a king." "Are they all liars, then?" Roger asked. Claire shrugged. In spite of the chilly air, she had taken off the jacket to her suit; the damp molded the cotton shirt to show the fineness of collarbone and shoulder blades. "Liars?" she asked. "Or sorcerers? Do they see the bones in the dust of the earth, see the essence of a thing that was, and clothe it in new flesh, so the plodding beast reemerges as a fabulous monster?

The decorative arms race finally caved in under the sheer absurdity of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733), the Elector of Saxony who, with money pouring in from his hideous porcelain factory and from defrauding the Poles (whose king through chicanery he had become), decided to go for broke. When many of his contemporaries were sharpening up and reforming their armies, he spent much of his revenue on mistresses, lovely palaces and daft trinkets. He was aided in this last aim by the services of the great Badenese goldsmith Johann Melchior Ding-linger, who blew astounding sums making such monstrosities as a giant cup made from a block of polished chalcedony, dripping with coloured enamels and metals and balanced on stag horns, or creating repulsive little statues of dwarves by decorating mutant pearls, or a mad but magnificent object called The Birthday of the Grand Mogul Aurangzeb in which dozens of tiny figures made from precious stones and metals fill the tiny court of the Mogul, itself made from all kinds of spectacular and rare stuff. This delirious thing (not paid for by Augustus for many years as the money sort of ran out when a Swedish invasion swept through a virtually undefended Saxony) simply ended the tradition. Looking at it today in the head-spinning Green Vault in Dresden, Dinglinger’s fantasy seems a long way from the relative, bluff innocence of a yellowy whale tooth in a little display box – but it was the same tradition endlessly elaborated. Aside

Twenty years of water dripping against a slightly misshapen, bulbous skull. Melek Ahmar, the Lord of Mars, the Red King, the Lord of Tuesday, Most August Rajah of Djinn, asleep for millennia, woken once more by the vagaries of water and stone, found his eyes covered in grit.

King’s voice shook with emotion as he said: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ “I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood—I have a dream. “That one day even the state of Mississippi—a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression—will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream.” He had hit a rhythm, and two hundred thousand people felt it sway their souls. It was more than a speech: it was a poem and a canticle and a prayer as deep as the grave. The heartbreaking phrase “I have a dream” came like an amen at the end of each ringing sentence. “That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character—I have a dream today. “I have a dream that one day down in Alabama—with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification—one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers—I have a dream today. “With this faith we will be able to hew, out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. “With

Sixteen after Midnight She just made it home Poured some Johnnie Walker Another goodnight…alone   Freddie King is spinnin’ As a cinnamon candle burns It’s Sixteen after Midnight When her hurt starts to churn   Sixteen after Midnight Three dead cigarettes New dress on the floor Her panties are soakin’ wet   The proof is sometimes stronger Than she’s able to tolerate It’s Sixteen after Midnight A perfect time to oscillate   Sixteen after Midnight On the cold bathroom floor Beautiful blue linoleum Her feet against the door   Head against stained porcelain Water drips from a busted sink It’s Sixteen after Midnight And she is on the brink      

Charles arrived around eight a.m. with a squadron of Drabants and began riding along the bank at the water’s edge to inspect the men and their positions. Some of the Russians from the force which had been driven back remained on one of the numerous islands in midstream, and they began to fire at the party of Swedish officers across the water. The musket range was short and a Drabant was shot dead in his saddle. Charles, without the slightest care for his own safety, continued his slow ride at the water’s edge. Then, his inspection finished, he turned his horse to ride back up the bank. His back was to the enemy, and at that moment he was hit in the left foot by a Russian musket ball. The ball struck his heel, piercing the boot, plunging forward through the length of the foot, smashing a bone and finally passing out near the big toe. Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, a Polish nobleman accredited to Charles XII by King Stanislaus, who was riding next to the King, noticed that he was hurt, but Charles commanded him to keep quiet. Although the wound must have been excruciatingly painful, the King continued his tour of inspection as if nothing had happened. It was not until eleven a.m., almost three hours after being hit, that he returned to his headquarters and prepared to dismount. By this time, the officers and men near him had noticed his extreme pallor and the blood dripping from his torn left boot. Charles tried to dismount but the movement caused such agony that he fainted. By

walk by several rooms on my way to Mr. King’s, seeing patients on ventilators, with multitudes of tubes and drips running in and out of them. The rooms are small and they beep and chirp from a variety of monitors and pumps. I

Ah! said the doctor, in his most complacent manner, "here is the opportunity I have long been waiting for. I have often desired to test and taste the indian mode of cooking. What do you suppose this is?" holding up the dripping morsel. Unable to obtain the desired information, the doctor, whose naturally good appetite had been sensibly sharpened by his recent exercise á la quadrupède, set to with a will and ate heartily of the mysterious contents of the kettle. "What can this be?" again inquired the doctor. He was only satisfied on one point, that it was delicious - a dish fit for a king. Just then Gurrier, the half-breed, entered the lodge. He could solve the mystery, having spent years among the Indians. To him the doctor appealed for information. Fishing out a huge piece and attacking it with the voracity of a hungry wolf, he was not long in determining what the doctor had supped so heartily upon. His first words settled the mystery: "Why this is dog." I will not attempt to repeat the few but emphatic words uttered by the headily disgusted member of the medical fraternity as he rushed from the lodge.

Then what’s your hobby?” I asked. “My hobby?” He smiled and wiped his nose, which had just started dripping blood again, a single drop fell to the page and splattered on stick figure Preppy. He nodded slyly and purses his lips, hooking his thumbs under his suspenders. “Bitches.

Did you hear the sound of thunder coming from a clear blue sky? I think it's glory. Fields of wheat gold and glistening standing tall at ten feet high. I know it's glory. Angel bands now fill the Heavens as their wings drip healing oil. I see HIS glory. There is victory above us as HIS rhythm floods our souls. I feel HIS glory. Glory comes like morning dew. Glory falls afresh and new. Glory is assigned to you. I think...I know...I see...I feel..It's real.... The glory of the LORD! MD©️

What is this needy tongue of yours begging for, Tempe? A shot of whiskey or my cum?” He smears another drip of cum over my lips. “Or maybe both?

Spread your legs, Tempe. Let me see your pretty pussy drip.

I’m an asshole, yet you’re dripping all over my hand.

Give us another chance,” he begged. “One last chance. I swear I won’t fuck it up. I know my word doesn’t mean much to you anymore, but tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.” His tears dripped into my own. “Anything. Please.” “One last chance. Please don’t break my heart,” I whispered. That was the only request I had. “I won’t. I lost you once, and I never want to lose you again.

You look good bent over your desk, Luna. Especially when your pussy is dripping with my—

You’re dripping already, Luna.