Injured Hand Quotes

Will!" Charlotte threw up her hands. "Why didn't you say so?" "You know, the books on demon pox are in the library," Will said with an injured tone. "I wasn't preventing anyone from reading them

Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.

And maybe it would have bitten you in half," said Will. "What you are describing, the transformation into a demon, is the last stage of the pox." "Will!" Charlotte threw up her hands. "Why didn't you say so?" "You know, the books on demon pox are in the library," Will said with an injured tone. "I wasn't preventing anyone from reading them." "Yes, but if Benedict was going to turn into an enormous serpent, you'd think you could at least have mentioned it," said Charlotte. "As a matter of general interest.

You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice, however...." She smiles. "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion of this meeting." I try to hide the shudder that goes through me at the word "execution," my shoulder screaming with pain, and look up at Tobias. It's hard to blink tears back when I see the terror in Tobias's wide, dark eyes. "No," says Tobias. His voice trembles, but his look stern as he shakes his head. "I would rather die." "I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in that matter," replies Jeanine lightly. Tobias takes my face in this hands roughly and kisses me, the pressure of his lips pushing mine apart. I forget my pain and the terror of approaching death and for a moment, I am grateful that the memory of that kiss will be fresh in my mind as I meet my end.

What should I do?" I ask. "You should have a really good excuse. And maybe you should cry -- girls do that, right? And possibly be gravely injured. If she has to fix you, she might go easier on you.

The fight unfolded like background noise. White noise. In the foreground, even with his ghastly pale face looking dead in my hands, my fingers clenching his ragged hair, all I could see was random images of Fang, not dead. Fang telling me stupid fart jokes from the dog crate next to mine at the school, trying to make me laugh. Fang asleep at Jeb's old house, and me jumping wildly on his bed to wake him up. Him pretending to be asleep. Me laughing when I "accidentally" kicked him where it counts. Him dumping me off the bed. Fang gagging on my first attempt at cooking dinner after Jeb disappeared. Him spitting out the mac and cheese. Me dumping the rest of the bowl on him in response. Fang on the beach, that first time he was badly injured. Me realizing how I felt about him. Fang kissing me. So close I couldn't even see his dark eyes anymore. The first time. The second time. The third. I could always remember each and every one of them. Would always remember them. Fang. Not. Dead.

Always. In the twilight of the morphling, Peeta whispers the word and I go searching for him. It's a gauzy, violet-tinted world, with no hard edges, and many places to hide. I push through cloud banks, follow faint tracks, catch the scent of cinnamon, of dill. Once I feel his hand on my cheek and try to trap it, but it dissolves like mist through my fingers. When I finally begin to surface into the sterile hospital room in 13, I remember. I was under the influence of sleep syrup. My heel had been injured after I'd climbed out on a branch over the electric fence and dropped back into 12. Peeta had put me to bed and I had asked him to stay with me as I was drifting off. He had whispered something I couldn't quite catch. But some part of my brain had trapped his single word of reply and let it swim up through my dreams to taunt me now. "Always.

In all the ills that befall us, we are more concerned by the intention than the result. A tile that falls off a roof may injure us more seriously, but it will not wound us so deeply as a stone thrown deliberately by a malevolent hand. The blow may miss, but the intention always strikes home.

Did you think I was sitting on my hands?” “I thought you might be injured.” He looked at me. “We’ve met, you and I?” I deliberately took a big step back. “What?” he growled. “I’m making room for your ego.

Sometimes life isn't about the end. It's not always about tomorrow and the day after that-what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it's about today...Any of us could die tomorrow regardless of the horde. We could get sick or be injured or anything else. That's the risk we take waking up each morning and stepping outside.

The old man’s eyes sparked. “Elan of Ember, you I know, take me to your King.” He paused. “Now!” The old man spoke like a crack of thunder and red lightning flashed from his open hand. The portal gate beside Elan flashed with fire and disappeared. Without thought, Elan’s sword flew to his hand as he made towards the traveller. But again the red fire flashed. The sword glowed and like the gate, it was consumed by the fire. Elan collapsed, clutching the burnt fragments of his sword in his injured hand. “Take him to the King,” he grunted in pain. The guards did so without delay.

Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us? Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is—not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.

Is there a reason you keep coming back injured when I leave you for five seconds, or is it---" His voice carried too loud, and I clapped a hand over his mouth, shutting him up. "Don't flatter yourself," I said quietly. "I'm always getting injured when you're around, too.

She ran her fingers through his soft hair, just once. He leaned in to her hand. 'That feels good,' he mumbled. 'You feel good, too.' He hooked an arm around her waist and drew her on to the bed. 'Jacks- what are you doing?' 'Just for tonight.' He tightened his arm, holding her even closer, until her chest was pressed against his bare skin. 'You're injured,' she breathed. 'This makes me feel better.' He spoke against her throat and finished with a lick that made her head begin to spin. Now would have been a really good time to untangle herself.

Wolf took Scarlet’s hands into his, as tenderly as he would pick up an injured butterfly, and slid the band onto her finger. His voice was rough and wavering as he recited—“I, Ze’ev Kesley, do hereby claim you, Scarlet Benoit, as my wife and my Alpha. Forevermore, you will be my mate, my star, my beginning of everything.” He smiled down at her, his eyes swimming with emotion. Scarlet returned the look, and though Wolf’s expression teetered between proud and bashful, Scarlet’s face contained nothing but joy. “You are the one. You have always been, and you will always be, the only one. Scarlet took the second ring—a significantly larger version of the same unadorned band—and pressed it onto Wolf’s finger. “I, Scarlet Benoit, do hereby claim you, Ze’ev Kesley, as my husband and my Alpha. Forevermore, you will be my mate, my star, my beginning of everything. You are the one. You have always been, and you will always be, the only one.” Wolf folded his hands around hers. From where she sat, Cinder could see that he was shaking. Kai grinned. “By the power given to me by the people of Earth, under the laws of the Earthen Union and as witnessed by those gathered here today, I do now pronounce you husband and wife.” He spread his hands in invitation. “You may kiss your—” Wolf wrapped his arms around Scarlet’s waist, lifting her off the floor, and kissed her before Kai could finish. Or maybe she kissed him. It seemed mutual, as her hands wound through his disheveled hair. The room exploded with cheers, everyone launching to their feet to congratulate the still-kissing couple. Scarlet had lost one of her red shoes. “I’ll get the champagne,” said Thorne, heading toward the kitchen. “Those two are going to be thirsty when they finally come up for air.

I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.

.’..all this talk about your son’s loyalty and fidelity has made me feel a sudden urge to go riding.’ His father scowled. ‘You shouldn't ride in your condition. You could fall from a horse and lose or injure the babe you carry.’ Holding Styxx’s hand in hers, she paused to smile graciously at him. ‘I never said anything about horse, Majesty. It’s your son I intend to mount and ride. Good day.

The former Dark King’s eyes closed again; his chest did not appear to rise. Niall reached out and put a hand on the injured faery’s chest. “Irial!” “Still here.” Irial didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled a little. “You’re an ass,” Niall said, but he kept his hand on Irial’s chest so that he could feel both pulse and breath. “You too, Gancanagh,” Irial murmured.

It felt like being shot with an arrow, and Will jerked back. His wineglass crashed to the floor and shattered. He lurched to his feet, leaning both hands on the table. He was vaguely aware of stares, and the landlords anxious voice in his ear, but the pain was too great to think through, almost too great to breathe through. The tightness in his chest, the one he had thought of as one end of a cord tying him to Jem, had pulled so taut that it was strangling his heart. He stumbled away from his table, pushing through a knot of customers near the bar, and passed to the front door of the inn. All he could think of was air, getting air into his lungs to breathe. He pushed the doors open and half-tumbled out into the night. For a moment the pain in his chest eased, and he fell back against the wall of the inn. Rain was sheeting down, soaking his hair and clothes. He gasped, his heart stuttering with a misture of terror and desperation. Was this just the distance from Jem affecting him? He had never felt anything like this, even when Jem was at his worst, even when he'd been injured and Will had ached with sympathetic pain. The cord snapped. For a moment everything went white, the courtyard bleeching through as if with acid. Will jackknifed to his knees, vomiting up his supper into the mud. When the spasms had passed , he staggard to his feet and blindly away from the inn, as if trying to outpace his own pain. He fetched up against the wall of the stables, beside the horse trough. He dropped to his knees to plunge his hands into the icy water-and saw his own reflection. There was his face, as white as death, and his shirt, and a spreading stain of red across the front. With wet hands he siezed at his lapels and jerked the shirt open. In the dim light that spilled from the inn, he could see that his parabati rune, just over his heart, was bleeding. His hands were covered in blood, blood mixed with rain, the same ran that was washing the blood away from his chest, showing the rune as it began to fade from black to silver, changing all that had been sense in Will's life into nonsense. Jem was dead.

... but eventually I nudged the old bandages in the corner toward me. Once I had them in my hands, I unwound them to their full length. "What are you doing with those?" Roden asked, "You're not injured." "The vigils are forbidden from harming me tonight. Vargan was very clear that I wasn't to come out tomorrow looking like a martyr." My grin widened." But don't worry, Avenia already fell for this trick once before. They love it." "That's your trick?" Roden asked. "Can't you take this seriously?" "If you understood what Vargan's men did to me, you'd know exactly how serious I am." "Hush now," I said. "Imogen needs to sleep, I need to think and you need to... let me think.

Noah was no longer at my side when I turned. He had Kent from algebra pinned against the car. "I should injure you considerably," he said in a low voice "Dude, chill." Kent was completely calm. "Noah," I heard myself say. "Its not worth it." Noah's eyes narrowed, but apon hearing my voice, he released Kent who straightened his shirt and brushed the front of his khakis. "Get fucked, Kent," Noah said as he turned away. The idiot laughed, "Oh, I will." Noah whirled around and I heard the unmistakable impact of knuckles meeting face. Kent was on the concrete, his hands clutching his nose. When he started to get up, Noah said, "I wouldn't. I'm barely above kicking the shit out of you on the ground. Barely." "You broke my nose!" Blood streamed down Kents shirt and a crowd formed a small circle around the three of us. A teacher parted the throng and called out, "Principals office NOW, Shaw." Noah ignored him and walked over to me, inordinately calm. He placed his good hand on the small of my back and my legs threatened to dissolve. The bell rang and I looked at Noah as he leaned in and brushed his lips against my ear. He whispered into my hair, "It was worth it." - The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer

...Were you in the military?" "Are you kidding me? I was in high school." "High school," he said quietly. "You’re American. And a civilian?" "Uh, yes. An American civilian." "Lovely. A straight answer. Keep it up. Did somebody train you?" "No, nobody trained me. Unless you count the Rhode Island child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Why?" Malachi held up his hand and ticked off the reasons with his fingers. "You stole a Guard's weapon. If I'm not mistaken, it belonged to a Gate Guard. Which means you managed to do it on your way into the city. You escaped Amid even after he had you in hand. You slashed his leg in just the right place, preventing him from chasing you. Under extreme duress, injured and cornered, you threw a knife and hit a target-" "It's not like I hit something vital.

He was the only person making his way into the city; he met hundreds and hundreds who were fleeing, and every one of them seemed to be hurt in some way. The eyebrows of some were burned off and skin hung from their faces and hands. Others, because of pain, held their arms up as if carrying something in both hands. Some were vomiting as they walked. Many were naked or in shreds of clothing. On some undressed bodies, the burns had made patterns—of undershirt straps and suspenders and, on the skin of some women (since white repelled the heat from the bomb and dark clothes absorbed it and conducted it to the skin), the shapes of flowers they had had on their kimonos. Many, although injured themselves, supported relatives who were worse off. Almost all had their heads bowed, looked straight ahead, were silent, and showed no expression whatsoever.

He knew he was slipping. Blood was dripping down his arm, through his fingers. He'd faced death before, was no stranger to the sensation of knowing this breath, this one breath, could be the last you drew. But he'd be damned if it would. Not when his woman was watching him with terrified eyes, calling to him, risking her life to save his. He set his teeth, gave his injured arm his weight. Pain swam sickly in his head, into his gut as he reached up to her. And her hand gripped his, firm and strong.

What is a woman’s life? Do not think, because she is not a man, she does not fight. The bedchamber is her tilting ground, where she shows her colours, and her theatre of war is the sealed room where she gives birth. She knows she may not come alive out of that bloody chamber. Before her lying-in, if she is prudent, she settles her affairs. If she dies, she will be lamented and forgotten. If the child dies, she will be blamed. If she lives, she must hide her wounds. Her injuries are secret, and her sisters talk about them behind the hand. It is Eve’s sin, the long continuing punishment it incurred, that tears at her from the inside and shreds her. Whereas we bless an old soldier and give him alms, pitying his blind or limbless state, we do not make heroes of women mangled in the struggle to give birth. If she seems so injured that she can have no more children, we commiserate with her husband.

She was in a sound sleep, Jude, dying of anxiety lest she should have caught a chill which might permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warm flush now rosed her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanging hand was no longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fire regarding her, and saw in her almost a divinity.

There's a proverb, a maxim, that runs, 'The dead man is dead; let's give a hand to the living.' Now, you say that to a man from the North, and he visualizes the scene of an accident with one dead and one injured man; it's reasonable to let the dead man be and to set about saving the injured man. But a Sicilian visualizes a murdered man and his murderer, and the living man who's to be helped is the murderer.

In my mind there is a scale. I do not know how many small lives add up to a big one, or if there is a formula to work it out. How many cats do I have to save? How many dogs? How many injured animals on the road do I have to drag to safety, their blood on my hands, their wild-smelling hair on my clothes?

So he decided to stay out of it and instead turned back to Lady Bridgerton, who was, as it happened, the closest person to him, anyway. “And how are you this afternoon?” he asked. Lady Bridgerton gave him a very small smile as she handed him his cup of tea. “Smart man,” she murmured. “It’s self-preservation, really,” he said noncommittally. “Don’t say that. They wouldn’t hurt you.” “No, but I’m sure to be injured in the cross fire.

Sanity: You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that... I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane. ...there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane. ...No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that. ...I'm the sane one.

You're going to have to take care of yourself," Karrin said quietly. "Over the next few weeks. Rest. Give yourself a chance to heal. Keep the wound on your leg clean. Get to a doctor and get that arm into a proper cast. I know you can't feel it, but it's important that--" I stood, leaned over the bed, and kissed her on the mouth. Her words dissolved into a soft sound that vibrated against my lips. Then her good arm slid around my neck, and there wasn't any sound at all. It was a long kiss. A slow kiss. A good one. I didn't draw away until it came to its end. I didn't open my eyes for a moment after. "...oh...," she said in a small voice. Her hand slid down my arm to lie upon mine. "We do crazy things for love," I said quietly, and turned my hand over, fingers curling around hers.

Here. Tea.” Reagan hands me a steaming mug. One sip tells me it’s not just tea. “You spiked the drink of an injured person,” I state flatly, the alcohol burning in my throat. “Who does that?” “It’s better than what a lame horse gets,

I tend the mobile now like an injured bird We text, text, text our significant words. I re-read your first, your second, your third, look for your small xx, feeling absurd. The codes we send arrive with a broken chord. I try to picture your hands, their image is blurred. Nothing my thumbs press will ever be heard. "Text

As I’m heading back to the ER, my hands shaking from both nerves and anticipation, it occurs to me how much I’m aching to hear his voice again. To brush my thumbs across his cheek and feel the sexy stubble that always seems to be there. I’m dying to tell him about the man with no one to call and make sure he knows that no matter what, when he’s forty and injured in the ER, he can call me. He can always call me. Is this what love is?

When a worker is injured at an IBP plant in Texas, he or she is immediately presented with a waiver. Signing the waiver means forever surrendering the right to sue IBP on any grounds. Workers who sign the waiver may receive medical care under IBP's Workplace Injury Settlement Program. Or they may not. Once workers sign, IBP and its company-approved doctors have control over the job-related medical treatment - for life. Under the program's terms, seeking treatment from an independent physician can be grounds for losing all medical benefits. Workers who refuse to sign the IBP waiver not only risk getting no medical care from the company, but also risk being fired on the spot...Injured workers almost always sign the waiver. The pressure to do so is immense. An IBP medical case manager will literally bring the waiver to a hospital emergency room in order to obtain an injured worker's signature. When Lonita Leal's right hand was mangled by a hamburger grinder at the IBP plant in Amarillo, a case manager talked her into signing the waiver with her left hand as she waited in the hospital for surgery. When Duane Mullin had both hands crushed in a hammer mill at the same plant, an IBP representative persuaded him to sign the waiver with a pen held in his mouth.

Do you think being witty when I have your hands bound is the wisest choice, Elise?” “Are you asking if I’m pleased to injure your pride by not groveling for my life at your feet? Yes, absolutely.

Very good, brother. I am impressed. You have gotten stronger, but you are not strong enough.” Brother? The word made Mina’s knees weak with relief. It couldn’t be—could it? He said he would never come. That he couldn’t come. She couldn’t help herself; she yelled out his name. “Jared!” The giant’s head turned to her, his eyes looking very human and every ounce Jared. He had one hand over a deep wound in his side, and he was slowly falling to his knees. She heard him call out her name—“Meehna!”—and then he fell forward onto the marble. But when he finally crashed into the ground, he was completely human and injured.

Character is much easier kept than recovered, and that man, if any such there be, who, from sinister views, or littleness of soul, lends unseen his hand to injure it, contrives a wound it will never be in his power to heal.

Many jocular comments followed, as did another onslaught of "heil Hitlering." You know, it actually makes me wonder if anyone ever lost an eye or injured a hand or wrist with all of that. You'd only need to be facing the wrong way at the wrong time or stand marginally too close to another person. Perhaps people did get injured. Personally, I can only tell you that no one died from it, or at least, not physically. There was, of course, the matter of forty million people I picked up by the time the whole thing was finished, but that's getting all metaphoric.

She needed to stand, but her body felt strangely heavy, as if invisible weights were tugging on her limbs. Gravity here felt different, harsher—or was she injured? Glass placed her hand on her shin and gasped. Her legs were wet.

The ground trembled. “Okay, so you’ve blown something. “If you’ve killed Felicity, you’d better brace yourself for the hellscape I’m going to rain down on your nasty little heads.” He checked the data gathered by the spider droid in the one remaining exit. He had to hand it to these daemons—he was now certain Bast wasn’t here—they were damned good at concealment. There were at least two in this tunnel, possibly more, and he couldn’t be sure he’d trapped, injured or killed those covering the exits he’d just destroyed. No worries, he still had a couple of toys in his arsenal.

Still, injuring Venka was no easy task. More by sheer luck than anything, Rin managed to land a blow early on in the match. Venka, underestimating Rin’s speed, had brought her guard back up too slowly after an attempted left hook. Rin took the opening and whipped a backhand through at Venka’s nose. Bone broke under Rin’s fist with an audible crack. Venka immediately retreated. One hand flew to her face, groping around her swelling nose. She glanced down at her blood-covered fingers and then back up at Rin. Her nostrils flared. Her cheeks turned a ghastly white. “Problem?” Rin asked. The look Venka gave her was pure murder. “You shouldn’t even be here,” she snarled. “Tell that to your nose,” Rin said.

Straight up, Mels, the only reason I haven't completely jumped you is because I can't. I...can't." He threw up his free hand and let it fall back down to the bedspread. "And you know what sucks? I've been with a lot of women." Annnnnnnd that made her chest hurt. "Before you were injured..." He nodded. "Of all the things for my memory to come back on, right?" Cue another kick in the solar plexus. "You remember them?" "I hate it– because I would trade every single random fuck for just one night with you." He brushed her face with his fingertips and then brought his thumb to her mouth. With the same gentle pressure he'd put against her wrist, he caressed her lower lip. "I'd give up every one of them. Matter of fact, it feels like...a curse to have finally found someone like you, only to have it be too late. And that's where it's at. It's too late for me, Mels, and that's how you're killing me. When I look at you, when I see you move, when you smile or take a deep breath, I just... I die a little. Every time.

My, my, it’s a surprise to see Mr. Braddock here,” Mr. Kent said, a hint of acrimony lacing his voice. “Yes, it is.” He leaned in confidentially. “Perhaps he’s come to apologize. Or maybe that also needs to be done in his bedroom.” I strained to keep a whisper. “You know very well why I was in his bedroom! He was injured, and I needed to check on him.” “No one is going to make an exception for that where your reputation is concerned.” “I had other concerns at the time.” He put his hand on his chest. “I’m feeling quite injured myself. Perhaps we might—” “Mr. Kent! This is not an appropriate place for that kind of talk!” “Very well,” he said. “If you wish to speak about it somewhere much more inappropriate, just say the word.

I wanted you to kiss me, Jack," I say, bereft. It's not as if he isn't aware what I wanted back there; to be coy would be pointless. "I don't like myself for it." He strokes my hair, cups my chin, looks me in the eyes. "If I tell you something, do you promise to never tell another living soul, not even a goldfish?" I swallow, eye to eye with him as I nod, and he takes my face between both of his hands. Whatever he's about to say, I think it's something I'm going to remember forever. "I wanted to kiss you back there in the pub, Laurie, and I want to kiss you even more right now. You're one of the loveliest people I've ever met in my whole life." He looks away, down the length of the deserted street and then back at me again. "You're beautiful and kind, and you make me laugh, and when you look at me like that with your summer hedgerow eyes...only a fucking saint wouldn't kiss you." Then he leans me against the wall with the weight of his body, and because he isn't a fucking saint, he kisses me. Jack O'Mara dips his head and kisses me in the snow, his lips trembling and then hot and sure, and I'm crying and kissing him back, opening my mouth to let his tongue slide over mine as he makes this low, injured animal noise in his throat. I feel the relief of him in every follicle of my hair, and in every cell of my body, and in the blood in my veins. His breathing is as shallow as mine, and it's so much more than I've ever imagined, and trust me, I used to let my imagination run riot where Jack O'Mara was concerned. He holds my face as if I'm precious and then pushes his fingers into my hair, cupping my head in his hands when I tip it back. This is the only time we will ever kiss each other. He knows it, I know it, and it's so achingly melancholy-sexy that I feel tears threaten again.

Dad was standing in front of the big windows when I got to the library, his hands clasped behind his back in the classic "I am so disappointed in my offspring" pose. "Dad? Um,Lara said you wanted to see me." He turned around, his mouth a hard line. "Yes.Did you have a nice time with Daisy and Nick last night?" I fought the urge to reach into my pocket and touch the coin. "Not particularly." He didn't say anything, so we just stared at each other until I started feeling fidgety. "Look, if you're going to punish me, I'd really rather just get it over with." Dad kept staring. "Would you like to know how I spent my evening? Well, not evening, really, so much as very early morning hours." Inwardly, I groaned. Mrs. Casnoff sometimes pulled this maneuver: she'd say she wasn't mad, and then proceeded to list all the ways my screwup had inconvenience her. Maybe they taught it at those fancy schools nonreject Prodigium got to go to. "Sure." "I spent those hours on the phone. Do you know with whom?" "One of those psychic hotlines?" Dad gritted his teeth. "If only. No, I was busy assuring no less than thiry influential witches, warlocks, shifters, and faeries that surely, my daughter-the future head of the Council, I should add-had not injured over a dozen innocent Prodigum while attempting to escape a nightclub during a raid by L'Occhio di Dio." "I didn't hurt them!" I exclaimed. Then I remembered just how hard they had hit the wall, and winced. "Well, not on purpose," I amended.

He looked like he wanted to say something but his jaw tensed and instead he let his hand travel from my elbow to my hand, the strong pulse from his fingers like a balm to my injured soul. I raised our entwined hands and placed them over the steady thumping of his heart a twin of the rhythm in my own chest. I pressed my head to his chest letting the steady pace of his heart and his citrusy, musky scent envelop me, lull me into a place of security. A place safe enough that I didn’t have to pretend I was okay. I failed to sniff back the tears that began to leak from me.

there. Before they eat my brain and start heading for my heart.” He whimpered, a sound that seemed to Mark more like it would come from an injured dog than from a human. “What symptoms are you feeling?” Lana asked. “What happened to Misty?” Mark watched as the Toad raised his hands up and pressed them against the sides of his head. Even his silhouette was creepy doing such a thing.

When she called for a couple of her friends who’d also been injured to come over, I quickly handed Declan back to Sydney. “You two stay out of sight,” I whispered. A baby and an ex-Alchemist were too memorable, and that was the last thing we needed right now. Sydney complied, hastily getting away from my fan club and me, with Dimitri shadowing her. “Meet at the car,” he called back.

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us." And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us." The tired and the weary say, "Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow." But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions." At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east." And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, "We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset." In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills." And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair." All these things have you said of beauty, Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar. Alice folded her hands, and began:— 'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head— Do you think, at your age, it is right?' 'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.

Coleridge’s description of Iago’s actions as "motiveless malignancy" applies in some degree to all the Shakespearian villains. The adjective motiveless means, firstly, that the tangible gains, if any, are clearly not the principal motive, and, secondly, that the motive is not the desire for personal revenge upon another for a personal injury. Iago himself proffers two reasons for wishing to injure Othello and Cassio. He tells Roderigo that, in appointing Cassio to be his lieutenant, Othello has treated him unjustly, in which conversation he talks like the conventional Elizabethan malcontent. In his soliloquies with himself, he refers to his suspicion that both Othello and Cassio have made him a cuckold, and here he talks like the conventional jealous husband who desires revenge. But there are, I believe, insuperable objections to taking these reasons, as some critics have done, at their face value.

Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind That lightly letteth go what others prize; And equanimity, and charity Which spieth no man's faults; and tenderness Towards all that suffer; a contented heart, Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild, Modest, and grave, with manhood nobly mixed, With patience, fortitude, and purity; An unrevengeful spirit, never given To rate itself too high;--such be the signs, O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth! Deceitfulness, and arrogance, and pride, Quickness to anger, harsh and evil speech, And ignorance, to its own darkness blind,-- These be the signs, My Prince! of him whose birth Is fated for the regions of the vile.

As for Iago’s jealousy, one cannot believe that a seriously jealous man could behave towards his wife as Iago behaves towards Emilia, for the wife of a jealous husband is the first person to suffer. Not only is the relation of Iago and Emilia, as we see it on stage, without emotional tension, but also Emilia openly refers to a rumor of her infidelity as something already disposed of. Some such squire it was That turned your wit, the seamy side without And made you to suspect me with the Moor. At one point Iago states that, in order to revenge himself on Othello, he will not rest till he is even with him, wife for wife, but, in the play, no attempt at Desdemona’s seduction is made. Iago does not encourage Cassio to make one, and he even prevents Roderigo from getting anywhere near her. Finally, one who seriously desires personal revenge desires to reveal himself. The revenger’s greatest satisfaction is to be able to tell his victim to his face – "You thought you were all-powerful and untouchable and could injure me with impunity. Now you see that you were wrong. Perhaps you have forgotten what you did; let me have the pleasure of reminding you." When at the end of the play, Othello asks Iago in bewilderment why he has thus ensnared his soul and body, if his real motive were revenge for having been cuckolded or unjustly denied promotion, he could have said so, instead of refusing to explain.

Curran spared me half a second of his hard stare. “Even if you thought I was in the Guild, what did you think I was doing while the giant was tearing it up? Did you think I was sitting on my hands?” “I thought you might be injured.” He looked at me. “We’ve met, you and I?” I deliberately took a big step back. “What?” he growled. “I’m making room for your ego.” “Fine. I should’ve left a note!” “You should’ve.” “Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go ‘Wheee!’ and run toward it?” “She ran toward it,” Juke quipped. “He was biting people in half.” “I rest my case,” Curran said. “A note wouldn’t have made any difference.” Note or not, I didn’t care. I was just happy he was alive.

I usually enjoy setting up a new kitchen, but this has become a joyless and highly charged task. My mother and I each have our own set of kitchen boxes, which means that if there are two cheese graters between us, only one will make it into a cupboard. The other will be put back in a box or given to Goodwill. Each such little decision has the weight of a Middle East negotiation. While her kitchenware is serviceable, I’m a sucker for the high end: All-Clad saucepans and Emile Henry pie dishes. Before long, I’m shaking my head at pretty much everything my mother removes from her San Diego boxes. She takes each rejected item as a personal slight – which in fact it is. I begrudge her even her lightweight bowls, which she can lift easily with her injured hand. Here she is, a fragile old woman barely able to bend down as she peers into a low cupboard, looking for a place where she can share life with her grown daughter. At such a sight my heart should be big, but it’s small, so small that when I see her start stuffing her serving spoons into the same drawer as my own sturdy pieces, lovingly accumulated over the years, it makes me crazy. Suddenly I’m acting out decades of unvoiced anger about my mother’s parenting, which seems to be materializing in the form of her makeshift collection of kitchenware being unpacked into my drawers. When I became a mother myself, I developed a self-righteous sense of superiority to my mother: I was better than my mother, for having successfully picked myself up and dusted myself off, for never having lain in bed for days on end, too blotto to get my child off to school or even to know if it was a school day. By sheer force of will and strength of character, I believed, I had risen above all that she succumbed to and skirted all that I might have inherited. This, of course, is too obnoxiously smug to say in words. So I say it with flatware.

Marius made a movement. 'Oh, don't go!' she said. 'It won't be long.' She was sitting almost upright, but her voice was very low and broken by hiccoughs. At moments she struggled for breath. Raising her face as near as she could to Marius', she said, with a strange expression: 'Look, I can't cheat you. I have a letter for you in my pocket. I've had it since yesterday. I was asked to post it, but I didn't. I didn't want you to get it. But you might be angry with me when we meet again. Because we shall all meet again, shan't we? Take your letter.' With a convulsive movement she seized Marius' hand with her own injured one, but without seeming to feel the pain, and guided it to her pocket. 'Take it,' she said. Marius took out the letter, and she made a little gesture of satisfaction and acceptance. 'Now you must promise me something for my trouble...' She paused. 'What?' asked Marius. 'Do you promise?' 'Yes, I promise.' 'You must kiss me on the forehead after I'm dead...I shall know.' She let her head fall back on his knees; her lids fluttered, and then she was motionless. He thought that the sad soul had left her. But then, when he thought it was all over, she slowly opened her eyes that were now deep with the shadow of death, and said in a voice so sweet that it seemed already to come from another world: 'You know, Monsieur Marius, I think I was a little bit in love with you.' She tried to smile, and died.

Sit on my lap, Dewdrop. All the way.” Callum's gaze on me means business, his grip on my waist tightening.  “I’m heavy, I don’t want to hurt you.” My attempt to brush him off isn’t successful, and his hands take my hips firmly.  “I can take you. All of you.”  Still shaking my head, I fight to remain raised. “You’re injured, I’ll crush you.”  One of Callum's hands moves from my waist to guide my chin until my eyes meet his. The intent in his gaze leaves no room for argument when he speaks.  “So crush me.

My recommendation is to keep up the good work. I’m changing your title to senior executive assistant, and giving you a three percent raise effective next payday. Congratulations.” Wow, three percent. I could move up that early retirement plan to age seventy-five now, instead of eighty. Lucky me. Thank you,” I said. “That’s very generous.” You’re quite welcome.” Ms. Saunders nodded and grabbed a gold-plated letter opener to begin attacking her stack of mail. I turned to leave. Didn’t want to outstay my welcome. Damn it!” she exclaimed, and I turned back around. She winced and nodded at the letter opener that she’d dropped to her desktop. “Damn thing slipped. I’m probably going to need stitches now. Can you be a dear and fetch the first-aid kit for me?” She held her left index finger and frowned at the steady flow of blood oozing out. A few small drops of red splashed onto the other letters spread out on the desk. I felt woozy. And suddenly dizzy. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer standing by the door about to leave. I was crouched down next to Ms. Saunders’s imported black leather chair, grasping her wrist tightly…… and sucking noisily on her fingertip. I shrieked and let go of her, staggering backward. I grabbed at her desk to keep from falling, but I dropped on my butt, anyhow, taking most of the contents of the top of her desk with me. She held her injured finger far away from her and stared at me, wide-eyed, with a mixture of shock and disgust. I scrambled to my feet and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. What in the holy hell just happened? I… I… uh… I’m so sorry,” I managed. “I don’t know what… I wouldn’t normally do something… I just…” Ms. Saunders pulled her hand close to her chest, perhaps to protect it from further abuse. Get out,” she said quietly. Yeah, I’ll get back to work. Again, I’m so, so sorry. Would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee?” No, not to your desk,” she said evenly, but her volume increased with every word. “Get out of here, you freak. I don’t care what you’ve heard, I’m not into women. You’re fired. Now get out of here before I call security.” But… my job review—” Get out!” she yelled.

I felt a warm hand touch mine. “Are you okay?” “If you mean am I injured, then the answer is no. If you mean am I ‘okay’ as in am-I-confident-I’m-still-sane, the answer is still no.” Ren frowned. “We have to find a way to get across the chasm.” “You’re certainly welcome to give it a try.” I waved him off and went back to drinking my water. He moved to the edge and peered across, looking speculatively at the distance. Changing back to a tiger, he trotted a few paces back in the direction we had come from, turned, and ran at full speed toward the hole. “Ren, no!” I screamed. He leapt, clearing the hole easily, and landed lightly on his front paws. Then he trotted a short distance away and did the same thing to come back. He landed at my feet and changed back to human form. “Kells, I have an idea.” “Oh, this I’ve got to hear. I just hope you don’t plan on including me in this scheme of yours. Ah. Let me guess. I know. You want to tie a rope to your tail, leap across, tie it off, and then have me pull my body across the rope, right?” He cocked his head as if considering it, and then shook his head. “No, you don’t have the strength to do something like that. Plus, we have no rope and nothing to tie a rope to.” “Right. So what’s the plan?” He held my hands and explained. “What I’m proposing will be much easier. Do you trust me?” I was going to be sick. “I trust you. It’s just-“ I looked into his concerned blue eyes and sighed. “Okay, what do I have to do?” “You saw that I was able to clear the gap pretty well as a tiger, right? So what I need you to do is to stand right at the edge and wait for me. I’ll run to the end of the tunnel, build up speed, and leap as a tiger. At the same time, I want you to jump up and grab me around my neck. I’ll change to a man in midair so that I can hold onto you, and we’ll fall together to the other side.” I snorted noisily and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” He ignored my skepticism. “We’ll have to time it precisely, and you’ll have to jump too, in the same direction, because if you don’t, I’ll just hit you full power and drive us both over the edge.” “You’re serious? You seriously want me to do this?” “Yes, I’m serious. Now stand here while I make a few practice runs.” “Can’t we just find another corridor or something?” “There aren’t any. This is the right way.” Reluctantly, I stood near the edge and watched him leap back and forth a few times. Observing the rhythm of his running and jumping, I began to grasp the idea of what he wanted me to do. All too quickly Ren was back in front of me again. “I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this. Are you sure?” I asked. “Yes, I’m sure. Are you ready?” “No! Give me a minute to mentally write a last will and testament.” “Kells, it’ll be fine.” “Sure it will. Alright, let me take in my surroundings. I want to make sure I can record every minute of this experience in my journal. Of course, that’s probably a moot point because I’m assuming that I’m going to die in the jump anyway.” Ren put his hand on my cheek, looked in my eyes, and said fiercely, “Kelsey, trust me. I will not let you fall.

The thing that injured you often becomes a piece of your purpose in life. There are two privileges. The privilege of worldly access: the world being made for you, of wealth and whiteness and a runway of ease. And its opposite, the privilege of spiritual access: the world not being made for you, the forced awakening of the inner eye, the hard hand and invitation to see the world clearly. The first is a privilege that blesses you early and hurts you late. In the end, it robs you of the invitation to wisdom and harmony. The other hurts you early and blesses you in time.

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me; not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. [A] To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.

When the football is handed to the ball carrier, everyone counts on that guy gaining a down or getting into the end zone, and when he does the crowd goes wild. But those who carry another’s burden, by helping out a weak or injured brother or sister, make a real difference and score points with God.

Jasu offers a weak smile to the taunting men, but Kavita sees the pain in his eyes. She sees the injured pride, the shame, the disappointment she knows he feels. In this moment, witnessing him in his messy, helpless state, Kavita feels her anger and fear washed away by sorrow. All this time, Jasu has had only one goal above all else, to provide for his family. And over the last twenty years, it seems as if God has been dreaming up one cruel complication after another to keep him from even this modest goal. The poor harvests back in Dahanu, the illusive dhaba-wallah job, the bicycle factory raid, the moneylender, and now his broken hand, dangling limply at his side as he tries to stand. Kavita rushes over to help him. “Come, Jasu-ji,” she says, using the respectful term of address for her husband. “You wanted me to tell you when dinner was ready. I’ve made all your favorites—bhindi masala, khadi, laddoo.

Elegy on Toy Piano" For Kenneth Koch You don't need a pony to connect you to the unseeable or an airplane to connect you to the sky. Necessary it is to love to live and there are many manuals but in all important ways one is on one's own. You need not cut off your hand. No need to eat a bouquet. Your head becomes a peach pit. Your tongue a honeycomb. Necessary it is to live to love, to charge into the burning tower then charge back out and necessary it is to die. Even for the trees, even for the pony connecting you to what can't be grasped. The injured gazelle falls behind the herd. One last wild enjambment. Because of the sores in his mouth, the great poet struggles with a dumpling. His work has enlarged the world but the world is about to stop including him. He is the tower the world runs out of. When something becomes ash, there's nothing you can do to turn it back. About this, even diamonds do not lie.

Drink," he said. I pressed my mouth to the wound, first lapping up the blood as it flowed out, and then sucking deeply from it. I had only tasted blood a few times before, when I had sucked on an injured fingertip. The blood I now imbibed was nothing like the mild, slightly salty liquid that ran in my own veins. Dracula's blood was delicious. It tasted like a deep, rich, full-bodied wine, with a dark, delectable tang. It was ambrosia; I felt as if I could not get enough of it. As I drank, I heard him give an ecstatic little moan. His hand cradled the back of my head and held it there, urging me to continue, while his other hand found and clasped both my hands lovingly in his.

If someone treads on my hand accidentally, while trying to help me, the pain may be no less acute than if he treads on it in contemptuous disregard of my existence or with a malevolent wish to injure me. But I shall generally feel in the second case a kind and degree of resentment that I shall not feel in the first. If someone's actions help me to some benefit I desire, then I am benefited in any case; but if he intended them so to benefit me because of his general goodwill towards me, I shall reasonably feel a gratitude which I should not feel at all if the benefit was an accidental consequence unintended or even regretted by him, of some plan of action with a different aim.

Gray rested his hand on Aric’s knee. “Sacrificed yourself, j-just like the giants.” “But I didn’t mean to! It’s only… the prince fell over the cliff, and I didn’t think at all, I just moved. I was the tallest and the strongest. I don’t think anyone else could have reached him in time. He was injured pretty badly. But I wasn’t a hero. I saw something that needed to be done, and I did it.” With a low chuckle, Gray squeezed his knee. “Th-that’s what heroes do, Aric.” “But I’m not—” “You s-saved me.” Aric shook his head and then gave a little tug on the chain that attached Gray’s collar to the floor. “You’re still a prisoner.” “You saved me,” Gray repeated firmly to Aric. And then he kissed him.

A heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon us. As a people, we feel ourselves to be not only deeply injured, but grossly misunderstood. Our white countrymen do not know us. They are strangers to our character, ignorant of our capacity, oblivious to our history and progress, and are misinformed as to the principles and ideas that control and guide us, as a people. The great mass of American citizens estimates us as being a characterless and purposeless people; and hence we hold up our heads, if at all, against the withering influence of a nation’s scorn and contempt.1 —Frederick Douglass, in a statement on behalf of delegates to the National Colored Convention held in Rochester, New York, in July 1853

But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.

My turn,” Anthony barked. He gave the pink ball a disdainful glance, then gave it a good whack. It sailed splendidly over the grass, only to slam into a tree and drop like a stone to the ground. “Brilliant!” Colin exclaimed, getting ready to take his turn. Anthony muttered a few things under his breath, none of which were suitable for gentle ears. Colin sent the yellow ball toward the first wicket, then stepped aside to let Kate try her hand. “Might I have a practice swing?” she inquired. “No.” It was a rather loud no, coming, as it did, from three mouths. “Very well,” she grumbled. “Stand back, all of you. I won’t be held responsible if I injure anyone on the first try.” She drew back on her mallet with all her might and slammed it into the ball. It sailed through the air in a rather impressive arc, then smacked into the same tree that had foiled Anthony and plopped on the ground right next to his ball. “Oh, dear,” Daphne said, setting her aim by drawing back on her mallet a few times without actually hitting the ball. “Why ‘oh, dear’?” Kate asked worriedly, not reassured by the duchess’s faintly pitying smile. “You’ll see.” Daphne took her turn, then marched off in the direction of her ball. Kate looked over at Anthony. He looked very, very pleased with the current state of affairs. “What are you going to do to me?” she asked. He leaned forward devilishly. “What am I not going to do to you might be a more appropriate question.

For three days and three nights, Phædrus stares at the wall of the bedroom, his thoughts moving neither forward nor backward, staying only at the instant. His wife asks if he is sick, and he does not answer. His wife becomes angry, but Phædrus listens without responding. He is aware of what she says but is no longer able to feel any urgency about it. Not only are his thoughts slowing down, but his desires too. And they slow and slow, as if gaining an imponderable mass. So heavy, so tired, but no sleep comes. He feels like a giant, a million miles tall. He feels himself extending into the universe with no limit. He begins to discard things, encumbrances that he has carried with him all his life. He tells his wife to leave with the children, to consider themselves separated. Fear of loathsomeness and shame disappear when his urine flows not deliberately but naturally on the floor of the room. Fear of pain, the pain of the martyrs is overcome when cigarettes burn not deliberately but naturally down into his fingers until they are extinguished by blisters formed by their own heat. His wife sees his injured hands and the urine on the floor and calls for help. But before help comes, slowly, imperceptibly at first, the entire consciousness of Phædrus begins to come apart — to dissolve and fade away. Then gradually he no longer wonders what will happen next. He knows what will happen next, and tears flow for his family and for himself and for this world.

He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears. All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear. My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down. Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did." Pandora paused, unwilling to relate any of the distasteful details of her ear suppurating and draining. She glanced cautiously at Gabriel, whose face was averted. He was no longer playing with her braid. His hand had clenched around it until the muscles of his forearms and wrist stood out. "Even after I recovered from the fever," Pandora said, "the hearing didn't come back all the way. But the worst part was that I kept losing my balance, especially at night. It made me afraid of the dark. Ever since then-" She stopped as Gabriel lifted his head. His face was hard and murderous, the hellfrost in his eyes frightening her more than her father's fury ever had. "That bloody son of a bitch," he said softly. "If he were still alive, I'd beat him with a thresher's flail." Pandora reached out with a fluttering motion, patting the air near him. "No," she said breathlessly, "no, I wouldn't want that. I hated him for a long time, but now I feel sorry for him." Gabriel caught her hand in midair, swift but gentle, as if it were a bird he wanted to hold without injuring. His eyes had dilated until she could see reflections of herself in the dark centers. "Why?" he whispered after a long moment. "Because hurting me was the only way to hide his own pain.

BEGIN the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me, not only of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.

Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I, who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me, not only of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in the same intelligence and the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.

The news that she had gone of course now spread rapidly, and by lunch time Riseholme had made up its mind what to do, and that was hermetically to close its lips for ever on the subject of Lucia. You might think what you pleased, for it was a free country, but silence was best. But this counsel of perfection was not easy to practice next day when the evening paper came. There, for all the world to read were two quite long paragraphs, in "Five o'clock Chit-Chat," over the renowned signature of Hermione, entirely about Lucia and 25 Brompton Square, and there for all the world to see was the reproduction of one of her most elegant photographs, in which she gazed dreamily outwards and a little upwards, with her fingers still pressed on the last chord of (probably) the Moonlight Sonata. . . . She had come up, so Hermione told countless readers, from her Elizabethan country seat at Riseholme (where she was a neighbour of Miss Olga Bracely) and was settling for the season in the beautiful little house in Brompton Square, which was the freehold property of her husband, and had just come to him on the death of his aunt. It was a veritable treasure house of exquisite furniture, with a charming music-room where Lucia had given Hermione a cup of tea from her marvellous Worcester tea service. . . . (At this point Daisy, whose hands were trembling with passion, exclaimed in a loud and injured voice, "The very day she arrived!") Mrs. Lucas (one of the Warwickshire Smythes by birth) was, as all the world knew, a most accomplished musician and Shakespearean scholar, and had made Riseholme a centre of culture and art. But nobody would suspect the blue stocking in the brilliant, beautiful and witty hostess whose presence would lend an added gaiety to the London season.

But be sure of this, Peter: that those who do wrong make a mistake when they think no one knows anything about it. For God sees and hears everything, and when the wicked doer tries to hide what he has done, then God wakes up a little watchman that He places inside us all when we are born and who sleeps on quietly till we do something wrong. And the little watchman has a small goad in his hand, And when he wakes up he keeps on pricking us with it, so that we have not a moment's peace. And the watchman torments us still further, for he keeps on calling out, 'Now you will be found out! Now they will drag you off to punishment!' And so we pass our life in fear and trouble, and never know a moment's happiness or peace. Have you not felt something like that lately, Peter?" Peter gave a contrite nod of the head, as one who knew all about it, for grandmamma had described his own feelings exactly. "And you calculated wrongly also in another way," continued grandmamma, "for you see the harm you intended has turned out for the best for those you wished to hurt. As Clara had no chair to go in and yet wanted so much to see the flowers, she made the effort to walk, and every day since she has been walking better and better, and if she remains up here she will in time be able to go up the mountain every day, much oftener than she would have done in her chair. So you see, Peter, God is able to bring good out of evil for those whom you meant to injure, and you who did the evil were left to suffer the unhappy consequences of it. Do you thoroughly understand all I have said to you, Peter? If so, do not forget my words, and whenever you feel inclined to do anything wrong, think of the little watchman inside you with his goad and his disagreeable voice. Will you remember all this?

This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing. His success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet suggests that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality—kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy—can also

This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing. His success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet suggests that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality—kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy—can also be impressive political resources.

She asked, “Are you well?” “Yes.” His voice was a deep rasp. “Are you?” She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. “Sir, you’re…er, you’re rather heavy.” Surely he could not fail to miss that hint. He replied, “You’re soft.” Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her? “You have a small wound.” With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. “Here.” She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips. “Ah. That’s nice.” Her face blazed with heat. “Are you seeing double?” “Perhaps. I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeks…a thousand freckles.” She stared at him. “Don’t concern yourself, miss. It’s nothing.” His gaze darkened with some mysterious intent. “Nothing a little kiss won’t mend.” And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers. A kiss. His mouth, touching hers. It was warm and firm, and then…it was over. Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat. Just a memory now, save for the faint bite of whiskey on her lips. And the heat. She still tasted his scorching, masculine heat. Belatedly, she closed her eyes. “There, now,” he murmured. “All better.” Better? Worse? The darkness behind her eyelids held no answers, so she opened them again. Different. This strange, strong man held her in his protective embrace, and she was lost in his intriguing green stare, and his kiss reverberated in her bones with more force than a powder blast. And now she felt different. The heat and weight of him…they were like an answer. The answer to a question Susanna hadn’t even been aware her body was asking. So this was how it would be, to lie beneath a man. To feel shaped by him, her flesh giving in some places and resisting in others. Heat building between two bodies; dueling heartbeats pounding both sides of the same drum. Maybe…just maybe…this was what she’d been waiting to feel all her life. Not swept her off her feet-but flung across the lane and sent tumbling head over heels while the world exploded around her. He rolled onto his side, giving her room to breathe. “Where did you come from?” “I think I should ask you that.” She struggled up on one elbow. “Who are you? What on earth are you doing here?” “Isn’t it obvious?” His tone was grave. “We’re bombing the sheep.” “Oh. Oh dear. Of course you are.” Inside her, empathy twined with despair. Of course, he was cracked in the head. One of those poor soldiers addled by war. She ought to have known it. No sane man had ever looked at her this way. She pushed aside her disappointment. At least he had come to the right place. And landed on the right woman. She was far more skilled in treating head wounds than fielding gentlemen’s advances. The key here was to stop thinking of him as an immense, virile man and simply regard him as a person who needed her help. An unattractive, poxy, eunuch sort of person. Reaching out to him, she traced one fingertip over his brow. “Don’t be frightened,” she said in a calm, even tone. “All is well. You’re going to be just fine.” She cupped his cheek and met his gaze directly. “The sheep can’t hurt you here.

Do you know what day it is?” she asked, peering at him. “Don’t you?” “Here in Spindle Cove, we ladies have a schedule. Mondays are country walks. Tuesdays, sea bathing. Wednesdays, you’d find us in the garden.” She touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “What is it we do on Mondays?” “We didn’t get to Thursdays.” “Thursdays are irrelevant. I’m testing your ability to recall information. Do you remember Mondays?” He stifled a laugh. God, her touch felt good. If she kept petting and stroking him like this, he might very well go mad. “Tell me your name,” he said. “I promise to recall it.” A bit forward, perhaps. But any chance for formal introductions had already fallen casualty to the powder charge. Speaking of the powder charge, here came the brilliant mastermind of the sheep siege. Damn his eyes. “Are you well, miss?” Colin asked. “I’m well,” she answered. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same for your friend.” “Bram?” Colin prodded him with a boot. “You look all of a piece.” No thanks to you. “He’s completely addled, the poor soul.” The girl patted his cheek. “Was it the war? How long has he been like this?” “Like this?” Colin smirked down at him. “Oh, all his life.” “All his life?” “He’s my cousin. I should know.” A flush pressed to her cheeks, overwhelming her freckles. “If you’re his cousin, you should take better care of him. What are you thinking, allowing him to wander the countryside, waging war on flocks of sheep?” Ah, that was sweet. The lass cared. She would see him settled in a very comfortable asylum, she would. Perhaps Thursdays would be her day to visit and lay cool cloths to his brow. “I know, I know,” Colin replied gravely. “He’s a certifiable fool. Completely unstable. Sometimes the poor bastard even drools. But the hell of it is, he controls my fortune. Every last penny. I can’t tell him what to do.” “That’ll be enough,” Bram said. Time to put a stop to this nonsense. It was one thing to enjoy a moment’s rest and a woman’s touch, and another to surrender all pride. He gained his feet without too much struggle and helped her to a standing position, too. He managed a slight bow. “Lieutenant Colonel Victor Bramwell. I assure you, I’m in possession of perfect health, a sound mind, and one good-for-nothing cousin.” “I don’t understand,” she said. “Those blasts…” “Just powder charges. We embedded them in the road, to scare off the sheep.” “You laid black powder charges. To move a flock of sheep.” Pulling her hand from his grip, she studied the craters in the road. “Sir, I remain unconvinced of your sanity. But there’s no question you are male.” He raised a brow. “That much was never in doubt.” Her only answer was a faint deepening of her blush. “I assure you, all the lunacy is my cousin’s. Lord Payne was merely teasing, having a bit of sport at my expense.” “I see. And you were having a bit of sport at my expense, pretending to be injured.” “Come, now.” He leaned forward her and murmured, “Are you going to pretend you didn’t enjoy it?” Her eyebrows lifted. And lifted, until they formed perfect twin archer’s bows, ready to dispatch poison-tipped darts. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.

Travis?” Her voice came out scratchy and cracked. “What are you doing in my room?” Those eyes—not quite green, not quite brown—crinkled at the corners. “I’m not in your room, darlin’. You’re in mine.” What? Maybe she was still dreaming. That would explain why Travis was here and why nothing was making a lick of sense. But the throbbing behind her ear seemed awfully real. “My head hurts.” “You were kicked by a mule.” A mule? Meredith frowned. Uncle Everett didn’t own a mule. Had she been injured at the livery fetching Ginger? And why was Travis grinning at her? Shouldn’t he be more concerned? “It’s not very heroic of you to smile at my misfortune.” Really. This was her dream after all. Her hero should be more solicitous. Of course, usually in her dreams, Travis rescued her before any injury occurred. The man was getting lax. She’d started to tell him so when he laid the back of his hand on her forehead as if feeling for fever. The gentle touch instantly dissolved her pique. He removed his hand and met her gaze. “I’m smiling because I’m happy to see you awake. We’ve been worried about you.” “Awake?” Meredith scrunched her brows together until the throbbing around her skull forced her to relax. “Travis, you’re not making any sense. I can’t be awake. You only come to me when I’m dreaming. Although you’re usually younger and . . . well . . . cleaner, and not so in need of a shave. “But don’t get me wrong,” she hurried to assure him. It wouldn’t do to insult her hero. “You’re just as handsome as always. I don’t even mind that you didn’t save me this time. The important thing is that you’re here.

She stared at him, at his face. Simply stared as the scales fell from her eyes. "Oh, my God," she whispered, the exclamation so quiet not even he would hear. She suddenly saw-saw it all-all that she'd simply taken for granted. Men like him protected those they loved, selflessly, unswervingly, even unto death. The realization rocked her. Pieces of the jigsaw of her understanding of him fell into place. He was hanging to consciousness by a thread. She had to be sure-and his shields, his defenses were at their weakest now. Looking down at her hands, pressed over the nearly saturated pad, she hunted for the words, the right tone. Softly said, "My death, even my serious injury, would have freed you from any obligation to marry me. Society would have accepted that outcome, too." He shifted, clearly in pain. She sucked in a breath-feeling his pain as her own-then he clamped the long fingers of his right hand about her wrist, held tight. So tight she felt he was using her as an anchor to consciousness, to the world. His tone, when he spoke, was harsh. "Oh, yes-after I'd expended so much effort keeping you safe all these years, safe even from me, I was suddenly going to stand by and let you be gored by some mangy bull." He snorted, soft, low. Weakly. He drew in a slow, shallow breath, lips thin with pain, but determined, went on, "You think I'd let you get injured when finally after all these long years I at last understand that the reason you've always made me itch is because you are the only woman I actually want to marry? And you think I would stand back and let you be harmed?" A peevish frown crossed his face. "I ask you, is that likely? Is it even vaguely rational?" He went on, his words increasingly slurred, his tongue tripping over some, his voice fading. She listened, strained to catch every word as he slid into semi delirium, into rambling, disjointed sentences that she drank in, held to her heart. He gave her dreams back to her, reshaped and refined. "Not French Imperial-good, sound, English oak. You can use whatever colors you like, but no gilt-I forbid it." Eventually he ventured further than she had. "And I want at least three children-not just an heir and a spare. At least three-if you're agreeable. We'll have to have two boys, of course-my evil ugly sisters will found us to make good on that. But thereafter...as many girls as you like...as long as they look like you. Or perhaps Cordelia-she's the handsomer of the two uglies." He loved his sisters, his evil ugly sisters. Heather listened with tears in her eyes as his mind drifted and his voice gradually faded, weakened. She'd finally got her declaration, not in anything like the words she'd expected, but in a stronger, impossible-to-doubt exposition. He'd been her protector, unswerving, unflinching, always there; from a man like him, focused on a lady like her, such actions were tantamount to a declaration from the rooftops. The love she'd wanted him to admit to had been there all along, demonstrated daily right before her eyes, but she hadn't seen. Hadn't seen because she'd been focusing elsewhere, and because, conditioned as she was to resisting the same style of possessive protectiveness from her brothers, from her cousins, she hadn't appreciated his, hadn't realized that that quality had to be an expression of his feelings for her. Until now. Until now that he'd all but given his life for hers. He loved her-he'd always loved her. She saw that now, looking back down the years. He'd loved her from the time she'd fallen in love with him-the instant they'd laid eyes on each other at Michael and Caro's wedding in Hampshire four years ago. He'd held aloof, held away-held her at bay, too-believing, wrongly, that he wasn't an appropriate husband for her. In that, he'd been wrong, too. She saw it all. And as the tears overflowed and tracked down her cheeks, she knew to her soul how right he was for her. Knew, embraced, and rejoiced.

Many jocular comments followed, as did another onslaught of “heil Hitlering.” You know, it actually makes me wonder if anyone ever lost an eye or injured a hand or wrist with all of that. You’d only need to be facing the wrong way at the wrong time or stand marginally too close to another person. Perhaps people did get injured. Personally, I can only tell you that no one died from it, or at least, not physically. There was, of course, the matter of forty million people I picked up by the time the whole thing was finished, but that’s getting all metaphoric. Allow me to return us to the fire.

He buried his head in the lawn, letting his smooth cheeks feel the softness of the earth and be tickled by the short blunt spears of grass. Suddenly he wanted to do something heroic and brutal. He pulled handfuls of grass out of its roots, experiencing a crazy satisfaction at the ugly grating sound it produced like a limb being torn from limb! He dug his nails into the soft, wet earth, wanting suddenly to break it up, to disfigure it, to wreck his vengeful will upon it! He picked a rose from a bush nearby and plucked its petals one by one, letting them fall in a crumpled heap. He got his finger pricked by a thorn but when he sucked at the injured spot, the blood, his own blood, tasted bitter - and good - on his tongue. Then he retired to his room exhausted yet strangely satisfied. But he was pursued by someone even in his sleep. It was the same "other woman" of his childhood dreams and she was still screaming, "I am Woman, the daughter of Woman. Thou shalt not escape me." But when she came near, Anwar saw that she had an oval face, framed by a halo of dark curly hair, with big black innocent eyes! Next morning, as he looked into the mirror to comb his hair, Anwar saw the downy growth of hair, the beginnings of a beard on his cheeks and chin.

When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a tremendous, huffing weight. And pierced by an intense green gaze. “Wh-?” Her breath rushed out in question. Boom, the world answered. Susanna ducked her head, burrowing into the protection of what she’d recognized to be an officer’s coat. The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek. The man’s bulk formed a comforting shield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on them both. He smelled of whiskey and gunpowder. After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair from his brow, searching his gaze for signs of confusion or pain. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green-as hard and richly hued as jade. She asked, “Are you well?” “Yes.” His voice was a deep rasp. “Are you?” She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. “Sir, you’re…er, you’re rather heavy.” Surely he could not fail to miss that hint. He replied, “You’re soft.” Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her? “You have a small wound.” With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. “Here.” She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips. “Ah. That’s nice.” Her face blazed with heat. “Are you seeing double?” “Perhaps. I see two lips, two eyes, two flushed cheeks…a thousand freckles.” She stared at him. “Don’t concern yourself, miss. It’s nothing.” His gaze darkened with some mysterious intent. “Nothing a little kiss won’t mend.” And before she could even catch her breath, he pressed his lips to hers. A kiss. His mouth, touching hers. It was warm and firm, and then…it was over. Her first real kiss in all her five-and-twenty years, and it was finished in a heartbeat.

As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room. His parents. The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside. His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears. "I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking. Evie's gentle hands patted his back. "I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion. Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?" "That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?" "It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?" Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head. "Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me." "Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery." "You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement. "I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover." "I agree," Evie said firmly. Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her. After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit." "A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.

AUTHOR’S NOTE Dear reader: This story was inspired by an event that happened when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in upstate New York. It was winter, and my dad and his best friend, “Uncle Bob,” decided to take my older brother, me, and Uncle Bob’s two boys for a hike in the Adirondacks. When we left that morning, the weather was crisp and clear, but somewhere near the top of the trail, the temperature dropped abruptly, the sky opened, and we found ourselves caught in a torrential, freezing blizzard. My dad and Uncle Bob were worried we wouldn’t make it down. We weren’t dressed for that kind of cold, and we were hours from the base. Using a rock, Uncle Bob broke the window of an abandoned hunting cabin to get us out of the storm. My dad volunteered to run down for help, leaving my brother Jeff and me to wait with Uncle Bob and his boys. My recollection of the hours we spent waiting for help to arrive is somewhat vague except for my visceral memory of the cold: my body shivering uncontrollably and my mind unable to think straight. The four of us kids sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the small cabin, and Uncle Bob knelt on the floor in front of us. I remember his boys being scared and crying and Uncle Bob talking a lot, telling them it was going to be okay and that “Uncle Jerry” would be back soon. As he soothed their fear, he moved back and forth between them, removing their gloves and boots and rubbing each of their hands and feet in turn. Jeff and I sat beside them, silent. I took my cue from my brother. He didn’t complain, so neither did I. Perhaps this is why Uncle Bob never thought to rub our fingers and toes. Perhaps he didn’t realize we, too, were suffering. It’s a generous view, one that as an adult with children of my own I have a hard time accepting. Had the situation been reversed, my dad never would have ignored Uncle Bob’s sons. He might even have tended to them more than he did his own kids, knowing how scared they would have been being there without their parents. Near dusk, a rescue jeep arrived, and we were shuttled down the mountain to waiting paramedics. Uncle Bob’s boys were fine—cold and exhausted, hungry and thirsty, but otherwise unharmed. I was diagnosed with frostnip on my fingers, which it turned out was not so bad. It hurt as my hands were warmed back to life, but as soon as the circulation was restored, I was fine. Jeff, on the other hand, had first-degree frostbite. His gloves needed to be cut from his fingers, and the skin beneath was chafed, white, and blistered. It was horrible to see, and I remember thinking how much it must have hurt, the damage so much worse than my own. No one, including my parents, ever asked Jeff or me what happened in the cabin or questioned why we were injured and Uncle Bob’s boys were not, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Karen continued to be my parents’ best friends. This past winter, I went skiing with my two children, and as we rode the chairlift, my memory of that day returned. I was struck by how callous and uncaring Uncle Bob, a man I’d known my whole life and who I believed loved us, had been and also how unashamed he was after. I remember him laughing with the sheriff, like the whole thing was this great big adventure that had fortunately turned out okay. I think he even viewed himself as sort of a hero, boasting about how he’d broken the window and about his smart thinking to lead us to the cabin in the first place. When he got home, he probably told Karen about rubbing their sons’ hands and feet and about how he’d consoled them and never let them get scared. I looked at my own children beside me, and a shudder ran down my spine as I thought about all the times I had entrusted them to other people in the same way my dad had entrusted us to Uncle Bob, counting on the same naive presumption that a tacit agreement existed for my children to be cared for equally to their own.

Has he invited you to dinner, dear? Gifts, flowers, the usual?” I had to put my cup down, because my hand was shaking too much. When I stopped laughing, I said, “Curran? He isn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. He handed me a bowl of soup, that’s as far as we got.” “He fed you?” Raphael stopped rubbing Andrea. “How did this happen?” Aunt B stared at me. “Be very specific, this is important.” “He didn’t actually feed me. I was injured and he handed me a bowl of chicken soup. Actually I think he handed me two or three. And he called me an idiot.” “Did you accept?” Aunt B asked. “Yes, I was starving. Why are the three of you looking at me like that?” “For crying out loud.” Andrea set her cup down, spilling some tea. “The Beast Lord’s feeding you soup. Think about that for a second.” Raphael coughed. Aunt B leaned forward. “Was there anybody else in the room?” “No. He chased everyone out.” Raphael nodded. “At least he hasn’t gone public yet.” “He might never,” Andrea said. “It would jeopardize her position with the Order.” Aunt B’s face was grave. “It doesn’t go past this room. You hear me, Raphael? No gossip, no pillow talk, not a word. We don’t want any trouble with Curran.” “If you don’t explain it all to me, I will strangle somebody.” Of course, Raphael might like that . . . “Food has a special significance,” Aunt D said. I nodded. “Food indicates hierarchy. Nobody eats before the alpha, unless permission is given, and no alpha eats in Curran’s presence until Curran takes a bite.” “There is more,” Aunt B said. “Animals express love through food. When a cat loves you, he’ll leave dead mice on your porch, because you’re a lousy hunter and he wants to take care of you. When a shapeshifter boy likes a girl, he’ll bring her food and if she likes him back, she might make him lunch. When Curran wants to show interest in a woman, he buys her dinner.” “In public,” Raphael added, “the shapeshifter fathers always put the first bite on the plates of their wives and children. It signals that if someone wants to challenge the wife or the child, they would have to challenge the male first.” “If you put all of Curran’s girls together, you could have a parade,” Aunt B said. “But I’ve never seen him physically put food into a woman’s hands. He’s a very private man, so he might have done it in an intimate moment, but I would’ve found out eventually. Something like that doesn’t stay hidden in the Keep. Do you understand now? That’s a sign of a very serious interest, dear.” “But I didn’t know what it meant!” Aunt B frowned. “Doesn’t matter. You need to be very careful right now. When Curran wants something, he doesn’t become distracted. He goes after it and he doesn’t stop until he obtains his goal no matter what it takes. That tenacity is what makes him an alpha.” “You’re scaring me.” “Scared might be too strong a word, but in your place, I would definitely be concerned.” I wished I were back home, where I could get to my bottle of sangria. This clearly counted as a dire emergency. As if reading my thoughts, Aunt B rose, took a small bottle from a cabinet, and poured me a shot. I took it, and drained it in one gulp, letting tequila slide down my throat like liquid fire. “Feel better?” “It helped.” Curran had driven me to drinking. At least I wasn’t contemplating suicide.

Beauty And a poet said, 'Speak to us of Beauty.' Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, 'Beauty is kind and gentle. Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.' And the passionate say, 'Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.' The tired and the weary say, 'beauty is of soft whispering s. She speaks in our spirit. Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.' But the restless say, 'We have heard her shouting among the mountains, And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.' At night the watchmen of the city say, 'Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.' And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, 'we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.' In winter say the snow-bound, 'She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.' And in the summer heat the reapers say, 'We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.' All these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror

WAIVER I understand that during the course of my life I will be required to make many decisions, such as where I want to live, whom I want to live with, where I work, how much fun I have, and how I spend my money and time, including how much time I spend waiting for things to get better and people to change, and whom I choose to love. I understand that many events that occur will be out of my hands and that there are inherent dangers and risks in all decisions I make. Life and people have no obligation whatsoever to live up to my expectations; I have no obligation to live up to the expectations of anybody else. Life is a high-risk sport, and I may become injured along the way. I agree that all the decisions I make are mine and mine alone, including how I choose to handle the events that are beyond my control. I hereby forfeit my right to recourse as a victim, including my rights to blame, complain, and whine or hold someone else responsible for the path I choose to take. I am responsible for my participation—or lack of it—in life. And I take complete responsibility for the outcomes and consequences of all decisions I make, understanding that ultimately it is my choice whether I become happy, joyous, and free or stay miserable and trapped. Although people may voluntarily nurture and love me, I and I alone am responsible for taking care of and loving myself. Signed:________________________ Dated:_________________________

I'm so excited to meet you, Emma," she says. "Now I know why Galen won't shut up about you." Her smile seems to contradict the decades' worth of frown lines rippling from her mouth. In fact, it's so genuine and warm that I almost believe she is excited to meet me. But isn't that what all moms say when introduced to their son's girlfriend? You're not his girlfriend, stupid. Or does she think we're dating, too? "Thanks, I think," I smile generically. "I'm sure he's told you a million times how clumsy I am." Because how else am I supposed to take that? "A million and one, actually. Wish you'd do something different for a change," Rayna drawls without looking up. Rayna has outstayed her welcome on my nerves. "I could teach you how to color in the lines," I shoot back. The look she gives me could sour milk. Toraf puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses the top of her head. "I think you're doing a great job, my princess." She wiggles out of his grasp and shoves the polish brush back into its bottle. "If you're so good at it, why don't you paint your toes? They probably stay injured all the time from you running into stuff. Am I right?" Yeah? And? I'm about to set her straight on a few things-like how wearing a skirt and sitting Indian-style ruins the effect of pretty toes anyway-when Galen's mom puts a gentle hand on my arm and clears her throat. "Emma, I'm so glad you're feeling better," she says. "I bet dinner would just about complete your recovery, don't you?

You laid black powder charges. To move a flock of sheep." Pulling her hand from his grip, she studied the craters in the road. "Sir, I remain unconvinced of your sanity. But there's no question you are male." He raised a brow. "That much was never in doubt." Her only answer was a faint deepening of her blush. "I assure you, all the lunacy is my cousin's. Lord Payne was merely teasing, having a bit of sport at my expense." "I see. And you were having a bit of sport at my expense, pretending to be injured." "Come, now." He leaned toward her and murmured, "Are you going to pretend you didn't enjoy it?" Her eyebrows lifted. And lifted, until they formed perfect twin archer's bows, ready to dispatch poison-tipped darts. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." -Susanna & Bram

The Levellers . . . only change and pervert the natural order of things: they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. . . . Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my heart from withholding in practice (if I were of power to give or to withhold), the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would totally destroy. . . . In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. . . . Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom. Among these wants is to be reckoned the want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their passions. Society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body, as well as in the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection. This can only be done by a power out of themselves, and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In this sense the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. . . . Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. . . . You would not cure the evil by resolving that there should be no more monarchs, nor ministers of state, nor of the Gospel— no interpreters of law, no general officers, no public councils. You might change the names: the things in some shape must remain. A certain quantum of power must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names— to the causes of evil, which are permanent, not to the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in practice. . . . The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the 'all-atoning name' of Liberty. . . . But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths. . . . To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government, that is to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.

You didn’t tell me you were a horse whisperer.” “I’m not—at least I don’t think I am.” “Well, you nearly gave me a heart attack. If you were one of my men, I’d fire you on the spot for being reckless.” “I’m not one of your men.” “Thank God for that.” Still, he needed to make his point. “You could have been killed. I’ve seen stallions go crazy and injure experienced horsemen, men who raised them. You took a real chance stepping in here.” “I’m sorry I frightened you. I saw how afraid Chinook was, and I just had to do something.” He handed her the curry comb. “Most people who saw a stallion in that state would see only aggression and feel afraid. But you saw that the stallion was afraid, and so you had no fear. You amaze me.” She looked up at him and smiled. “That goes both ways.” He was glad to hear that. In the course of the evening, he’d come to realize that he loved her. For the second time in his life, he’d fallen head over heels in love with a woman.

Through the fall, the president’s anger seemed difficult to contain. He threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” then followed up with a threat to “totally destroy” the country. When neo-Nazis and white supremacists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one of them killed a protester and injured a score of others, he made a brutally offensive statement condemning violence “on many sides … on many sides”—as if there was moral equivalence between those who were fomenting racial hatred and violence and those who were opposing it. He retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda that had been posted by a convicted criminal leader of a British far-right organization. Then as now, the president’s heedless bullying and intolerance of variance—intolerance of any perception not his own—has been nurturing a strain of insanity in public dialogue that has been long in development, a pathology that became only more virulent when it migrated to the internet. A person such as the president can on impulse and with minimal effort inject any sort of falsehood into public conversation through digital media and call his own lie a correction of “fake news.” There are so many news outlets now, and the competition for clicks is so intense, that any sufficiently outrageous statement made online by anyone with even the faintest patina of authority, and sometimes even without it, will be talked about, shared, and reported on, regardless of whether it has a basis in fact. How do you progress as a culture if you set out to destroy any common agreement as to what constitutes a fact? You can’t have conversations. You can’t have debates. You can’t come to conclusions. At the same time, calling out the transgressor has a way of giving more oxygen to the lie. Now it’s a news story, and the lie is being mentioned not just in some website that publishes unattributable gossip but in every reputable newspaper in the country. I have not been looking to start a personal fight with the president. When somebody insults your wife, your instinctive reaction is to want to lash out in response. When you are the acting director, or deputy director, of the FBI, and the person doing the insulting is the chief executive of the United States, your options have guardrails. I read the president’s tweets, but I had an organization to run. A country to help protect. I had to remain independent, neutral, professional, positive, on target. I had to compartmentalize my emotions. Crises taught me how to compartmentalize. Example: the Boston Marathon bombing—watching the video evidence, reviewing videos again and again of people dying, people being mutilated and maimed. I had the primal human response that anyone would have. But I know how to build walls around that response and had to build them then in order to stay focused on finding the bombers. Compared to experiences like that one, getting tweeted about by Donald Trump does not count as a crisis. I do not even know how to think about the fact that the person with time on his hands to tweet about me and my wife is the president of the United States.

(Pericles Funeral Oration) But before I praise the dead, I should like to point out by what principles of action we rose to power, and under what institutions and through what manner of life our empire became great. Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors', but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private business we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes; we do not put on sour looks at him which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While we are thus unconstrained in our private business, a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws, having a particular regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured as well as those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment. Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of other countries as freely as our own. Then, again, our military training is in many respects superior to that of our adversaries; Our enemies have never yet felt our united strength, the care of a navy divides our attention, and on land we are obliged to send our own citizens everywhere. But they, if they meet and defeat a part of our army, are as proud as if they had routed us all, and when defeated they pretend to have been vanquished by us all. None of these men were enervated by wealth or hesitated to resign the pleasures of life; none of them put off the evil day in the hope, natural to poverty, that a man, though poor, may one day become rich. But, deeming that the punishment of their enemies was sweeter than any of these things, and that they could fall in no nobler cause, they determined at the hazard of their lives to be honorably avenged, and to leave the rest. They resigned to hope their unknown chance of happiness; but in the face of death they resolved to rely upon themselves alone. And when the moment came they were minded to resist and suffer, rather than to fly and save their lives; they ran away from the word of dishonor, but on the battlefield their feet stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their fear, but of their glory. I speak not of that in which their remains are laid, but of that in which their glory survives, and is proclaimed always and on every fitting occasion both in word and deed. For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men.

I am your wife, but I will do as I please, I raged, and the spell rose in my head without effort. Belt that holds my husband’s pants, Loosen now and make him dance. Tiras’s belt flew from his breeches like a sea serpent, slithering through the air only to strike at him with its tail. He stepped back from me, his eyes growing wide as he gripped the gyrating length of leather, holding it at arm’s length with one hand as he held up his pants with the other. But I wasn’t finished. Boots upon my husband’s feet, Kick him so he’ll take a seat. Tiras fell flat on his behind as his boots shimmied and wriggled free, throwing him off balance. His boots then proceeded to kick him on his back and his thighs as he yowled in stunned outrage. “Lark!” Shirt upon my husband’s chest, Wrap yourself around his head. His tunic promptly rose like Tiras was shrugging it off, only it wrapped itself around him, obscuring his angry face. I started to laugh then. I couldn’t help it. He looked so ridiculous sitting on the floor of the library, his socks hanging from his feet, his breeches falling around his hips, his shirt over his head, and his boots and belt attacking him. Tiras lashed out and grabbed my skirts, yanking me down beside him. “Call off the hounds, Lark!” he bellowed, and I laughed even harder, shaking with mirth even as he rolled himself on top of me and valiantly fought the tunic that kept wrapping itself around his face. The tunic was slightly dangerous, the boots weren’t very accurate, and the tail end of the belt had made a welt across my cheek. I decided enough was enough. I performed a sloppy rhyme, and Tiras let out a stream of profanities as the shirt ceased its murderous attempts and the belt and boots fell to the floor, inanimate once again. Tiras’s breathing was harsh and fast, his hair mussed and falling over his eyes as he braced his forearms on either side of my head. His big body pressed me into the floor, making it hard to draw breath. I was well and truly trapped, but I felt like the victor regardless. Are you injured, husband? He was glaring and angry for all of three seconds. Then the lines around his eyes deepened and a smile broke out across his face. He laughed with me, but he kept me pinned beneath him, his face inches from mine. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Immensely. “Tell me this, wife. Is there a spell to quickly remove your dress?” he whispered, still smiling, his breath tickling my mouth. I felt my face grow hot, and I closed my eyes, trying to retreat, even as I immediately considered a spell to render us both naked.

When I was a boy, not yesterday of course, When life, I thought, was a whole lot More certain than it is today, I made a list of those I thought Liked me as much as I liked them – For at that age we’re loved By just about everybody Whom we care to love; how different It is in later years, when affection Has no guarantee of reciprocation, When we may spend so very long Yearning for one who cannot Love us back, or cares not to, Or who lives somewhere else And has forgotten our address And the way we looked or spoke. The remarkable thing about love Is that it is freely available, Is as plentiful as oxygen, Is as joyous as a burn in spate, And need never run out. And yet, for all its plenitude, We ration it so strictly and forget Its curative properties, its subtle Ability to make the soul-injured Whole again, to make the lonely Somehow assured that their solitude Will not last forever; its promise That if we open our heart It is joy and resolution That will march in triumphant Through the gates we create. When I look at Scotland, At this country that possesses me, I wonder what work love Has still to do; and find the answer Closer at hand than I thought – In the images of contempt and disdain, That are still there, as stubborn As human imperfections can be; In the coldness of heart That sees nothing wrong In indifference to want, in dislike Of those who are different, In the cutting, dismissive Turn of phrase, in the sneer. Love is not there, in all those places, But it will be; love cannot solve Every human problem, but it makes A start on a solution; love Is the only compass-point We need to learn; we need not Be clever to know it, nor endowed With unusual vision, love Comes free, at least in those forms Worth having, lasts as long As anything human may last. May Scotland, when it looks Into its heart tomorrow If not today, see the fingerprints Of love, its signature, its presence, Its promise of healing.

I opened the door with a smile on my face that soon melted when I saw his messy appearance. The doorframe held him up as he leaned all of his weight against it. Expressionless, bloodshot eyes stared back at me as he lifted his hand and ran it roughly down his unshaved face. His hair was disheveled and there was blood on the front of his shirt. Panic rose up as I took him in. I rushed to him and ran my fingers down his body, as I checked for injuries. “You’re bleeding! Oh my God, Devin! What happened? Are you OK?” “It’s not my blood,” he slurred. I took a better look at his gorgeous face. His unfocused eyes attempted to meet mine and it was then that the smell of liquor reached me. “You’re drunk?” “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He attempted to move toward me and almost fell over. I wrapped my arms around him and helped him into my apartment. Once we made it to the couch I let him collapse onto the cushion before I went straight to work on his clothes. I removed his blood-stained shirt first and threw it to the side. Quickly checked him over again just to be sure that he wasn’t injured somewhere. His skin felt cold and clammy against my fingertips. His knuckles were busted open, so I went to the bathroom and got a wet towel and the first aid kit. I cleaned his fingers then wrapped them up. I felt fingers in my hair and looked up to see a very drunk Devin staring back at me. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered as his heavy head fell against the back of my couch again. Shaking my head, I dropped onto my knees on the floor and removed his boots. Once I was done getting Devin out of his shoes, I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a blanket for him. When I got back to the couch, he was standing there looking back at me in all his tattooed, muscled glory. He was still leaning a bit to the side when his eyes locked on mine. “Come here,” he rasped. He looked as if he was about to crumble and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or if something was really breaking him down. “Are you OK, baby?” I asked. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I love it when you call me baby.” I went to him and he groaned as I softly ran my hands up his chest and put my arms around his neck. On my tiptoes, I softly kissed the line of his neck and his chin. “Tell me what happened, Devin.” When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at me differently. The calm and collected Devin was gone and an anxiety-ridden shell of a man stood before me. His shoulders felt tense beneath my fingers and his eyes held a crazed demeanor. “I need you, Lilly.” He captured my face softly in his hands as he slurred the words. “Please tell me what happened?” “Make it go away, baby,” he whispered as he leaned in and started to kiss me. I let him as I melted against his body. He collapsed against the couch once more, but this time he took me with him. Not once did he break our kiss, and soon, I felt his velvet tongue against mine. I kissed him back and let my fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck. He broke the kiss and started down the side of my neck. “I need you, Lilly,” he repeated against my skin. “I’m here.” I bit at my bottom lip to stop myself from moaning. “Please, just make it all go away,” he drunkenly begged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but tell me what to do to make it better. I want to make it better, Devin.” I stopped him and stared into his eyes as I waited for his response. “Don’t leave me,” he said desperately. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it better.” I wanted to cry. He looked so hurt and afraid. It was strange to see such a strong, confident man so lost and unsure. He flipped me onto my back on the couch and crawled on top of me. His movements were less calculated—slower than usual. “I want you. I need to be inside you,” he said aggressively.