Jaw Line Quotes

You never called me back," he said. "I called you so many times and you never called me back." Magnus looked at Alec as if he'd lost his mind. "Your city is under attack," he said. "The wards have been broken, and the streets are full of demons. And you want to know why I haven't called you?" Alec set his jaw in a stubborn line. "I want to know why you haven't called me back." Magnus threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of utter exasperation. Alec noted with interest that when he did it, a few sparks escaped from his fingertips, like fireflies escaping from a jar. "You're an idiot." "Is that why you haven't called me? Because I'm an idiot?" "No." Magnus strode toward him. "I didn't call you because I'm tired of you only wanting me around when you need something. I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else - someone, incidentally, who will never love you back. Not the way I do." "You love me?" "You stupid Nephilim," Magnus said patiently. "Why else am I here? Why else would I have spent the past few weeks patching up all your moronic friends every time they got hurt? And getting you out of every ridiculous situation you found yourself in? Not to mention helping you win a battle against Valentine. And all completely free of charge!

Somewhere someone is thinking of you. Someone is calling you an angel. This person is using celestial colors to paint your image. Someone is making you into a vision so beautiful that it can only live in the mind. Someone is thinking of the way your breath escapes your lips when you are touched. How your eyes close and your jaw tightens with concentration as you give pleasure a home. These thoughts are saving a life somewhere right now. In some airless apartment on a dark, urine stained, whore lined street, someone is calling out to you silently and you are answering without even being there. So crystalline. So pure. Such life saving power when you smile. You will never know how you have cauterized my wounds. So sad that we will never touch. How it hurts me to know that I will never be able to give you everything I have

He had brown hair, piercing green eyes and jaw line that screamed 'I might just let you kiss me here'.

Leif's frown eased and he slid his finger under my chin and gently caressed my jaw line with the pad of his thumb. "Pagan,will you do me the honor of being my date for Homecoming Dance?The prospect of not being able to hold you in my arms all night is heartbreaking." Mirand sighed from across the table. "Okay,that was beautiful.Why didn't you ask me like that?"she asked Wyatt. Wyatt shot Leif an annoyed frown. "Thanks,buddy.Next time you decide to break out your romantic side,could you do it alone?

Through it all, I stare at the boy on the throne. He maintains his mask. Jaw clenched, lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. Still fingers, straight back. But his gaze wavers. Something in his eyes has gone far away. And at his collar, the slightest gray flush rises, painting his neck and the tips of his ears. He's terrified. For a second, it makes me happy. Then I remember―monsters are most dangerous when they're afraid.

I love you.” I stared stupidly at him. Was he joking again, reciting another line from my story? I didn’t remember writing this. He leaned in and kissed me. I didn’t respond for a few seconds. My mind lagged behind what my body was feeling. “Say it,” he whispered against my lips. “I know this is hard for you. Tell me.” “I love you.” Hearing my own words, I gasped at the rush of emotion. He put his hands on either side of my jaw and took my mouth with his.

It’s 11 am and I’m sitting in a restaurant 3 beers in. Believe me, even I’m surprised I’m still alive sometimes. I have been drinking about you for 2 days. Lately you remind me of a wild thing chewing through its foot. But you are already free and I don’t know what to do except trace the rough line of your jaw and try not to place blame. Here is the truth: It is hard to be in love with someone who is in love someone else. I don’t know how to turn that into poetry.

She lowered her head until it was at his level. He stroked the line of her jaw, and then pressed his forehead against her hard snout and held her as tightly as he could, her scales sharp against his fingers. Hot tears began to slide down his cheeks. 'Why do you cry?' she asked. 'Because... I'm lucky enough to be bonded with you.' 'Little one.

Religion?” I asked more firmly. Patch dragged a hand thoughtfully along the line of his jaw. “Not religion … cult.” “You belong to a cult?” I realized too late that while I sounded surprised, I shouldn’t have. “As it turns out, I’m in need of a healthy female sacrifice. I’d planned on luring her into trusting me first, but if you’re ready now …

I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. Then I remembered that line from Jaws and couldn't help smiling: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.

Sought we the Scrivani word-work of Surthur Long-lost in ledger all hope forgotten. Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringer Hot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with finding Breathless her breast her high blood rising To ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty. “That sort of thing,” Simmon said absently, his eyes still scanning the pages in front of him. I saw Fela turn her head to look at Simmon, almost as if she were surprised to see him sitting there. No, it was almost as if up until that point, he’d just been occupying space around her, like a piece of furniture. But this time when she looked at him, she took all of him in. His sandy hair, the line of his jaw, the span of his shoulders beneath his shirt. This time when she looked, she actually saw him. Let me say this. It was worth the whole awful, irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn’t notice it herself. It wasn’t dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost too fast for you to see. But still, you know it’s there, down where you can’t see, kindling.

What if I say I can't bear to lose you?" A smile tugged at her lips. "I'd say you're a liar. That claims like that belong to romantic ninnies." She raised her hand and let her fingertips trace the line of his beautiful jaw. He closed his eyes. "We would go on, you and I. If I couldn't be queen, you would find a way to win this battle and save this country. You would make a sheltering place for my people. You would march an bleed and crack terrible jokes until you had done all you said you would. I suppose that's why I love you.

He gently traced the line of my jaw. “I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. You have my word.” He thought he could protect me. He wanted to. He was touching me, and all I wanted was to let him. Let him protect me. Let him touch me.

Scarlet O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin-that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

LUCAS: I've done a couple from memory but they aren't the same. Can't quite get the shape of your jaw. The line of your neck. And your lips. I need to spend more time staring at them and less time tasting them. ME: I can't say i agree with that notion. LUCAS: More of both, then.

So it’s fate then?” I asked with him so close my lips brushed the line of his jaw with each word, “Us being together?” “Absolutely,” Calvin said with a low growl. Then he lifted my chin, tilting my head back, and kissed me deeply. Who was I to argue with Fate?

The great fish moved silently through the night water.

I touch his face, almost without meaning to, gently , like he might be a ghost, like this might be a dream and the tips of my fingers graze his cheek, trail the line of his jaw and I stop when his breath catches, when his body shakes almost imperceptibly and we lean in as if by memory eyes closing lips just touching “Give me another chance, ” he whispers, resting his forehead against mine. My heart aches, throbs in my chest. “Please,” he says softly, and he’s somehow closer now, his lips touching mine as he speaks and I feel pinned in place by emotion, unable to move as he presses the words against my mouth, his hands soft and hesitant around my face and he says, “I swear on my life,” he says, “ I won’t disappoint you” and he kisses me Kisses me right here, in the middle of everything, in front of everyone.

Aurora.” I looked at him over my shoulder. His jaw was tight again. The lines across his forehead were back too. “You look beautiful,” Mr. Rhodes said in that careful, somber voice a heartbeat later. “He’s an idiot for looking at anyone else.

We don’t fit any mold. But, where you are concerned, it’s simple.” He kissed along my jaw line. “I want you, Abby. No bullshit . I want you just the way you are.

The on and off thing is kind of annoying, isn't it? First with Cole, now with Gavin. "Maybe you need a tune up." I rolled my eyes. "I'll just pop into the supernatural ability repair shop sometime tomorrow." He grinned, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw.

I don’t think I’m making myself very clear Low,” he’d lowered his voice and the effect made goose bumps break out over my body. “I was only interested in one person at that bar last night. I only came to see one person,” he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and softly caressed my earlobe before tracing the line of my jaw. “I was there for you.

The traveling salesmen fed me pills that made the lining of my veins feel scraped out, my jaw ached... I knew every raindrop by its name, I sensed everything before it happened. Like I knew a certain oldsmobile would stop even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside, I knew we'd have an accident in the rain. I didn't care. They said they'd take me all the way.

Oh. Wow.' 'What?' He held my hand up between us. 'Look.' I squinted at my hands. 'I don't see anything.' Sighing, he flipped my hand over, and my jaw hit the ground. A faint blue line marked the center of my palm with a smaller line through it. It would've looked like a cross, except the horizontal line was slanted. 'Oh. My. Gods.' I jerked my hand away, scrambling back. 'I have a rune on my hand. It's an Apollyon rune, isn't it.' Seth rested his hands on his knees. 'I think so. I have one like that.' 'But why is it still there? Why is it there at all?' I flipped my palm over several times, shook it, but the faint blue tattoo was still there. 'You can see it, right? Like right now, you can see it?' 'Yes. It hasn't faded.' Seth leaned forward, catching my hand. 'Stop shaking it like it's a damn Etch-A-Sketch. That doesn't make them disappear.

I was going to have to leave you anyway. Because I loved you too much to drag you down with me." My hand crept up to caress the rigid line of his jaw. "Why'd you change your mind?" I whispered. "After I calmed down a little and had a chance to think, I figured . . . I love you enough to try and deserve you. I would do anything, be anything, for you.

It will always be yes..." I whispered, lightly kissing his lips... "I will always be yours..." I continued, kissing along his jaw line... "And I will always be by your side..." I finished kissing his neck.

He kisses me again, his occasional gasps for air hot against my skin, and I taste him, his mouth, his neck, the hard line of his jaw and he fights back a groan, pulls away, pain and pleasure twinning together as he moves deeper, harder, his muscles taught, his body rock solid against mine. He has one hand around the back of my neck, the other around the back of my thigh and he wraps us together, impossibly closer, overwhelming me with an extraordinary pleasure that feels like nothing I've ever known. It's nameless. Unknowable, impossible to plan for. It's different every time.

So you’re not dying, sweetheart, your body is just shedding it’s uterine lining.” Rin’s jaw had been hanging open for a solid minute. “What the fuck?

He smiled, setting his forehead to hers. "you are very bad for me. I am trying to turn over a new leaf--I am trying to be more gentlemanly." "But what if I want you to stay a rake?" she teased, her fingers trailing down his neck and chest, fingering the buttons on his waistcoat. "A libertine, even?" she slipped one fastening from its seat and he grabbed her errant hand, bringing it to his lips for a swift kiss. "Callie," he said, his voice thick with warning as she set her free hand to the second button on his coat. "What if I want the rogue, Gabriel?" the question was soft and sweet. "What are you saying?" She kissed across the firm square line of his jaw and whispered to him, shyness in her shaking voice, "Take me to bed, Gabriel. Give me a taste of scandal.

It starts out the same, but then, after a moment,” he said, speaking softly, “suddenly it’s as though I’ve a living flame in my arms.” His touch grew firmer, outlining my lips and caressing the line of my jaw. “And I want only to throw myself into it and be consumed.

He was a collection of hard lines and tailored edges—sharp jaw, lean build, wool coat snug across his shoulders.

He settled his hand at my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip. “Of course, I do, precious.” His tone was uneven but sincere. “You’re my everything. I love you. I love you so much.

I'm... greedy enough for anything." His thumb moved along my chin and then the line of my jaw. "Or maybe it's that I'm desperate for anything that you will allow.

His hands cup my face as if he’s claiming me, saying you’re mine with his lips and his hands and the way he draws me in close, his thumb tracing a line along my jaw. It’s such a small gesture, but such a poetically possessive one and I arch my back, inviting more.

Those deep set eyes that look like they could tell stories for days, and that wavy brown hair that feels soft between my fingers. I try to memorize the angles of his jaw and the lines of his lips, because I know. I know this may be the last time I ever see him. Breathe fills my lungs, my throat relaxes, and I can't help but smile. Because I can see what he's thinking as clearly as if he'd spoken. He doesn't want to leave - he doesn't want to go home. He's going to choose me instead.

Brushing her thumb over the line of his jaw, feeling the scruff rasping against it, she vowed, repeating his own words. “Never again. You’ll never be alone again. No matter how bad the nightmare gets, I’m going to be right here.

That’s hot.” I mean it as a joke, but my voice comes out like a growl and when her lips part I kiss her before she can laugh. A shock of energy shoots through me as I cup her face in my hands, my fingers grasping her cheeks and the line of her jaw. It must be the adrenaline that’s making my heart pound so fast. The whole nobody-else-could-possibly-understand-this bond. Or maybe it’s her soft lips and green apple–scented hair, and the way she winds her arms around my neck like she can’t stand to let go. Either way I keep kissing her as long as she lets me, and when she steps away I try to pull her back because it wasn’t enough.

Jesus, Hannah," he whispered in a rough voice. "Do you ever get so happy, you can barely stand it?" "Yes." She reached up and cradled his jaw. "With you? All the time.

He placed his hands against the Jeep on either side of my head and leaned forward, forcing me to press back against the door. He leaned in even closer, his face inches from mine. I had no room to escape. "Now," he breathed, and just his smell disturbed my thought processes, "what exactly are you worrying about?" "Well, um, hitting a tree -" I gulped "- and dying. And then getting sick." He fought back a smile. Then he bent his head down and touched his cold lips softly to the hollow at the base of my throat. "Are you still worried now?" he murmured against my skin. "Yes." I struggled to concentrate. "About hitting trees and getting sick." His nose drew a line up the skin of my throat to the point of my chin. His cold breath tickled my skin. "And now?" His lips whispered against my jaw. "Trees," I gasped. "Motion sickness." He lifted his face to kiss my eyelids. "Bella, you don't really think I would hit a tree, do you?" "No, but I might." There was no confidence in my voice. He smelled an easy victory. He kissed slowly down my cheek, stopping just at the corner of my mouth. "Would I let a tree hurt you?" His lips barely brushed against my trembling lower lip. "No," I breathed. I knew there was a second part to my brillant defense, but I couldn't quite call it back. "You see," he said, his lips moving against mine. "There's nothing to be afraid of, is there?" "No," I sighed, giving up. Then he took my face in his hands almost roughly, and kissed me in earnest, his unyielding lips moving against mine. There was really no excuse for my behavior. Obviously I knew better by now. And yet I couldn't seem to stop from reacting exactly as I had the first time. Instead of keeping safely motionless, my arms reached up to twine tightly around his neck, and I was suddenly welded to his stone figure. I sighed, and his lips parted.

Have I told you today how beautiful you are?" I stand there, taken by surprise at his words. I am speechless so I mutely shake my head. He places his hands at my jaw line while he slowly runs his thumbs over my cheekbones. Then he looks into my eyes and says, "You are the most beautiful thing I keep in my heart. ~Ian

Never again,” he whispered, his voice rough with an edge of the wildness she’d seen in his eyes. It sent a delicious shiver down her spine. “They will die a thousand deaths,” he murmured, almost gently as his thumb traced the line of her jaw, “before they ever touch a single hair on your head again.” And then, with that deathly vow still echoing in her heart, he pressed his lips to her fluttering pulse. “I promise,” his lips wrote against her skin.

Breathless I look up at him and find him gazing at me with a wonder that my deep-seated insecurity finds hard to believe. Then he does this thing. His fingers start moving on my face, tracing outlines. They trail along my eyebrows, the ridge of my nose, the apple of my cheeks and the line of my jaw. His touch is like feather but his eyes…they blaze and just like that, without saying a single word, he makes me believe.

The years are rolling out like tide now. There is old weather on their faces, on the hard lines of their jaws, on their chaotic mouths.

You don’t think we’re a good idea, but I’ll prove we are.” Determination lined his jaw,

The door to the courtroom burst open and Lancelot swept in. Dressed in a full suit of armour, the idiot looked like an idiot. His idiot blond hair and idiot chiseled jaw line further contributed to his idiocy. The idiot cleft on his too pretty face and the idiot swagger to his too swaggering proclaimed to anyone that he was the biggest idiot in the kingdom. And, given that the Northlands was full to bursting with idiots, that was quite a feat of idiocy.

Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you should worry, because you’re the one who shot him. He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs-you know the type. And you’re chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face. On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store, explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk out with a brand-new handle for your ax. The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the spring when, on one rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow, however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right in the middle of the blade. Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you a brand-new head for your ax. As soon as you get home, you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded earlier. He’s also got a new head, stitched on with what looks like plastic weed-trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life. You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that beheaded me!” IS HE RIGHT?

He’s tall, with windblown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong and covered by warm tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even—everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth. He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen.

I knew everything about the back of that head - the swirl of his hair, the curve of his ear, the straight, sharp line of his jaw. I liked the way he smelled like soap even late in the afternoon.

I wrenched the door out of my way―ridiculously eager―and there he was, my personal miracle. Time had not made me immune to the perfection of his face, and I was sure that I would never take any aspect of him for granted. My eyes traced over his pale white features: the hard square of his jaw, the softer curve of his full lips―twisted up into a smile now, the straight line of his nose, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the smooth marble span of his forehead―partially obscured by a tangle of rain-darkened bronze hair . . . I saved his eyes for last, knowing that when I looked into them I was likely to lose my train of thought. They were wide, warm with liquid gold, and framed by a thick fringe of black lashes. Staring into his eyes always made me feel extraordinary―sort of like my bone were turning spongy. I was also a little lightheaded, but that could have been because I'd forgotten to keep breathing. Again.

What a Crazy Woman Thinks About While Walking Down the Street She tries to walk not too fast and not too slow. She doesn’t want to attract any attention. She pretends she doesn’t hear the whistles and catcalls and lewd comments. Sometimes she forgets and leaves her house in a skirt or a tank top because it’s a warm day and she wants to feel warm air on her bare skin. Before long, she remembers. She keeps her keys in her hand, three of them held between her fingers, like a dull claw. She makes eye contact only when necessary and if a man should catch her eye, she juts her chin forward, makes sure the line of her jaw is strong. When she leaves work or the bar late, she calls a car service and when the car pulls up to her building, she quickly scans the street to make sure it’s safe to walk the short distance from the curb to the door. She once told a boyfriend about these considerations and he said, “You are completely out of your mind.” She told a new friend at work and she said, “Honey, you’re not crazy. You’re a woman.

Losing beauty was easy. Overlooking it, forgetting it, hardening yourself so much you could no longer be surprised or overwhelmed by it. I pulled back, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the sharp edge of cheekbone and the skin now warm from the rising sun. The trick was in holding on to it. Protecting it.

But before I could come up with an answer, Tod appeared in the desk chair, where I'd sat minutes earlier. 'Hey. Am I interrupting something?' 'Yes,' Nash said. 'Get out.' But Tod was watching me, and I could tell from the angry line of his jaw that he'd been listening long before he showed himself. He'd heard what Avari had done to me. What Nash had let him do. 'You want me to go?' Tod asked me, his back to his brother. Nash implores me silently to say yes. Tod waited patiently. 'No,' I said, looking right at Nash. He scowled, and his shoulders sagged. 'Good.' Tod stood and kicked the rolling chair out of his way. 'I just checked on your friend in the straitjacket. But first...' The reaper swung before either of us realized what he intended to do. Tod's very sold first slammed into Nash's jaw. Nash's head snapped back. He stumbled into the wall. Tod shook his hand like it hurt. 'That's for what you let him do to Kaylee.

He closed his mouth until he felt the line of his jaw tighten and teeth clench but still the thought escaped him: God, if you’re there, if you’re listening, let Hadia have a happy life, let hers be a fulfilling love. Let him be respectful of her, in awe of her, and tender toward her.

I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance-day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, - and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart." I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!" he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred. Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd. Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not, Not the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honor the charge they made! Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!

No,” I hear myself say. “You’re not supposed to be here.” She’s sitting on my bed. She’s leaning back on her elbows, legs outstretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles. And while some part of me understands I must be dreaming, there’s another, overwhelmingly dominant part of me that refuses to accept this. Part of me wants to believe she’s really here, inches away from me, wearing this short, tight black dress that keeps slipping up her thighs. But everything about her looks different, oddly vibrant; the colors are all wrong. Her lips are a richer, deeper shade of pink; her eyes seem wider, darker. She’s wearing shoes I know she’d never wear. And strangest of all: she’s smiling at me. “Hi,” she whispers. It’s just one word, but my heart is already racing. I’m inching away from her, stumbling back and nearly slamming my skull against the headboard, when I realize my shoulder is no longer wounded. I look down at myself. My arms are both fully functional. I’m wearing nothing but a white T-shirt and my underwear. She shifts positions in an instant, propping herself up on her knees before crawling over to me. She climbs onto my lap. She’s now straddling my waist. I’m suddenly breathing too fast. Her lips are at my ear. Her words are so soft. “Kiss me,” she says. “Juliette—” “I came all the way here.” She’s still smiling at me. It’s a rare smile, the kind she’s never honored me with. But somehow, right now, she’s mine. She’s mine and she’s perfect and she wants me, and I’m not going to fight it. I don’t want to. Her hands are tugging at my shirt, pulling it up over my head. Tossing it to the floor. She leans forward and kisses my neck, just once, so slowly. My eyes fall closed. There aren’t enough words in this world to describe what I’m feeling. I feel her hands move down my chest, my stomach; her fingers run along the edge of my underwear. Her hair falls forward, grazing my skin, and I have to clench my fists to keep from pinning her to my bed. Every nerve ending in my body is awake. I’ve never felt so alive or so desperate in my life, and I’m sure if she could hear what I’m thinking right now, she’d run out the door and never come back. Because I want her. Now. Here. Everywhere. I want nothing between us. I want her clothes off and the lights on and I want to study her. I want to unzip her out of this dress and take my time with every inch of her. I can’t help my need to just stare; to know her and her features: the slope of her nose, the curve of her lips, the line of her jaw. I want to run my fingertips across the soft skin of her neck and trace it all the way down. I want to feel the weight of her pressed against me, wrapped around me. I can’t remember a reason why this can’t be right or real. I can’t focus on anything but the fact that she’s sitting on my lap, touching my chest, staring into my eyes like she might really love me. I wonder if I’ve actually died. But just as I lean in, she leans back, grinning before reaching behind her, never once breaking eye contact with me. “Don’t worry,” she whispers. “It’s almost over now.” Her words seem so strange, so familiar. “What do you mean?” “Just a little longer and I’ll leave.” “No.” I’m blinking fast, reaching for her. “No, don’t go—where are you going—” “You’ll be all right,” she says. “I promise.” “No—” But now she’s holding a gun. And pointing it at my heart.

To my surprise, he laughed softly, pressing his hand to his head and tilting it back. My eyes fixed on the strong line of his jaw, where there was a small scar just below his right cheek. 'Priyanka was right. I'm an idiot. You, on the other hand, are amazing.

Every nerve ending in my body is awake. I’ve never felt so alive or so desperate in my life, and I’m sure if she could hear what I’m thinking right now, she’d run out the door and never come back. Because I want her. Now. Here. Everywhere. I want nothing between us. I want her clothes off and the lights on and I want to study her. I want to unzip her out of this dress and take my time with every inch of her. I can’t help my need to just stare; to know her and her features: the slope of her nose, the curve of her lips, the line of her jaw. I want to run my fingertips across the soft skin of her neck and trace it all the way down. I want to feel the weight of her pressed against me, wrapped around me.

In here, I will take control because you and I both know you need it that way in order to turn your mind off. I will learn your body better than my own and have you writhing and begging me for more.” He caressed his thumbs across my cheeks and down the line of my jaw to press on my chin, forcing my lips apart. “But outside this room, Maddie, you fucking own me. I will worship the very ground you walk on if you’ll only let me.

Pac-Man?" The beast looked up at me, oversized fangs giving it an expression that straddled the line between deadly and dopey. A string of drool waved pendulum-like from the jaw, pushing it firmly into the latter category. "When he was a puppy, he tried to eat a ghost," Pallas explained.

We stood crying, Huda with tears, I with my mother's silence and taut jaw. We were enfolded in each other like the last word of an epic poem we had never imagined would end. A childhood story we had lived together line by line, hand in hand, was ending and we knew it would close the moment we unraveled our arms.

A terrible, painful sadness clutched at Ellen. More than ever before, she felt that her life—the best part of it, at least, the part that was fresh and fun—was behind her. Recognizing the sensation made her feel guilty, for she read it as proof that she was an unsatisfactory mother, an unsatisfied wife. She hated her life, and hated herself for hating it. She thought of a line from a song Billy played on the stereo: “I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday.

Sahara’s jaw set in a stubborn line familiar to him from her childhood. “You may carry his genes,” she said, “but you are not and never will be Enrique’s son.” A passionate negation that vibrated with cold fury. “If you were, you wouldn’t find pleasure in touching me with care, only in causing me pain.” Pressing her fingers to his lips, she shook her head. “You’re Kaleb. That is your identity.

I’m pre-med,” he added smugly. “Okay.” I said again. I didn’t shrug this time, but his jaw tightened a bit as if he was annoyed that I wasn’t displaying the proper amazement at his accomplishment. “And I’m next in line to be promoted to death investigator.” The look he gave me was nothing short of a challenge, and I had to fight to not roll my eyes. What, he expected me to start crowing about my own accomplishments so he could top them? He’d be waiting a long time for that.

You made me a promise last night in the dark,” she murmured softly, knowing she had his full attention. “I’m making you one now.” Brushing her thumb over the line of his jaw, feeling the scruff rasping against it, she vowed, repeating his own words. “Never again. You’ll never be alone again. No matter how bad the nightmare gets, I’m going to be right here.

Tariq’s eyes softened, their colors flickering in the shade. Their bright silver centers blended into rings of darkest ash, with black lashes that fanned against the soft skin of his eyelids. His brow had an air of severity that faded with the ready appearance of his smile. A day-old beard shadowed the square line of his jaw, further accentuating its finely wrought symmetry.

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw benieath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg.

I'm sorry I was less than you deserve, Tex, but I'm afraid I can't let you walk away from this. You see, it's too good, too rare to give up. I said in the cafeteria you weren't my girlfriend, and you weren't." I paused, watching her face twist with shock again. "You were my everything. Still are, baby. You wanted me to make you feel beautiful, but there's no one half as pretty as you are in the whole goddamn world. Please ..." My voice broke, and I bent the knee, like I'd always planned to. "Don't break my heart so soon after putting it back together." The air was thick in the auditorium as everyone held their breath. I was pretty sure for every second that ticked without her reaction, I lost an entire year of my life. Silver lining: a full minute of that, and I'd drop dead and wouldn't have to witness my own, very open disgrace. Finally, Grace found her voice. "On your feet, St. Claire," she whispered under her breath. "A king doesn't bow to others." I got up and scooped her up, giving people something to look at and talk about for years in this godforsaken town, pressing a dirty kiss to her lips and almost breaking her jaw in the process. "He does for his queen.

Try not to breathe,” I tell Lira. “It might get stuck halfway out.” Lira flicks up her hood. “You should try not to talk then,” she retorts. “Nobody wants your words being preserved for eternity.” “They’re pearls of wisdom, actually.” I can barely see Lira’s eyes under the mass of dark fur from her coat, but the mirthless curl of her smile is ever-present. It lingers in calculated amusement as she considers what to say next. Readies to ricochet the next blow. Lira pulls a line of ice from her hair, artfully indifferent. “If that is what pearls are worth these days, I’ll make sure to invest in diamonds.” “Or gold,” I tell her smugly. “I hear it’s worth its weight.” Kye shakes the snow from his sword and scoffs. “Anytime you two want to stop making me feel nauseated, go right ahead.” “Are you jealous because I’m not flirting with you?” Madrid asks him, warming her finger on the trigger mechanism of her gun. “I don’t need you to flirt with me,” he says. “I already know you find me irresistible.” Madrid reholsters her gun. “It’s actually quite easy to resist you when you’re dressed like that.” Kye looks down at the sleek red coat fitted snugly to his lithe frame. The fur collar cuddles against his jaw and obscures the bottoms of his ears, making it seem as though he has no neck at all. He throws Madrid a smile. “Is it because you think I look sexier wearing nothing?” Torik lets out a withering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. I’m not sure whether it’s from the hours we’ve gone without food or his inability to wear cutoffs in the biting cold, but his patience seems to be wearing thin. “I could swear that I’m on a life-and-death mission with a bunch of lusty kids,” he says. “Next thing I know, the lot of you will be writing love notes in rum bottles.” “Okay,” Madrid says. “Now I feel nauseated.” I laugh.

I want her clothes off and the lights on and I want to study her. I want to unzip her out of this dress and take my time with every inch of her. I can’t help my need to just stare; to know her and her features: the slope of her nose, the curve of her lips, the line of her jaw. I want to run my fingertips across the soft skin of her neck and trace it all the way down. I want to feel the weight of her pressed against me, wrapped around me.

What the hell are you doing?' Jacks growled. Evangeline turned toward his voice, sweat trickling down her cheek, as she found him standing in the doorway. A vein throbbed furiously along the line of his smooth, marble neck. His skin looked so cool, and she was so hot. All she wanted was to press her mouth to his throat and maybe lick it just once. Her blood rushed faster at the thought, and her fangs started to lengthen. 'Jacks, get out of here!' Chaos ordered. 'Unless you've changed your mind about her becoming a vampire.' Chaos gripped Evangeline's wrists tighter, pressing them- along with her- more firmly to the bed. She writhed against his grip; he was crushing her again with the full weight of his body. Something loud cracked in the doorway. Her eyes shot back to Jacks, who was fisting the now splintered edge of the door. Had he done that with his hands? He certainly looked livid enough. His silver-blue eyes turned midnight dark as he watched her struggling under Chaos. Evangeline dimly knew that she should stop her thrashing. If she broke free from Chaos and managed to bite Jacks, the life she had- the life she wanted to keep- would be over. But she also wanted this. She wanted Jacks to stop her struggling. She wanted him to rip Chaos off her chest so that he could pin her to the bed instead. Evangeline took a rasping breath, and her gaze collided with Jacks' once more. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. With Evangeline's heightened senses, she could hear it clench under his palm. Then she heard the scrape of Jacks' boots as he sharply turned and disappeared down the hall.

Dancer," she chided, "I promise you, no mother would rather lose her child." Lifting his head, he traced the line of her jaw with his thumb while a sad smile played at the edges of his lips. "That's you speaking. You don't know my mother. I promise you, she would rather see me dead than be dishonored." "Then tell them I raped you." He arched an amused brow at that. "I could have drugged you first. I did kiss you without your consent." "And my lips thank you for that.

I stare at his forearms. I can make out a naked woman with a snake going up her vagina. She’s holding a knife, slitting her own throat. There are three playing cards on the back of his right hand: the Queen of Spades, the Jack of Hearts and the Joker. Red flames lick his elbow. There’s a watch tattooed on his left wrist with ‘Fuck Time’ inscribed on its face. Fuck o’clock. He’s not that tall, but his body is carefully cut. The lines of his face, his cheekbones and jaw, are sharp and precise. I can see the tufts of his blond underarm hairs and under them the ladder of his ribs. He’s beautiful, in the way that a knife is beautiful.

You want to know what's wrong?" He took her chin, forcing her to look at him. She could feel the angry pounding of his heart through the soft leather of his jerkin. "I'll tell you what's wrong. I want you so bad, I can't think straight. My body is on fire. I can't look at you without wanting to pull you into my arms. I can't touch you without thinking of running my hands all over you." Her eyes widened. The raw desire in his gaze shocked her. Never had she thought herself capable of driving a man to such extreme passion. "But that is only half the problem." His eyes had narrowed to slits, the lines around his mouth etched white. The dark stubble of his beard cast an ominous shadow along his hard, square jaw. Whatever the problem, it didn't bode well for her. She tried to pull away, for the first time truly frightened, but he wouldn't let her go. His arms were like steel. "You want to know what's really wrong, Elizabeth?" His face was only inches from hers. "I saw you kiss him." He spoke each word with damning precision.

Somewhere someone is thinking of you. Someone is calling you an angel. This person is using celestial colors to paint your image. Someone is making you into a vision so beautiful that it can only live in the mind. Someone is thinking of the way your breath escapes your lips when you are touched. How your eyes close and your jaw tightens with concentration as you give pleasure a home. These thoughts are saving a life somewhere right now. In some airless apartment on a dark, urine stained, whore lined street, someone is calling out to you silently and you are answering without even being there. So crystalline. So pure. Such life saving power when you smile.

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin - that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

You choose to stay with me, them I'm going to fuck you." My jaw dropped. "What?" "You heard me. That's the only reason I keep you around, I mean, come on, princess," he continued derisively, "you're more of a liability than an asset in this line of work. But having an easy lay within reach is convenient." It's just a matter of time before you spread your legs for me." ... "Blane doesn't have to know," he said, his hand cupping my breast through my thin t-shirt. "I'll fuck you, then you can back to him, and only you and I will know he got my sloppy seconds.

Tell you what, I’ll take the first watch, and if nothing happens, we’ll both sleep. Agreed?” I frowned at him. He started playing with my fingers and turned my hand over so he could trace the lines of my palm. Firelight flickered across his handsome features. My eyes drifted to his lips. “Kelsey?” He made eye contact, and I quickly looked away. I wasn’t used to dealing with him when camping like this. I usually got to make all my own decisions, and he just followed me around. Er, or I guess I followed him most places. But, at least when he was a tiger he didn’t argue back. Or distract me with thoughts of being wrapped in his arms kissing him. He smiled an amazingly white smile and stroked the inside of my arm. “Your skin here is so soft.” He leaned over to nuzzle my ear. My blood started pounding thickly and fogged my brain. “Kells, tell me you agree with my plan.” I shook myself free from the spellbinding fog and set my jaw stubbornly. “Fine, you win. I agree,” I mumbled. “Even though you are coercing me.” He laughed and moved to look at me. “And how exactly am I coercing you?” “Well, first of all, you can’t expect me to have coherent thoughts when you’re touching me. Second, you always know how to get your way with me.” “Is that right?” “Sure. All you have to do is bat your eyes, or in your case smile and ask nicely, throw in a distracting touch, and then, before I know it, you get whatever it is you want.” “Really?” he teased quietly. “I had no idea I had that effect on you.” Reaching out a hand, he turned my face toward him. He trailed his fingers lightly from my jaw, down to the pulse at my throat, and then across my neckline. My pulse hammered as he touched the cord tied around my neck and followed its path down to the amulet; then he skimmed his fingers lightly back up to my neck, studying my face as he touched me. I swallowed thickly. He leaned in close and threatened playfully, “I’ll have to use it more to my advantage in the future.

I first met Winston Churchill in the early summer of 1906 at a dinner party to which I went as a very young girl. Our hostess was Lady Wemyss and I remember that Arthur Balfour, George Wyndman, Hilaire Belloc and Charles Whibley were among the guests… I found myself sitting next to this young man who seemed to me quite different from any other young man I had ever met. For a long time he seemed sunk in abstraction. Then he appeared to become suddenly aware of my existence. He turned on me a lowering gaze and asked me abruptly how old I was. I replied that I was nineteen. “And I,” he said despairingly, “am thirty-two already. Younger than anyone else who counts, though, “he added, as if to comfort himself. Then savagely: “Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is this allotted span for all we must cram into it!” And he burst forth into an eloquent diatribe on the shortness of human life, the immensity of possible human accomplishment—a theme so well exploited by the poets, prophets, and philosophers of all ages that it might seem difficult to invest it with new and startling significance. Yet for me he did so, in a torrent of magnificent language which appeared to be both effortless and inexhaustible and ended up with the words I shall always remember: “We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow worm.” By this time I was convinced of it—and my conviction remained unshaken throughout the years that followed. Later he asked me whether I thought that words had a magic and music quite independent of their meaning. I said I certainly thought so, and I quoted as a classic though familiar instance the first lines that came into my head. Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. His eyes blazed with excitement. “Say that again,” he said, “say it again—it is marvelous!” “But I objected, “You know these lines. You know the ‘Ode to a Nightengale.’ ” He had apparently never read or heard of it before (I must, however, add that next time I met him he had not learned not merely this but all of the odes to Keats by heart—and he recited them quite mercilessly from start to finish, not sparing me a syllable). Finding that he liked poetry, I quoted to him from one of my own favorite poets, Blake. He listened avidly, repeating some lines to himself with varying emphases and stresses, then added meditatively: “I never knew that old Admiral had found so much time to write such good poetry.” I was astounded that he, with his acute susceptibility to words and power of using them, should have left such tracts of English literature entirely unexplored. But however it happened he had lost nothing by it, when he approached books it was “with a hungry, empty mind and with fairly srong jaws, and what I got I *bit*.” And his ear for the beauty of language needed no tuning fork. Until the end of dinner I listened to him spellbound. I can remember thinking: This is what people mean when they talk of seeing stars. That is what I am doing now. I do not to this day know who was on my other side. Good manners, social obligation, duty—all had gone with the wind. I was transfixed, transported into a new element. I knew only that I had seen a great light. I recognized it as the light of genius… I cannot attempt to analyze, still less transmit, the light of genius. But I will try to set down, as I remember them, some of the differences which struck me between him and all the others, young and old, whom I have known. First and foremost he was incalculable. He ran true to no form. There lurked in his every thought and world the ambush of the unexpected. I felt also that the impact of life, ideas and even words upon his mind, was not only vivid and immediate, but direct. Between him and them there was no shock absorber of vicarious thought or precedent gleaned either from books or other minds. His relationship wit

It wasn't just the way he always looked at her- with a mix of genuine joy and longing rolled into one- or his appearance, although he wasn't hard on the eyes with those rippling pectorals. She found herself drawn to those kind blue eyes and the hard line of his jaw, which moved when he was thinking. It was the dimples in his cheeks when he flashed her that magnetic smile, and the way his reddish blond hair had a single curl that was always falling in front of his eyes. But mostly it was that earnest nature of his, and his need to find the good in every situation, which was so different from how she viewed life, and gave her hope that the world could be more than she imagined it to be.

Almondine To her, the scent and the memory of him were one. Where it lay strongest, the distant past came to her as if that morning: Taking a dead sparrow from her jaws, before she knew to hide such things. Guiding her to the floor, bending her knee until the arthritis made it stick, his palm hotsided on her ribs to measure her breaths and know where the pain began. And to comfort her. That had been the week before he went away. He was gone, she knew this, but something of him clung to the baseboards. At times the floor quivered under his footstep. She stood then and nosed into the kitchen and the bathroom and the bedroom-especially the closet-her intention to press her ruff against his hand, run it along his thigh, feel the heat of his body through the fabric. Places, times, weather-all these drew him up inside her. Rain, especially, falling past the double doors of the kennel, where he’d waited through so many storms, each drop throwing a dozen replicas into the air as it struck the waterlogged earth. And where the rising and falling water met, something like an expectation formed, a place where he might appear and pass in long strides, silent and gestureless. For she was not without her own selfish desires: to hold things motionless, to measure herself against them and find herself present, to know that she was alive precisely because he needn’t acknowledge her in casual passing; that utter constancy might prevail if she attended the world so carefully. And if not constancy, then only those changes she desired, not those that sapped her, undefined her. And so she searched. She’d watched his casket lowered into the ground, a box, man-made, no more like him than the trees that swayed under the winter wind. To assign him an identity outside the world was not in her thinking. The fence line where he walked and the bed where he slept-that was where he lived, and they remembered him. Yet he was gone. She knew it most keenly in the diminishment of her own self. In her life, she’d been nourished and sustained by certain things, him being one of them, Trudy another, and Edgar, the third and most important, but it was really the three of them together, intersecting in her, for each of them powered her heart a different way. Each of them bore different responsibilities to her and with her and required different things from her, and her day was the fulfillment of those responsibilities. She could not imagine that portion of her would never return. With her it was not hope, or wistful thoughts-it was her sense of being alive that thinned by the proportion of her spirit devoted to him. "ory of Edgar Sawtelle" As spring came on, his scent about the place began to fade. She stopped looking for him. Whole days she slept beside his chair, as the sunlight drifted from eastern-slant to western-slant, moving only to ease the weight of her bones against the floor. And Trudy and Edgar, encapsulated in mourning, somehow forgot to care for one another, let alone her. Or if they knew, their grief and heartache overwhelmed them. Anyway, there was so little they might have done, save to bring out a shirt of his to lie on, perhaps walk with her along the fence line, where fragments of time had snagged and hung. But if they noticed her grief, they hardly knew to do those things. And she without the language to ask.

Wanting his mind on other matters, she deliiberately challenged his statement. "You don't know so much about me. There was a man once. He was crazy about me." She tried to look wordly. "Absolutely crazy for me." His answering laughter was warm against her neck, her throat. His lips touched the skin over her pulse and skimmed lightly up to her ear. "Are you, by any chance, referring to that foppish boy with the orange hair and spiked collar? Dragon something?" Savannah gasped and pulled away to glare at im. "How could you possibly know about him? I dated him last year." Gregori nuzzled her neck, inhaling her fragrance, his hand sliding over her shoulder, moving gently over her satin skin to take possession of her breast. "He wore boots and rode a Harley." His breath came out in a rush as his palm cupped the soft weight, his thumb brushing her nipple into a hard peak. The feel of his large hand-so strong, so warm and possessive on her-sent heat curling through her body. Desire rose sharply. He was seducing her with tenderness. Savannah didn't want it to happen. Her body felt better, but the soreness was there to remind her where this could all lead. Her hand caught at his wrist. "How did you find out about Dragon?" she asked, desperate to distract him, to distract herself. How could he make her body burn for his when she was so afraid of him, of having sex with him? "Making love," he corrected, his voice husky, caressing, betraying the ease with which his mind moved like a shadow through hers."And to answer your question, I live in you, can touch you whenever I wish.I knew about all of them. Every damn one." He growled the worrds, and her breath caught in her throat. "He was the only one you thought of kissing." His mouth touched hers. Gently. Lightly. Returned for more. Coaxing, teasing, until she opened to him. He stole her breath, her reason, whirling her into a world of feeling.Bright colors and white-hot heat, the room falling away until there was only his broad shoulders,strong arms, hard body, and perfect,perfect mouth. When he lifted his head, Savannah nearly pulled him back to her.He watched her face,her eyes cloudy with desire, her lips so beautiful, bereft of his. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Savannah? There is such beauty in your soul,I can see it shining in your eyes." She touched his face, her palm molding his strong jaw. Why couldn't she resist his hungry eyes? "I think you're casting a spell over me. I can't remember what we were talking about." Gregori smiled. "Kissing." His teeth nibbled gently at her chin. "Specifically,your wanting to kiss that orange-bearded imbecile." "I wanted to kiss every one of them," she lied indignantly. "No,you did not.You were hoping that silly fop would wipe my taste from your mouth for all eternity." His hand stroked back the fall of hair around her face.He feathered kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. "It would not have worked,you know.As I recall,he seemed to have a problem getting close to you." Her eyes smoldered dangerously. "Did you have anything to do with his allergies?" She had wanted someone, anyone,to wipe Gregori's taste from her mouth,her soul. He raised his voice an octave. "Oh, Savannah, I just have to taste your lips," he mimicked. Then he went into a sneezing fit. "You haven't ridden until you've ridden on a Harley,baby." He sneezed, coughed, and gagged in perfect imitation. Savannah pushed his arm, forgetting for a moment her bruised fist. When it hurt, she yelped and glared accusingly at him. "It was you doing all that to him! That poor man-you damaged his ego for life. Each time he touched me, he had a sneezing fit." Gregori raised an eyebrow, completely unrepentant. "Technically,he did not lay a hand on you.He sneezed before he could get that close.

In her memoir of living among the Bushmen, The Old Way: A Story of the First People, my friend Liz lovingly invokes an image first coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins: “You are standing beside your mother, holding her hand. She is holding her mother’s hand, who is holding her mother’s hand. . . . ” Eventually the line stretches three hundred miles long and goes back five million years, and the clasping hand of the ancestor looks like that of a chimpanzee. I loved picturing one of Octavia’s arms stretching out to meet one of her mother’s arms, and one of her mother’s mother’s arms, and her mother’s mother’s mother’s. . . . Suckered, elastic arms, reaching back through time: an octopus chorus line stretching not just hundreds, but many thousands of miles long. Back past the Cenozoic, the time when our ancestors descended from the trees; back past the Mesozoic, when dinosaurs ruled the land; back past the Permian and the rise of the ancestors of the mammals; back, past the Carboniferous’s coal-forming swamp forests; back past the Devonian, when amphibians emerged from the water; back past the Silurian, when plants first took root on land—all the way to the Ordovician, to a time before the advent of wings or knees or lungs, before the fishes had bony jaws, before blood pumped from a multichambered heart. More than 500 million years ago, the tides would have been stronger, the days shorter, the year longer, and the air too high in carbon dioxide for mammals or birds to breathe. All the earth’s continents huddled in the Southern Hemisphere. And yet still, the arm of Octavia’s ancestor, sensitive, suckered, and supple, would have been recognizable as one of an octopus.

You want me to teach you all the dirty words?” I looked up at him and wiggled my eyebrows. Aaron gave me a lopsided smile that would have made my panties drop to the floor had they been resting on my hips. “Well, you are in luck; I’m a wonderful teacher.” “And I’m a highly dedicated student.” He winked. And that goddamn wink disrupted the beating of my heart. “Although I might get a little distracted every now and then.” “I see.” I placed my index finger against his chest, watching Aaron’s eyes dive down quickly before returning to my face. “Maybe you need the right kind of motivation to keep your attention on the subject.” I trailed that finger up, traveling across his pec and then up his neck, following the line of his jaw until reaching his lips. They parted with a shallow breath. “This …” I pushed myself up and kissed his lips gently. “This is a six-letter word in Spanish. Labios. Tus labios. Your lips.” The only answer he gave me was taking my mouth in his again. As if the only way he’d learn the word was tasting it. “And this,” I said before parting his lips and making the kiss deeper, our tongues dancing together, “is another six-letter word. Lengua—tongue.” “I think I really like that one.” Aaron’s head dipped low, his new favorite word reaching my breast. “And this? What do you call this?” he said, grazing his mouth over the peak. A giggle that soon turned into a moan left my mouth before I was able to answer. “That’s a five-letter word. Pezón. Nipple.

I never cared for poetry," I said. "Your loss," Sim said absently as he turned a few pages. "Eld Vintic poetry's thunderous. It pounds at you." "What's the meter like?"I asked, curious despite myself. "I don't know anything about meter," Simmon said distractedly he ran his finger down the page in front of him. "It's like this: "Sought we the Scrivani word-work of Surthur Long-lost in ledger all hope forgotten Yet fast-found for friendship fair the book-bringer Hot comes the huntress Fela, flushed with finding Breathless her breast her high blood rising To ripen the red-cheek rouge-bloom of beauty. "That sort of thing," Simmon said absently, his eyes still scanning the pages in front of him. I saw Fela turn her head to look at Simmon, almost as if she were surprised to see him sitting there. No, it was almost s if up until that point, he'd just been occupying space around her, like a piece of furniture. But this time when she looked at him, she took all of him in. His sandy hair, the line of his jaw, the span of his shoulders beneath his shirt. This time when she looked, she actually *saw* him. Let me say this. It was worth the whole awful , irritating time spent searching the Archives just to watch that moment happen. It was worth blood and the fear of death to see her fall in love with him. Just a little. Just the first faint breath of love, so light she probably didn't notice it herself. It wasn't dramatic, like some bolt of lightning with a crack of thunder following. It was more like when flint strikes steel and the spark fades almost fast for you to see. But still, you know it's there, down where you can't see, kindling.

Send word down the line,” he said. “We’ll camp here for the night.” Valik nodded and started to turn his horse around. “And Valik? There are lamps in the carriage that are apparently supposed to help her back heal faster. Have them set them up in my tents. I’ll see to the men while you get her settled.” At Valik’s raised brows, Wynter added, “Your face is prettier than mine, or so I’m told. She may find it easier to do what you ask than what I command.” “You’re forgetting she kicked me in my pretty face last time I asked her to do something she didn’t want to do.” Wyn gave a grunt of laughter. “Better than kicking you in the balls.” Then he sobered. “And see to it she actually eats and drinks something.” She’d taken little nourishment all day, and though he’d allowed it, knowing anything she ate was likely to come back up once they started moving again, they were stopping for the night now, and she needed to eat. Her body needed sustenance to heal. “If she balks, tell her I’ll force it down her throat myself if I must.” Valik shook his head. “I’ll let you tell her that.” He rubbed his jaw. “I want to be able to chew my dinner.

Perry continued, his voice even but firm as granite; "Do you prefer the easy platitudes? You said you didn't. How dare you speak about God like He's some frivolous clown? Do you think you're the only one who has suffered in this world? Every apostle but one died a martyr’s death. By the time of Nero the streets of Rome were lined with Christians hanging on crosses. Emperors would wrap them in wax and light them on fire, using their burning bodies as torches. Even Gods own Son was nailed to a cross. What makes you think you should be spared pain and difficulty? Anne started to speak but nothing came out so Perry continued. "I'm grieved at your loss but I won't waste time joining you in your pity party. Everyone faces hardship, disappointment and, sooner or later, tragedy. It's called Life. If you want to talk about how unfair God is you'll need to find a different audience, because I'm not going to listen to it" Perry watched Anne's jaw tighten and her eyes narrow as if to hold back the hurricane of fury swirling within her. "You owe me an apology", she said through tight lips. "You owe God an apology", Perry countered in the same still voice. A TREASURE DEEP

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out into playing fields, the factory, allotments kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men, the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan, till you came at last to the edge of the woods. It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf. He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth! In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink, my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry. The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake, my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night, breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem. I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf? Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws and went in search of a living bird – white dove – which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth. One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said, licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books. Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood. But then I was young – and it took ten years in the woods to tell that a mushroom stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out, season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones. I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up. Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone. Little Red-Cap

I don't think Gregori really knows what to do with you." Gary's heart jumped. He cleared his throat. "I hope you mean that positively." Savannah's eyes laughed at him. "Do you really think he'll harm you? He can read your mind. If you were an enemy, he would've killed you back in that warehouse." Wickedly she leaned across the table. "Of course, ie really is afully unpredictable, so you never know what he might do or where he is-" She broke off, laughing, as her arm wasflung into the air as if something had shackled her wrist and jerked her backward. Savannah was dragged by something unseen from the kitchen. She was laughing, her blue eyes dancing with mischief. Gregori tugged at her wrist, taking her out into the sanctuary of the courtyard with its dense, overgrown plants. Flowers tumbled from the overhead arbors and trailingalong his shoulders as he emerged fully into the night. "You are deliberately scaring that young man to death," he accused. She lifted her face to his, stars from the night sky in the centers of her eyes."Well,really, how could anyone doubt you?" As her palm caressed the hard line of his jaw,one fingertip touched his perfect mouth. "Stop thinking you have to protect me, Savannah. It is enough that I have you. I do not need anyone else.

Tamper with my memory?" I asked nervously. "Something like that." He was watching me intently, carefully, but there was humor deep in his eyes. He placed his hands against the Jeep on either side of my head and leaned forward, forcing me to press back against the door. He leaned in even closer, his face inches from mine. I had no room to escape. "Now," he breathed, and just his smell disturbed my thought processes, "what exactly are you worrying about?" "Well, um, hitting a tree —" I gulped "— and dying. And then getting sick." He fought back a smile. Then he bent his head down and touched his cold lips softly to the hollow at the base of my throat. "Are you still worried now?" he murmured against my skin. "Yes." I struggled to concentrate. "About hitting trees and getting sick." His nose drew a line up the skin of my throat to the point of my chin. His cold breath tickled my skin. "And now?" His lips whispered against my jaw. "Trees," I gasped. "Motion sickness." He lifted his face to kiss my eyelids. "Bella, you don't really think I would hit a tree, do you?" "No, but I might." There was no confidence in my voice. He smelled an easy victory. He kissed slowly down my cheek, stopping just at the corner of my mouth. "Would I let a tree hurt you?" His lips barely brushed against my trembling lower lip. "No," I breathed. I knew there was a second part to my brilliant defense, but I couldn't quite call it back. "You see," he said, his lips moving against mine. "There's nothing to be afraid of, is there?" "No," I sighed, giving up. Then he took my face in his hands almost roughly, and kissed me in earnest, his unyielding lips moving against mine. There really was no excuse for my behavior. Obviously I knew better by now. And yet I couldn't seem to stop from reacting exactly as I had the first time. Instead of keeping safely motionless, my arms reached up to twine tightly around his neck, and I was suddenly welded to his stone figure. I sighed, and my lips parted. He staggered back, breaking my grip effortlessly. "Damn it, Bella!" he broke off, gasping. "You'll be the death of me, I swear you will." I leaned over, bracing my hands against my knees for support. "You're indestructible," I mumbled, trying to catch my breath. "I might have believed that before I met you.

It had only two points of egress, the door to the hallway from which I’d just entered, and against which I’d been pinned-and now leaned against for support-and the other to the stable yard where a man dressed all in black leather had shoved John’s dog, and where I was assuming John kept his horse, Alastor, another creature from the Underworld who hated my guts. He was going to have to get in line, though. The boy who’d pulled Typhon off me was standing a few feet away, next to the wooden plank table that ran down the center of the room, staring at me with a look that suggested he disliked me even more than the dog had. It was difficult not to notice the size of his bare biceps-not as large as John’s, but still impressive-since he’d folded his arms across his chest, and this had caused the muscles to bulge. The fact that they were circled in vicious-looking rings of black tattooed thorns did even more to draw attention to them. It was hard to figure out if that was why he was so much more noticeable than anyone else in the room, or if it was because he was what my friend Kayla would have called smokin’ hot, despite a jagged scar that ran down one side of his forehead, through a dark brow, and halfway to the center of his left jaw. Whoever had wielded that knife had thankfully-for him-spared his dark eye. Not so thankfully for me, however, since he was able to use both eyes to give me a deathlike stare. “Um,” I said, finally feeling the blood flow returning to my limbs. “You might want to think about getting that dog neutered.” The boy with the thorn tattoos sneered. “I’m guessing she’ll be wanting to get us all neutered,” he said.

Irrelevant’ Chris Fogle turns a page. Howard Cardwell turns a page. Ken Wax turns a page. Matt Redgate turns a page. ‘Groovy’ Bruce Channing attaches a form to a file. Ann Williams turns a page. Anand Singh turns two pages at once by mistake and turns one back which makes a slightly different sound. David Cusk turns a page. Sandra Pounder turns a page. Robert Atkins turns two separate pages of two separate files at the same time. Ken Wax turns a page. Lane Dean Jr. turns a page. Olive Borden turns a page. Chris Acquistipace turns a page. David Cusk turns a page. Rosellen Brown turns a page. Matt Redgate turns a page. R. Jarvis Brown turns a page. Ann Williams sniffs slightly and turns a page. Meredith Rand does something to a cuticle. ‘Irrelevant’ Chris Fogle turns a page. Ken Wax turns a page. Howard Cardwell turns a page. Kenneth ‘Type of Thing’ Hindle detaches a Memo 402-C(1) from a file. ‘Second-Knuckle’ Bob McKenzie looks up briefly while turning a page. David Cusk turns a page. A yawn proceeds across one Chalk’s row by unconscious influence. Ryne Hobratschk turns a page. Latrice Theakston turns a page. Rotes Group Room 2 hushed and brightly lit, half a football field in length. Howard Cardwell shifts slightly in his chair and turns a page. Lane Dean Jr. traces his jaw’s outline with his ring finger. Ed Shackleford turns a page. Elpidia Carter turns a page. Ken Wax attaches a Memo 20 to a file. Anand Singh turns a page. Jay Landauer and Ann Williams turn a page almost precisely in sync although they are in different rows and cannot see each other. Boris Kratz bobs with a slight Hassidic motion as he crosschecks a page with a column of figures. Ken Wax turns a page. Harriet Candelaria turns a page. Matt Redgate turns a page. Ambient room temperature 80° F. Sandra Pounder makes a minute adjustment to a file so that the page she is looking at is at a slightly different angle to her. ‘Irrelevant’ Chris Fogle turns a page. David Cusk turns a page. Each Tingle’s two-tiered hemisphere of boxes. ‘Groovy’ Bruce Channing turns a page. Ken Wax turns a page. Six wigglers per Chalk, four Chalks per Team, six Teams per group. Latrice Theakston turns a page. Olive Borden turns a page. Plus administration and support. Bob McKenzie turns a page. Anand Singh turns a page and then almost instantly turns another page. Ken Wax turns a page. Chris ‘The Maestro’ Acquistipace turns a page. David Cusk turns a page. Harriet Candelaria turns a page. Boris Kratz turns a page. Robert Atkins turns two separate pages. Anand Singh turns a page. R. Jarvis Brown uncrosses his legs and turns a page. Latrice Theakston turns a page. The slow squeak of the cart boy’s cart at the back of the room. Ken Wax places a file on top of the stack in the Cart-Out box to his upper right. Jay Landauer turns a page. Ryne Hobratschk turns a page and then folds over the page of a computer printout that’s lined up next to the original file he just turned a page of. Ken Wax turns a page. Bob Mc-Kenzie turns a page. Ellis Ross turns a page. Joe ‘The Bastard’ Biron-Maint turns a page. Ed Shackleford opens a drawer and takes a moment to select just the right paperclip. Olive Borden turns a page. Sandra Pounder turns a page. Matt Redgate turns a page and then almost instantly turns another page. Latrice Theakston turns a page. Paul Howe turns a page and then sniffs circumspectly at the green rubber sock on his pinkie’s tip. Olive Borden turns a page. Rosellen Brown turns a page. Ken Wax turns a page. Devils are actually angels. Elpidia Carter and Harriet Candelaria reach up to their Cart-In boxes at exactly the same time. R. Jarvis Brown turns a page. Ryne Hobratschk turns a page. ‘Type of Thing’ Ken Hindle looks up a routing code. Some with their chin in their hand. Robert Atkins turns a page even as he’s crosschecking something on that page. Ann Williams turns a page. Ed Shackleford searches a file for a supporting document. Joe Biron-Maint turns a page. Ken Wax turns a page.

So sentences are copied, constructed, or created; they are uttered, mentioned, or used; each says, means, implies, reveals, connects; each titillates, invites, conceals, suggests; and each is eventually either consumed or conserved; nevertheless, the lines in Stevens or the sentences of Joyce and James, pressed by one another into being as though the words before and the words after were those reverent hands both Rilke and Rodin have celebrated, clay calling to clay like mating birds, concept responding to concept the way passionate flesh congests, every note a nipple on the breast, at once a triumphant pinnacle and perfect conclusion, like pelted water, I think I said, yet at the same time only another anonymous cell, and selfless in its service to the shaping skin as lost forgotten matter is in all walls; these lines, these sentences, are not quite uttered, not quite mentioned, peculiarly employed, strangely listed, oddly used, as though a shadow were the leaves, limbs, trunk of a new tree, and the shade itself were thrust like a dark torch into the grassy air in the same slow and forceful way as its own roots, entering the earth, roughen the darkness there till all its freshly shattered facets shine against themselves as teeth do in the clenched jaw; for Rabelais was wrong, blue is the color of the mind in borrow of the body; it is the color consciousness becomes when caressed; it is the dark inside of sentences, sentences which follow their own turnings inward out of sight like the whorls of a shell, and which we follow warily, as Alice after that rabbit, nervous and white, till suddenly—there! climbing down clauses and passing through ‘and’ as it opens—there—there—we’re here! . . . in time for tea and tantrums; such are the sentences we should like to love—the ones which love us and themselves as well—incestuous sentences—sentences which make an imaginary speaker speak the imagination loudly to the reading eye; that have a kind of orality transmogrified: not the tongue touching the genital tip, but the idea of the tongue, the thought of the tongue, word-wet to part-wet, public mouth to private, seed to speech, and speech . . . ah! after exclamations, groans, with order gone, disorder on the way, we subside through sentences like these, the risk of senselessness like this, to float like leaves on the restful surface of that world of words to come, and there, in peace, patiently to dream of the sensuous, imagined, and mindful Sublime.

She had just given Liger his food when a tap sounded on the connecting door. Priss’s heart leaped into her throat. With excitement. Not dread, or annoyance, or even indifference. Pure, sizzling stimulation. Suddenly she was wide-awake. Tamping down her automatic smile, Priss leaned on the door. “Yeah?” “Open up.” Still fighting that twitching grin, Priss tried to sound disgruntled as she asked, “Why?” Something hit the door—maybe his head—and Trace said, “I heard you up and moving around, Priss. I have coffee ready, but if you don’t want any—” Being a true caffeine junkie, she jerked open the door. “Oh, bless you, man.” She took the cup straight out of Trace’s hand, drank deeply and sighed as the warmth penetrated the thick fog of novel sentiment. “Ahhhh. Nirvana. Thank you.” Only after the caffeine ingestion did she notice that Trace wore unsnapped jeans and nothing else. Her eyes flared wide and her jaw felt loose. Holy moly. “That was my cup,” Trace told her, bemused. But Priss could only stare at him. Despite the delicious coffee she’d just poured in it, her mouth went dry. When she continued to stare at him, at his chest and abdomen, her gaze tracking a silky line of brown hair that disappeared into his jeans, Trace crossed his arms. Her gaze jumped to his face and she found him watching her with equal fascination. A little lost as to the reason for that look, Priss asked with some belligerence, “What?” With a cryptic smile, Trace shook his head. “Never mind. Help yourself, and I’ll get another.” Oh, crap, she’d snatched away his cup! “Sorry.” He lifted a hand in dismissal and went to the coffee machine sitting atop the dresser. His jeans rode low on his hips. The sun had darkened his skin, creating a sharp contrast to his fair hair. Another drink was in order, and another sigh of bliss. Hoping to regain her wits, Priss said, “God, nothing in the world tastes better than that first drink of coffee.” Trace looked over his shoulder, his attention zeroing in on her mouth, then her chest and finally down to her bare legs. “Oh, I don’t know about that.

Do you want to know my favorite?” My grip tightened on the railing. In. Out. “Andromeda.” Allister moved closer. “An autumn constellation, forty-four light-years away.” His steps were smooth and indifferent, but his voice was dry, as though he found my panic attack positively boring. His attitude brought a small rush of annoyance in, but it was suddenly swayed as my lungs contracted and wouldn’t release. I couldn’t keep a strangled gasp from escaping. “Look up.” It was an order, carrying a harsh edge. With no fight in me, I complied and tilted my head. Tears blurred my vision. Stars swam together and sparkled like diamonds. I was glad they weren’t. Humans would find a way to pluck them from the sky. “Andromeda is the dim, fuzzy star to the right. Find it.” My eyes searched it out. The stars weren’t often easy to see, hidden behind smog and the glow of city lights, but sometimes, on a lucky night like tonight, pollution cleared and they became visible. I found the star and focused on it. “Do you know her story?” he asked, his voice close behind me. A cold wind touched my cheeks, and I inhaled slowly. “Answer me.” “No,” I gritted. “Andromeda was boasted to be one of the most beautiful goddesses.” He moved closer, so close his jacket brushed my bare arm. His hands were in his pockets and his gaze was on the sky. “She was sacrificed for her beauty, tied to a rock by the sea.” I imagined her, a red-haired goddess with a heart of steel chained to a rock. The question bubbled up from the depths of me. “Did she survive?” His gaze fell to me. Down the tear tracks to the blood on my bottom lip. His eyes darkened, his jaw tightened, and he looked away. “She did.” I found the star again. Andromeda. “Ask me what her name means.” It was another rough demand, and I had the urge to refuse. To tell him to stop bossing me around. However, I wanted to know—I suddenly needed to. But he was already walking away, toward the exit. “Wait,” I breathed, turning to him. “What does her name mean?” He opened the door and a sliver of light poured onto the terrace. Black suit. Broad shoulders. Straight lines. His head turned just enough to meet my gaze. Blue. “It means ruler of men.” An icy breeze almost swallowed his words before they reached me, whipping my hair at my cheeks. And then he was gone.

We lunged for each other at the same time and collided, crazy with need and starving for a taste. Warnings and alarms wailed in my mind, but I shut them down. Screw it. I wanted him. He found my mouth. The thrust of his tongue against mine made my head spin. He tasted like heaven. I kissed him back, nipping, licking, melting against him. It felt so good . . . His lips traced a fiery line from my mouth to the corner of my jaw and down my neck. My whole body sang in warm liquid triumph. His voice was a ragged whisper in my ear. “Only if you want to . . . Say no, and I’ll stop.” “No,” I whispered to see if he would do it. Curran pulled back. His eyes were pure need, raw and barely under control. He swallowed. “Okay.” It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen. I reached for him and slid my hand up his chest, feeling the taut muscle. He caught my hand and kissed my palm gently. Heated, tightly controlled want shone in his eyes. I pulled my fingers free, pushed from the wall, and kissed his throat just under the jaw. This was bliss. There was no hope for me. He growled, closing his eyes. “What are you doing?” “Pulling on Death’s whiskers,” I murmured, letting my tongue play over his skin, rough with stubble. He smelled divine, clean and male. My hands slid up his biceps. His muscles tensed under the light pressure of my fingers. He was trying very, very hard to stand still and I almost laughed. All those times when he’d called me “baby” . . . Revenge was sweet. “Is that a yes or a no?” he asked. I slid against him and nipped his bottom lip. “I’ll take it as a yes.” The steel muscles of his arms flexed under my hands. He grabbed me, hoisted me up onto him, and kissed me, thrusting into my mouth with his tongue in a hot, slick rhythm, greedy and eager. I threw my arms around his neck. His right hand grasped my hair, his left cupped my butt and pushed me closer against him, his erection a hard, hot length across my lap. Finally— “Let me in,” Derek growled at the door. Go away. The guard said something. Curran’s hand found my breast and caressed the nipple, sending an electric shock through my skin, threatening to melt me . . . “Yes,” Derek snarled. “I’m a member of the damn team. Ask them.” “Curran,” I whispered. “Curran!” He snarled and kept going. The door swung open. I hit him on the back of the neck. He submerged. Help. I’ve drowned the Beast Lord.

Mom?” Then again, louder. “Mom?” She turned around so quickly, she knocked the pan off the stove and nearly dropped the gray paper into the open flame there. I saw her reach back and slap her hand against the knobs, twisting a dial until the smell of gas disappeared. “I don’t feel good. Can I stay home today?” No response, not even a blink. Her jaw was working, grinding, but it took me walking over to the table and sitting down for her to find her voice. “How—how did you get in here?” “I have a bad headache and my stomach hurts,” I told her, putting my elbows up on the table. I knew she hated when I whined, but I didn’t think she hated it enough to come over and grab me by the arm again. “I asked you how you got in here, young lady. What’s your name?” Her voice sounded strange. “Where do you live?” Her grip on my skin only tightened the longer I waited to answer. It had to have been a joke, right? Was she sick, too? Sometimes cold medicine did funny things to her. Funny things, though. Not scary things. “Can you tell me your name?” she repeated. “Ouch!” I yelped, trying to pull my arm away. “Mom, what’s wrong?” She yanked me up from the table, forcing me onto my feet. “Where are your parents? How did you get in this house?” Something tightened in my chest to the point of snapping. “Mom, Mommy, why—” “Stop it,” she hissed, “stop calling me that!” “What are you—?” I think I must have tried to say something else, but she dragged me over to the door that led out into the garage. My feet slid against the wood, skin burning. “Wh-what’s wrong with you?” I cried. I tried twisting out of her grasp, but she wouldn’t even look at me. Not until we were at the door to the garage and she pushed my back up against it. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I know you’re confused, but I promise that I’m not your mother. I don’t know how you got into this house, and, frankly, I’m not sure I want to know—” “I live here!” I told her. “I live here! I’m Ruby!” When she looked at me again, I saw none of the things that made Mom my mother. The lines that formed around her eyes when she smiled were smoothed out, and her jaw was clenched around whatever she wanted to say next. When she looked at me, she didn’t see me. I wasn’t invisible, but I wasn’t Ruby. “Mom.” I started to cry. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be bad. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, I promise I’ll be good—I’ll go to school today and won’t be sick, and I’ll pick up my room. I’m sorry. Please remember. Please!” She put one hand on my shoulder and the other on the door handle. “My husband is a police officer. He’ll be able to help you get home. Wait in here—and don’t touch anything.” The door opened and I was pushed into a wall of freezing January air. I stumbled down onto the dirty, oil-stained concrete, just managing to catch myself before I slammed into the side of her car. I heard the door shut behind me, and the lock click into place; heard her call Dad’s name as clearly as I heard the birds in the bushes outside the dark garage. She hadn’t even turned on the light for me. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over. The door was locked. “I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!” Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights.

She was especially taken with Matt. Until he said, “It’s time to fess up, hon. Tell Trace how much you care. You’ll feel better when you do.” Climbing up the ladder, Chris said, “Better sooner than later.” He nodded at the hillside behind them. “Because here comes Trace, and he doesn’t look happy.” Both Priss and Matt turned, Priss with anticipation, Matt with tempered dread. Dressed in jeans and a snowy-white T-shirt, Trace stalked down the hill. Priss shielded her eyes to better see him. When he’d left, being so guarded about his mission, she’d half wondered if he’d return before dinner. Trace wore reflective sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes, but his entire demeanor—heavy stride, rigid shoulders, tight jaw—bespoke annoyance. As soon as he was close enough, Priss called out, “What’s wrong?” Without answering her, Trace continued onto the dock. He didn’t stop until he stood right in front of . . . Matt. Backing up to the edge of the dock, Matt said, “Uh . . . Hello?” Trace didn’t say a thing; he just pushed Matt into the water. Arms and legs flailing out, Matt hit the surface with a cannonball effect. Stunned, Priss shoved his shoulder. “What the hell, Trace! Why did you do that?” Trace took off his sunglasses and looked at her, all of her, from her hair to her body and down to her bare toes. After working his jaw a second, he said, “If you need sunscreen, ask me.” Her mouth fell open. Of all the nerve! He left her at Dare’s, took off without telling her a damn thing and then had the audacity to complain when a friend tried to keep her from getting sunburned. “Maybe I would have, if you’d been here!” “I’m here now.” Emotions bubbled over. “So you are.” With a slow smile, Priss put both hands on his chest. The shirt was damp with sweat, the cotton so soft that she could feel every muscle beneath. “And you look a little . . . heated.” Trace’s beautiful eyes darkened, and he reached for her. “A dip will cool you down.” Priss shoved him as hard as she could. Taken by surprise, fully dressed, Trace went floundering backward off the end of the dock. Priss caught a glimpse of the priceless expression of disbelief on Trace’s face before he went under the water. Excited by the activity, the dogs leaped in after him. Liger roused himself enough to move out of the line of splashing. Chris climbed up the ladder. “So that’s the new game, huh?” He laughed as he scooped Priss up into his arms. “Chris!” She made a grab for his shoulders. “Put me down!” “Afraid not, doll.” Just as Trace resurfaced, Chris jumped in with her. They landed between the swimming dogs. Sputtering, her hair in her face and her skin chilled from the shock of the cold water, Priss cursed. Trace had already waded toward the shallower water off the side of the dock. His fair hair was flattened to his head and his T-shirt stuck to his body. “Wait!” Priss shouted at him. He was still waist-deep as he turned to glare at her. Kicking and splashing, Priss doggy-paddled over to him, grabbed his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Startled, Trace scooped her bottom in his hands and struggled for balance on the squishy mud bottom of the lake. “What the hell?” And then lower, “You look naked in this damn suit.” Matt and Chris found that hilarious. Priss looked at Trace’s handsome face, a face she loved, and kissed him. Hard. For only a second, he allowed the sensual assault. He even kissed her back. Then he levered away from her. “You ruined my clothes, damn it.” “Only because you were being a jealous jerk.” His expression dark, he glared toward Matt. Christ started humming, but poor Matt said, “Yeah,” and shrugged. “If you think about it, you’ll agree that you sort of were—and we both know there’s no reason.

Softly, he said, “Why are you crying?” His words made the tears flow faster. “Kestrel.” She drew a shaky breath. “Because when my father comes home, I will tell him that he has won. I will join the military.” There was a silence. “I don’t understand.” Kestrel shrugged. She shouldn’t care whether he understood or not. “You would give up your music?” Yes. She would. “But your bargain with the general was for spring.” Arin still sounded confused. “You have until spring to marry or enlist. Ronan…Ronan would ask the god of souls for you. He would ask you to marry him.” “He has.” Arin didn’t speak. “But I can’t,” she said. “Kestrel.” “I can’t.” “Kestrel, please don’t cry.” Tentative fingers touched her face. A thumb ran along the wet skin of her cheekbone. She suffered for it, suffered for the misery of knowing that whatever possessed him to do this could be no more than compassion. He valued her that much. But not enough. “Why can’t you marry him?” he whispered. She broke her word to herself and looked at him. “Because of you.” Arin’s hand flinched against her cheek. His dark head bowed, became lost in its own shadow. Then he slipped from his seat and knelt before hers. His hands fell to the fists on her lap and gently opened them. He held them as if cupping water. He took a breath to speak. She would have stopped him. She would have wished herself deaf, blind, made of unfeeling smoke. She would have stopped his words out of terror, longing. The way terror and longing had become indistinguishable. Yet his hands held hers, and she could do nothing. He said, “I want the same thing you want.” Kestrel pulled back. It wasn’t possible his words could mean what they seemed. “It hasn’t been easy for me to want it.” Arin lifted his face so that she could see his expression. A rich emotion played across his features, offered itself, and asked to be called by its name. Hope. “But you’ve already given your heart,” she said. His brow furrowed, then smoothed. “Oh. No, not the way you think.” He laughed a little, the sound soft yet somehow wild. “Ask me why I went to the market.” This was cruel. “We both know why.” He shook his head. “Pretend that you’ve won a game of Bite and Sting. Why did I go? Ask me. It wasn’t to see a girl who doesn’t exist.” “She…doesn’t?” “I lied.” Kestrel blinked. “Then why did you go to the market?” “Because I wanted to feel free.” Arin raised a hand to brush the air by his temple, then awkwardly let it fall. Kestrel suddenly understood this gesture she’d seen many times. It was an old habit. He was brushing away a ghost, hair that was no longer there because she had ordered it cut. She leaned forward, and kissed his temple. Arin’s hand held her lightly to him. His cheek slid against hers. Then his lips touched her brow, her closed eyes, the line where her jaw met her throat. Kestrel’s mouth found his. His lips were salted with her tears, and the taste of that, of him, of their deepening kiss, filled her with the feeling of his quiet laugh moments ago. Of a wild softness, a soft wildness. In his hands, running up her thin dress. In his heat, burning through to her skin…and into her, sinking into him.

She gives just enough hints about him to make you wonder why he became so villainous. And if he dies, I’ll never learnt the answer.” Oliver eyes her closely. “Perhaps he was born villainous.” “No one is born villainous.” “Oh?” he said with raised eyebrow. “So we’re all born good?” “Neither. We start as animals, with an animal’s needs and desires. It takes parents and teachers and other good examples to show us how to restrain those needs and desires, when necessary, for the greater good. But it’s still our choice whether to heed that education or to do as we please.” “For a woman who loves murder and mayhem, you’re quite the philosopher.” “I like to understand how things work. Why people behave as they do.” He digested that for a moment. “I happen to think that some of us, like Rockton, are born with a wicked bent.” She chose her words carefully. “That certainly provides Rockton with a convenient excuse for his behavior.” His features turned stony. “What do you mean?” “Being moral and disciplined is hard work. Being wicked requires no effort at all-one merely indulges every desire and impulse, no matter how hurtful or immoral. By claiming to be born wicked, Rockton ensures that he doesn’t have to struggle to be god. He can just protest that he can’t help himself.” “Perhaps he can’t,” he clipped out. “Or maybe he’s simply unwilling to fight his impulses. And I want to know the reason for that. That’s why I keep reading Minerva’s books.” Did Oliver actually believe he’d been born irredeemably wicked? How tragic! It lent a hopelessness to his life that helped to explain his mindless pursuit of pleasure. “I can tell you the reason for Rockton’s villainy.” Oliver rose to round the desk. Propping his hip on the edge near her, he reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. A sweet shudder swept over her. Why must he have this effect on her? It simply wasn’t fair. “Oh?” she managed. “Rockton knows he can’t have everything he wants,” he said hoarsely, his hand drifting to her cheek. “He can’t have the heroine, for example. She would never tolerate his…wicked impulses. Yet he still wants her. And his wanting consumes him.” Her breath lodged in her throat. It had been days since he’d touched her, and she hadn’t forgotten what it was like for one minute. To have him this near, saying such things… She fought for control over her volatile emotions. “His wanting consumes him precisely because he can’t have her. If he thought he could, he wouldn’t want her after all.” “Not true.” His voice deepening, he stroked the line of her jaw with a tenderness that roused an ache in her chest. “Even Rockton recognizes when a woman is unlike any other. Her very goodness in the face of his villainy bewitches him. He thinks if he can just possess that goodness, then the dark cloud lying on his soul will lift, and he’ll have something other than villainy to sustain him.” “Then he’s mistaken.” Her pulse trebled as his finger swept the hollow of her throat. “The only person who can lift the dark cloud on his soul is himself.” He paused in his caress. “So he’s doomed, then?” “No!” Her gaze flew to his. “No one is doomed, and certainly not Rockton. There’s still hope for him. There is always hope.” His eyes burned with a feverish light, and before she could look away, he bent to kiss her. It was soft, tender…delicious. Someone moaned, she wasn’t sure who. All she knew was that his mouth was on hers again, molding it, tasting it, making her hungry in the way that only he seemed able to do. “Maria…” he breathed. Seizing her by the arms, he drew her up into his embrace. “My God, I’ve thought of nothing but you since that day in the carriage.