Lucy Stone Quotes

Lucy looked and saw that Aslan had just breathed on the feet of the stone giant. It's all right!" shouted Aslan joyously. "Once The feet are put right, all the rest of him will follow.

Don't be so foolish to believe empires are built on stone. They're on bamboo stilts at best.

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love: A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! —Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

After all, moms were appreciated only on Mother's Day. That's why they invented it. So they could treat you like a household appliance the rest of the year.

My eyelids are heavy as stone. But when I sleep, I'll have that dream again. I haven't wanted to tell you about it, until now. I'll be in the Separates, and I'll be digging with my bare hands. When I've made a hole deep enough to plant a tree, I'll place my fingers inside. I'll slip off the ring you gave me. It will catch the light and glint a rainbow of colors over my skin, but I will take my hands away, leaving it there. I'll sprinkle the earth back over it, and I will bury it. Back where it belongs. I'll rest against a tree's rough trunk. The sun will be setting, it's dazzling color threading through the sky, making my cheeks warm. Then I will wake up. Good-bye, Ty, Gemma

You’d picked me up, so gently, as if I were a leaf you didn’t want to crush. You’d carried me somewhere. And I’d curled into your arms, tiny as a stone.

It is very little to me to have the right to vote, to own property, etc., if I may not keep my body, and its uses, in my absolute right

After all, God had created all the animals, and only one—mankind—had lost its innocence.

... it had become agreed that Jane would be excused household duties. It sounds like a tiny thing – and indeed it was – but a tiny trickle of water gradually hollows out a stone. Jane’s ducking out of the housework in order to write would lead inexorably onwards, upwards, towards women working, to women winning power in a world of men. This is the significance of trying to reconstruct the detail of Jane Austen’s daily life.

If looks could kill, she’d be a dead woman.

It was the eternal conundrum. Time passed too slowly, and then it was over too quickly. Hurry up and die.

Named for the early feminist crusader Lucy Stone—the first woman to keep her maiden name

Even though everything in the past twenty-four hours had been leading to this, even though it was a fear Isabel had harboured from the day she had first laid eyes on Lucy as a baby, still, the moment ripped through her. 'Please!’ she pleaded through tears. ‘Have some pity!’ Her voice reverberated around the bare walls. ‘Don’t take my baby away!’ As the girl was wrenched from her screaming, Isabel fainted onto the stone floor with a resounding crack.

Who is Aslan?” asked Susan. “Aslan?” said Mr. Beaver, “Why, don’t you know? He’s the King. He’s the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand. Never in my time or my father’s time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He’ll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus.” “She won’t turn him into stone too?” said Edmund. “Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!” answered Mr. Beaver with a great laugh. “Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it’ll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no. He’ll put all to rights, as it says in an old rhyme in these parts: Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again. You’ll understand when you see him.” “But shall we see him?” asked Susan. “Why, Daughter of Eve, that’s what I brought you here for. I’m to lead you where you shall meet him,” said Mr. Beaver. “Is--is he a man?” asked Lucy. “Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion--the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he--quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” “That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.

When abolitionist and suffragist Lucy Stone married Henry Blackwell in 1855, the couple asked their minister to distribute a statement protesting marriage’s inequities. It read, in part: “While acknowledging our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife . . . this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority.” Stone kept her last name, and generations of women who have done the same have been referred to as “Lucy Stoners.” An

He knew everything about big Mike Ainsel in this moment, and he liked Mike Ainsel. Mike Ainsel had none of the problems that Shadow had. Ainsel had never been married. Mike Ainsel had never been interrogated on a freight train by Mr. Wood an Mr. Stone. Televisions did not speak to Mike Ainsel (You want to see Lucy's tits? asked a voice in his head).

Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said.

Finalmente capiva l'empatia che provava per quella ragazza che conosceva solo da pochi giorni. Lucy era una combattente. Non si rassegnava di fronte alle carte che il destino le aveva assegnato. Ogni giorno lottava per vivere, contro tutti i pronostici. Quel giorno avrebbe potuto scegliere di non premere il pulsante. Avrebbe potuto cedere alla sua malattia e scegliere la pace eterna ma non l'aveva fatto e c'era solo una cosa che glielo aveva impedito: la speranza

There is an Oscar Wilde quote about looking with a heart of stone upon the one you loved in your youth, at the hair you madly worshipped and wildly kissed.

I'm a stone cold queen.

Lucy had no complaints about her dinner. Anything was fine with her as long as she didn’t have to cook it.

A wife should no more take her husband’s name than he should hers. My name is my identity and must not be lost.

The dead don’t give up anything, but the living do.

Starting tomorrow,” I mutter, “whatever life throws at me, I’m ducking, so it hits someone fucking else.

Lizzie, with all her self-assuring protestations, knew that she was paste, and knew that Lucy was real stone.

Spotted hyenas are unlike all other mammals in that the females are significantly bigger than the males and much more aggressive.

Ooh!” said Susan in a different tone. “Look! I wonder--I mean, is it safe?” Lucy looked and saw that Aslan had just breathed on the feet of the stone giant. “It’s all right!” shouted Aslan joyously. “Once the feet are put right, all the rest of him will follow.” “That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” whispered Susan to Lucy. But it was too late to do anything about it now even if Aslan would have listened to her.

A trellis filled with roses arched above the patio, leading to a winding garden path made out of stones that Lucy wanted to skip along. Flowers in reds and pinks and whites and purples bloomed from the curved edges of the yard, so beautiful they reminded Lucy of something out of Eliza's paintings.

It all must have cost a fortune, guessed Lucy, who had lost track of the actual total sometime around December 18. Oh, sure, it had been great fun for the hour or two it took to open all the presents, but those credit card balances would linger for months. And what was she going to do about the letter? It was from the financial aid office at Chamberlain College advising her that they had reviewed the family’s finances and had cut Elizabeth’s aid package by ten thousand dollars. That meant they had to come up with the money or Elizabeth would have to leave school. She guiltily fingered the diamond studs Bill had surprised her with, saying they were a reward for all the Christmases he was only able to give her a handmade coupon book of promises after they finished buying presents for the kids. It was a lovely gesture, but she knew they couldn’t really afford it. She wasn’t even sure he had work lined up for the winter.

Lucy Gray Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray, And when I cross'd the Wild, I chanc'd to see at break of day The solitary Child. No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wild Moor, The sweetest Thing that ever grew Beside a human door! You yet may spy the Fawn at play, The Hare upon the Green; But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen. "To-night will be a stormy night, You to the Town must go, And take a lantern, Child, to light Your Mother thro' the snow." "That, Father! will I gladly do; 'Tis scarcely afternoon— The Minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the Moon." At this the Father rais'd his hook And snapp'd a faggot-band; He plied his work, and Lucy took The lantern in her hand. Not blither is the mountain roe, With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse, the powd'ry snow That rises up like smoke. The storm came on before its time, She wander'd up and down, And many a hill did Lucy climb But never reach'd the Town. The wretched Parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide. At day-break on a hill they stood That overlook'd the Moor; And thence they saw the Bridge of Wood A furlong from their door. And now they homeward turn'd, and cry'd "In Heaven we all shall meet!" When in the snow the Mother spied The print of Lucy's feet. Then downward from the steep hill's edge They track'd the footmarks small; And through the broken hawthorn-hedge, And by the long stone-wall; And then an open field they cross'd, The marks were still the same; They track'd them on, nor ever lost, And to the Bridge they came. They follow'd from the snowy bank The footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank, And further there were none. Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living Child, That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome Wild. O'er rough and smooth she trips along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

Tooth, leaning against the doorframe, all sweaty and butch, and oh, that body would soon be naked and wet from the shower. And Luci would be out here, silently howling by the door. “I could um… shower with my eyes closed. How’s that work?” Luci knew they were now wasting more time than they could possibly save by showering together, but pushing for it was impossible to resist. Not to mention that if Tooth ever actually agreed, Luci would open his eyes, see the Holy Grail of dicks, and then get spanked for it. Perfect. Two birds with one stone.

Something was crawling. Worse still, something was coming out. Edmund or Lucy or you would have recognized it at once, but Eustace had read none of the right books. The thing that came out of the cave was something he had never even imagined--a long lead-colored snout, dull red eyes, no feathers or fur, a long lithe body that trailed on the ground, legs whose elbows went up higher than its back like a spider’s, cruel claws, bat’s wings that made a rasping noise on the stones, yards of tail. And the lines of smoke were coming from its two nostrils. He never said the word Dragon to himself. Nor would it have made things any better if he had.

Oft had I heard of Lucy Gray, And when I crossed the Wild, I chanced to see at break of day The solitary Child. No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew; She dwelt on a wide Moor, The sweetest Thing that ever grew Beside a human door! You yet may spy the Fawn at play, The Hare upon the Green; But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen. 'To-night will be a stormy night, You to the Town must go, And take a lantern, Child, to light Your Mother thro' the snow.' 'That, Father! will I gladly do; 'Tis scarcely afternoon -- The Minster-clock has just struck two, And yonder is the Moon.' At this the Father raised his hook And snapped a faggot-band; He plied his work, and Lucy took The lantern in her hand. Not blither is the mountain roe, With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powd'ry snow That rises up like smoke. The storm came on before its time, She wandered up and down, And many a hill did Lucy climb But never reached the Town. The wretched Parents all that night Went shouting far and wide; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide. At day-break on a hill they stood That overlooked the Moor; And thence they saw the Bridge of Wood A furlong from their door. And now they homeward turned, and cried 'In Heaven we all shall meet!' When in the snow the Mother spied The print of Lucy's feet. Then downward from the steep hill's edge They tracked the footmarks small; And through the broken hawthorn-hedge, And by the long stone-wall; And then an open field they crossed, The marks were still the same; They tracked them on, nor ever lost, And to the Bridge they came. They followed from the snowy bank The footmarks, one by one, Into the middle of the plank, And further there were none. Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living Child, That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome Wild. O'er rough and smooth she trips along, And never looks behind; And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

How can sloths exist when they’re such losers?” As a zoologist and founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society I get asked this question a lot. Sometimes “losers” is further defined—“lazy,” “stupid” and “slow” being perennial favorites. And sometimes the query is paired with the rider—“I thought evolution was all about survival of the fittest”—delivered with an air of bemusement or, worse, a whiff of superior species smugness. Sloths are, in fact, one of natural selection’s quirkiest creations, and fabulously successful to boot. Skulking about the treetops barely quicker than a snail, and being covered in algae, infested with insects and defecating just once a week might not be your idea of aspirational living, but then you’re not trying to survive in the highly competitive

Through Poppy’s eyes, she learned to see the treasures that the mountains held for those who lowered their eyes and let them linger on the ground: neat little mats of wild thyme encrusted on sun-baked rocks and stones covered with pin cushions of yellow saxifrage bobbing up and down between the sparkling ripples of the mountain streams. Lucy had passed waterfalls where tall, pink adenostyles stood proudly at the edge to be showered and splashed, and frothy clumps of white saxifrage cascaded from crannies in the shining, rocky sides into the tumbling waters below. She had wandered across hillsides where wild cumin blew on the breeze, ambled under the cool shadows of the pinewoods punctuated by bright, dainty astrantia and plodged through mountain bogs amongst the fluffy white drumsticks of cotton grass. 

To me he seems now all sacred, his locks are inaccessible, and, Lucy, I feel a sort of fear, when I look at his firm, marble chin, at his straight Greek features. Women are called beautiful, Lucy; he is not like a woman, therefore I suppose he is not beautiful, but what is he, then? Do other people see him with my eyes? Do you admire him?” “I’ll tell you what I do, Paulina,” was once my answer to her many questions. “I never see him. I looked at him twice or thrice about a year ago, before he recognised me, and then I shut my eyes; and if he were to cross their balls twelve times between each day’s sunset and sunrise, except from memory, I should hardly know what shape had gone by.” “Lucy, what do you mean?” said she, under her breath. “I mean that I value vision, and dread being struck stone blind.” It was best to answer her strongly at once, and to silence for ever the tender, passionate confidences which left her lips sweet honey, and sometimes dropped in my ear—molten lead. To me, she commented no more on her lover’s beauty.

Apples, heigh-ho,” said Trumpkin with a rueful grin. “I must say you ancient kings and queens don’t overfeed your courtiers!” They stood up and shook themselves and looked about. The trees were thick and they could see no more than a few yards in any direction. “I suppose your Majesties know the way all right?” said the Dwarf. “I don’t,” said Susan. “I’ve never seen these woods in my life before. In fact I thought all along that we ought to have gone by the river.” “Then I think you might have said so at the time,” answered Peter, with pardonable sharpness. “Oh, don’t take any notice of her,” said Edmund. “She always is a wet blanket. You’ve got that pocket compass of yours, Peter, haven’t you? Well, then, we’re as right as rain. We’ve only got to keep on going northwest--cross that little river, the what-do-you-call-it?--the Rush--” “I know,” said Peter. “The one that joins the big river at the Fords of Beruna, or Beruna’s Bridge, as the D.L.F. calls it.” “That’s right. Cross it and strike uphill, and we’ll be at the Stone Table (Aslan’s How, I mean) by eight or nine o’clock. I hope King Caspian will give us a good breakfast!” “I hope you’re right,” said Susan. “I can’t remember all that at all.” “That’s the worst of girls,” said Edmund to Peter and the Dwarf. “They never carry a map in their heads.” “That’s because our heads have something inside them,” said Lucy.

When they had gone less than a bowshot from the shore, Drinian said, “Look! What’s that?” and everyone stopped. “Are they great trees?” said Caspian. “Towers, I think,” said Eustace. “It might be giants,” said Edmund in a lower voice. “The way to find out is to go right in among them,” said Reepicheep, drawing his sword and pattering off ahead of everyone else. “I think it’s a ruin,” said Lucy when they had got a good deal nearer, and her guess was the best so far. What they now saw was a wide oblong space flagged with smooth stones and surrounded by gray pillars but unroofed. And from end to end of it ran a long table laid with a rich crimson cloth that came down nearly to the pavement. At either side of it were many chairs of stone richly carved and with silken cushions upon the seats. But on the table itself there was set out such a banquet as had never been seen, not even when Peter the High King kept his court at Cair Paravel. There were turkeys and geese and peacocks, there were boars’ heads and sides of venison, there were pies shaped like ships under full sail or like dragons and elephants, there were ice puddings and bright lobsters and gleaming salmon, there were nuts and grapes, pineapples and peaches, pomegranates and melons and tomatoes. There were flagons of gold and silver and curiously-wrought glass; and the smell of the fruit and the wine blew toward them like a promise of all happiness. “I say!” said Lucy. They came nearer and nearer, all very quietly. “But where are the guests?” asked Eustace. “We can provide that, Sir,” said Rhince.

The ownership of land is not natural. The American savage, ranging through forests who game and timber are the common benefits of all his kind, fails to comprehend it. The nomad traversing the desert does not ask to whom belong the shifting sands that extend around him as far as the horizon. The Caledonian shepherd leads his flock to graze wherever a patch of nutritious greenness shows amidst the heather. All of these recognise authority. They are not anarchists. They have chieftains and overlords to whom they are as romantically devoted as any European subject might be to a monarch. Nor do they hold as the first Christians did, that all land should be held in common. Rather, they do not consider it as a thing that can be parceled out. “We are not so innocent. When humanity first understood that a man’s strength could create good to be marketed, that a woman’s beauty was itself a commodity for trade, then slavery was born. So since Adam learnt to force the earth to feed him, fertile ground has become too profitable to be left in peace. “This vital stuff that lives beneath our feet is a treasury of all times. The past: it is packed with metals and sparkling stones, riches made by the work of aeons. The future: it contains seeds and eggs: tight-packed promises which will unfurl into wonders more fantastical than ever jeweller dreamed of -- the scuttling centipede, the many-branched tree whose roots, fumbling down into darkness, are as large and cunningly shaped as the boughs that toss in light. The present: it teems. At barely a spade’s depth the mouldy-warp travels beneath my feet: who can imagine what may live a fathom down? We cannot know for certain that the fables of serpents curving around roots of mighty trees, or of dragons guarding treasure in perpetual darkness, are without factual reality. “How can any man own a thing so volatile and so rich? Yet we followers of Cain have made of our world a great carpet, whose pieces can be lopped off and traded as though it were inert as tufted wool.

She passed under the ivy-grown lych-gate and walked between the yew trees. The graves were clustered together in groups, as if they had secrets to share and were turning over-the-shoulder eyes on incomers. The newly mown grass was cadmium green oil paint squeezed straight from the tube. Stella leaned on the railings as she read the inscriptions on William and Dorothy's graves. The light made the lettering crisp and brought out the purples and golds of the lichens. Shadows bowed the head of the lamb on Dora Quillinan's gravestone; the trees beyond were full of the trilling of blackbirds, and lines of Wordsworth's "Lucy" poem came into Stella's mind. "No motion has she now, no force, she neither hears nor sees," she whispered. "Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees."

Mike took off running toward the fountain and almost slipped on the slick stone surface, making the crowd gasp. Once he secured his footing, he raised his fists in triumph and the crowd cheered.

and saw that the cat who had slipped through the door earlier was stretching now, shiny eyes turned on Leonard. ‘It is an old local folk tale, Mr Gilbert, about three fairy children who many years ago crossed between the worlds. They emerged from the woods one day into the fields where the local farmers were burning stubble and were taken in by an elderly couple. From the start, there was something uncanny about them. They spoke a strange language, they left no footprints behind them when they walked, and it is said that at times their skin appeared almost to glow. ‘They were tolerated at first, but as things began to go wrong in the village – a failed crop, the stillbirth of a baby, the drowning of the butcher’s son – people started to look to the three strange children in their midst. Eventually, when the well ran dry, the villagers demanded that the couple hand them over. They refused and were banished from the village. ‘The family set up instead in a small stone croft by the river, and for a time they lived in peace. But when an illness came to the village, a mob was formed and one night, with torches lit, they marched upon the croft. The couple and the children clung together, surrounded, their fates seemingly inevitable. But just as the villagers began to close in, there came the eerie sound of a horn on the wind and a woman appeared from nowhere, a magnificent woman with long, gleaming hair and luminous skin. ‘The Fairy Queen had come to claim her children. And when she did, she cast a protection spell upon the house and land of the old couple in gratitude to them for protecting the prince and princesses of fairyland. ‘The bend of the river upon which Birchwood Manor now stands has been recognised ever since amongst locals as a place of safety. It is even said that there are those who can still see the fairy enchantment – that it appears to a lucky few as a light, high up in the attic window of the house.’ Leonard wanted to ask whether Lucy, with all of her evident learning and scientific reason, really believed that it was true – whether she thought that Edward had seen a light in the attic that night and that the house had protected him – but no matter how he rearranged the words in his mind, the question seemed impolite and certainly impolitic. Thankfully, Lucy seemed to have anticipated his line of thinking. ‘I believe in science, Mr Gilbert. But one of my first loves was natural history. The earth is ancient and it is vast and there is much that we do not yet comprehend. I refuse to accept that science and magic are opposed; they are both valid attempts to understand the way that our world works. And I have seen things, Mr Gilbert; I have dug things up from the earth and held them in my hand and felt things that our science cannot yet explain. The story of the Eldritch Children is a

else." I like the way he fucks me like he hates me, like he wants to hurt me and love me at the same time. I like the way he seeks me out whenever I'm near. Sometimes, I'll just watch him get lost in doing something else, and then when he realizes I'm not beside him, his head will pop up and his eyes will scan around—searching for me. I like the way it feels with his arms wrapped around me as I fall asleep. And fuck, I love the way his demons fit mine perfectly.

The US TV network Fox News recently reported on a German couple who attended a fertility clinic because they had failed to have children, only to be told that in order to have a baby, they had to actually have sex first. They thought the stork was enough.

My mind tries to catch up with his words, but it’s hard to focus when the room is fading in and out of my vision. I open my mouth to say something, but before a word can come out, a sharp sting stabs my arm. I look over, blinking as I realize a needle is sticking out of my arm, and Ace is standing there with a small smile on his face as he says something to Robert. Whatever he says is lost to me, though, as the rest of the world blinks out of existence.

He'll fucking love me, that's what," she snaps. I stare at her. "You befriended me, had me kidnapped and tortured to prove that you love him?

Avalon Manning is mine. Mine. And someone touched what was mine. Whoever they are, they have no fucking clue the war they just started.

I’m not going to ask again,” I say, leaning closer as I flip the switch on my blade open and press the edge to my thumb and turn it. “Put. Your. Fucking. Hand. On. The. Table.” This time, he does as I’ve asked. Sergio’s hand appears from beneath the table and slides across the surface until it’s flat. Beneath his skin, muscles jump and nerves tic. He watches me carefully, very carefully. Good.

Nonononono.” He shakes his head, his hand trembling against the surface of the table. Sergio releases a low shout of terror as I bring the edge of the blade down between his fingers with a little more strength, but he doesn’t jerk his hand back—too afraid of being stabbed. I lift and lower the sharp edge of my knife against the table once and then lifting it over the next finger and doing it again. Over and over, the blade lands—each time slamming into the table. Slow, at first, and then faster and faster as time goes on.

roll my eyes. “Brax.” Braxton needs no further commands, he moves forward, like a silent wraith, and suddenly Sergio’s hand is right where I asked it to be. Long cut along the side of his ring finger where a dirty silver wedding band lies.

The fire inside turns ice cold, and I slam my knife into his hand and relish in his scream of agony. “Oh god! Stop! Please stop!” “They paid you?” I growl out the question, repeating his words. “Who fucking paid you?

Without giving him the time, I slam it down again. Only this time, I catch the edge of his pinky finger, and my blade sinks all the way through—right into the wood. His screams take on a new operatic sound. I grin.

Fear is nothing but the presence of powerlessness.

Ace. My kidnapper’s name is Ace. It both relieves and frightens me to know it. Relieves because when I get out of here, I know exactly who to hunt down first—if he even makes it. And frightens because I have the sneaking suspicion that he tells me for a reason, and I’m not sure I want to find out.

Corina shakes her head as she stares back at me. “What a pathetic thing you are,” she says almost absently. “Your own mother hates you enough to want you dead, and so here you’ll die. Without even a clue as to who else orchestrated all of this or who you really are.” “Who the fuck are you—” She doesn’t wait for me to finish my question. Instead, she turns and walks out, the door shutting behind her with a soundless click locking it into place.

My legs a fucking trembling mess. I am not at my strongest. I’m too hurt and tired for that. My anger, though, makes up for a hell of a lot. I bring my knee up and push it into his dick with meaning as I put the end of his own gun between my chest and his, the barrel pointed right at his heart. “Get the fuck up,” I grit out. With blood pouring down his face, he slowly edges back and then gets to his feet. I follow, moving much slower because of all of the aches and pains. My hand, though, remains steady as I point the gun. “What are you going to do now?” he asks. His eyes are crystalline, like looking into an endless pool of water. Empty of flecks. His pupils are the only darkness I see. It’s unnerving.

Braxton and I hit the ground, rubble digging into my sides as I swivel my head and look behind me just in time to see a man with a rifle go down. Only, Abel's bullet isn't the one to send the motherfucker flying to the floor. No, instead, it's a fucking avenging angel. Avalon steps out from a doorway, her shoulder soaked red with blood and her hair hanging in wet strands around her face. She looks like complete and utter shit. Bruised as fuck. Swaying against the wall as she reaches out and puts a free hand to catch her fall as she sags against the side of the hallway. But she looks fucking perfect to me because she's alive. "Avalon!" I'm on my feet and barreling down the corridor without a second thought. The sound of Braxton and Abel's curses trail after me, but I couldn't give a fuck less. She's here. She's alive. She's ... about to pass the fuck out.

You're never going anywhere without me again," I say to her. She snorts. "Good luck keeping to that." "I'm serious," I snap.

She's no girl at all. She's a woman. A dangerous one. And I think I fucking love her.

No amount of torture can stop me. No amount of betrayal. This will be a tragedy, just not mine. I’ve got a long list of people who deserve what I’m about to do to them. My only hope is that once it’s all over that’s all it’ll be. I’m fucking tired of fighting just to survive.

Run little bitches, run. I’m coming for you.

Because of him,” I answer. “Corina’s in love with Luc—ergo, she hates you.” I direct that last comment at Dean.

And then,” I finish for him, “we’ll kill them.” I gaze up into his eyes, finding something there—a darkness that matches my own. “We’ll fucking kill them all.

A dark brown brow lifts, and without a word, he leans down and touches the end of the sharp instrument to the corner of my jaw. I freeze as the blade presses into my skin, past the subcutaneous layers, until I feel liquid slipping down the side of my neck. Blood. He grins and drags it forward. Unconsciously, I clench my teeth and have to work to keep the exacerbated pain that twinges from showing in my expression as he continues his cutting path until he stops just before my chin and lifts the blade away.

You're planning on killing me," I say. He doesn't even deny it. "Yes." "Then, why this?" I jerk my chin up and down. "Do you get off on it? Is it your particular kink? You need to tie your girlfriends up to get hard? I’m not judging. Bondage isn’t really my thing, but I think it all depends on the people you’re with. I’d totally let my boyfriend tie me up,” I say. I can just picture it now. I bet Dean would enjoy that. Tying me to the headboard of his four-poster bed and fucking me long and hard. Or maybe the opposite—me tying him down and riding his face until I come a few dozen times. “You, on the other hand,” I keep going. “Not really my type. So, what’s the safe word?

Take a deep breath," he says. "It makes it easier the longer you can hold it. Don't worry, no need for you to count—I’ll do it.” I bare my teeth as he tosses the towel over my face and reaches into my hair with his now free hand, yanking my head back. I don't even have time to take the breath he suggested when cold-ass water hits the towel over my face and quickly seeps through. It hits my mouth, and as I gasp and struggle against my bindings, I choke. Dark gray fabric covers my eyes. The fibers of the towel suck into my mouth as I try to catch my breath, but nothing. No air comes. Just water. Gushes and gushes of water. In my mouth. Over my eyes. Up my nose. Until black dots dance in front of my vision. Until I swear to God, I can taste the ocean in my nostrils.

What mother could hate her child so much to want this," he answers. My body stills as that new information seeps into my brain. My mind whirls, and before a thought can fully form, a laugh bursts from my lips. My chest shakes. My head aches. But more of it pours from me. One laugh after another until my whole body is rattling against the chair. "She put you up to this?" I ask without really expecting an answer. "She wanted you to make me suffer before you killed me?

Oh, I'm going to let Dean do whatever he wants to this fucker. I'm going to watch Braxton peel his face back and dig needles into his muscles. And after that’s all said and fucking done, I’m going to shoot him right in the head like I did Roger Murphy and let Abel piss on his corpse before setting it on fire. More laughter rattles my chest. The devil isn't a little red man, I realize. The devil is in me. He's a vicious, wicked creature. Cruel and oh, I like him. So fucking much.

She wouldn't say, you know," he comments lightly. "Say what?" I reply. "Why she wanted you to suffer," he says. "It wasn't enough to want you dead. She wanted you to go out in pain.

I did," Ace says. "I think Ms. Manning will be pleased to know that her daughter suffered before she died.” Corina steps out from behind him. My expression goes slack with shock. She's cleaned her face, removed all evidence of her earlier crocodile tears—if what my memory is telling me is true. She's redressed in a black pencil skirt and heels that flash red on the bottoms as she makes her way towards me. Her makeup is perfectly applied once more—black eyeliner and red lipstick to match the rest of her. Her hair has been pulled back into a high ponytail, and I suddenly have the urge to do to her what I did to Kate. No. I have the urge to do far worse than simply make her piss herself as I chop off her hair. I’d rather take a blade to her motherfucking throat and let her drown in her own blood.

It's kind of funny how much easier college is compared to high school. High school teachers will do and say almost anything to convince you of how difficult college will be—how uncompromising professors will be. It's all bullshit. High school teachers have to hold themselves to a higher standard, but college professors actually show their humanity. They walk in with bags under their eyes and coffees clutched in their fists just like the rest of us.

My mind is a clusterfuck.

Patricia Manning. If Dean wants to take care of her—set her up in some rehab center somewhere—fine. But I'm done. If she wants to kill herself, let her. I don't care.

Don't be a drama queen, baby. You're sleeping on that bed. With me." He says it as if it brooks no argument, but he's going to get an argument. "I will skin you alive," I snap. He grins, stepping closer. "Kinky.

But you are going to sleep in that bed with me, Ava. Even if I have to tie you down." "Now who's being kinky?" I ask right before I mentally slap myself. I close my eyes and grit my teeth.

I relax into the mattress and in less than two minutes, I pass the fuck out.

Grabbing the half-drunk water from the nightstand, I take it back into the bathroom along with the two others found in the mini fridge and upend them all into the sink, draining the drugged water before placing a quiet call to the front desk to have them replaced with regular ones.

Guilt sits heavy in my chest. It’d been a dick move to drug the water I knew she’d drink. I’d purposefully not stopped for anything on the way here. I’m confident that no one at this hotel will say anything. People’s desire to keep their cash flow always trump their moral compass. Had I not drugged her, though, I knew she would’ve sat up all night thinking. She needs the sleep, I think, as I stare at the dark circles under her eyes.

You don't sleep anywhere but with me, baby," he says. "This?" He gestures to the room at my back. "Is just when you need some space.

I just react to the violence inside of me, letting it loose on the nearest person. I pull my fist back and punch Dean right in his stupid face and then shove him against the wall to get past him.

Running. Danger. Cliff diving. Shit, I bet that's what she's doing right now. I groan. I don't mind the fucked up shit she does. Hell, even if she felt like killing someone, I'd be down, but I just want to be there. With her.

Like a phoenix reborn from the ashes, I know she's going to wreck the world we live in, and like the fucking masochist I am, I want to bathe in her fire.

I would’ve expected Dean or Abel, not Braxton. He’s the one I feel the least angry with right now.

And maybe I’d let you if I knew I could get reciprocation, but since we both know that’s not going to happen, how about we leave my ass alone for the night, hmmm?

Ever heard the phrase 'with power comes great responsibility'?" he asks. I snort. "What are you? Spider-man?

Say they help you when you have nothing to give them. Say they keep your secrets, secrets that they could very well take advantage of. What does it mean when all they ask for in return is for you to let them take care of you?

I'm not sleeping with you," she says matter of factly.

Yes, you are, baby," I say, my tone unremorseful as I prop open the passenger side door and then bend down, setting her back on her feet before hustling her into the car.

That's why he did this?" I demand. "Because he wants to take care of me?

We need to talk about why you feel the need to control me." "You're mine," he says like it's a fact, like it's suddenly some law written in ancient stone.

The scariest part of this whole conversation is that all of my fury is because every time he says ‘mine,’ every time he claims me as his, it doesn’t sound wrong.

As if he senses just how close to the edge I am, Dean rips me away from the wall, turns me around, and shoves me face-first back into it. A wave of fury, combined with … is that … lust? No. It can’t be. I can’t be fucking turned on right now. There’s no way in hell. But I am. I’m irrevocably hot, and even though the anger is there, the rage just simmering beneath the surface, my lust is separate. Sitting there, waiting.

You’re moving in here not just because you belong here, baby,” he says. I shiver as he slides his lips down my cheek until he presses them to the corner of my mouth. “But because when I say you’re fucking mine, I mean it.” I stiffen, but he doesn’t let that stop him. “I know that scares you,” he says. “I know you’re not sure if you can trust me, so I’ll just have to spend a long time proving it to you. But I will make one thing clear, if I want to lock you up in a tower and make sure no other bastard can ever put his hands on you again, then I will.

I hate him. I hate the way he makes me feel. The way he drives me insane with lust. The way he can get me off so easily. But I hate most of all that I want to do as he says. I want to stay. I blow out a breath and give in, letting my forehead press the wall.

We didn't have sex last night, Ava," Dean says on a sigh. "You were drunk." I shrug. "You've threatened to take me against my will before," I say lightly. The glare he sends my way is scorching. "You and I both know you would never be unwilling with me, baby. Want me to prove it right now?

Avalon's waiting for me beside my SUV like a good girl when I get out of my last exam.

My hands span Avalon's waist, and she doesn't even blink as I lift her onto the seat and slide my hand straight up her throat, grabbing it in a fast movement. Her eyes widen, and her lips part. I have no fucking doubt if I slipped my fingers into her jeans right now, she'd be soaking wet for me. "Ready to go home, baby?" I ask as I lean forward and nip her bottom lip.

I'm going to teach Kate Coleman a lesson," I reply, facing forward in my seat. "Fuck with me and you'll regret it.

This can't be happening. I think I'm in love with Dean Carter.

Then something else she said hits me. She'd known I was going to be there. That isn't possible. It'd been a last-minute thing. I hadn't even known I was going to be there until less than an hour before. My eyes widen. I need to talk to Corina again.