Pandora Charms With Quotes

I sniffed, wiping my eyes. “Look at that,” I muttered. “The bastard made me cry.” Jenks’ wings made a cool spot on my neck. “Want me to pixy him?” “No. But now I don’t have the chance of a ghost’s fart in a windstorm to get that Pandora charm.” That’s not really what was bothering me, though. It was Trent. Why did I even care what he thought?

His attitude, though always bad, has changed since he helped me prep the Pandora charm for Morgan. He thinks I'm falling for her, as ridiculous as that sounds, and he might be tempted to take matters into his hands.

Gabriel didn't have to look at his parents to know they were thoroughly charmed by Pandora. As for him... He hardly recognized himself in his reaction to her. She was full of life, burning like sunflowers in the rime of autumn frost. Compared to the languid and diffident girls of London's annual marriage mart, Pandora might have been another species altogether. She was just as beautiful as he'd remembered, and as unpredictable. Laughing after the dog had jumped on her in the front drive, when any other young woman in her place would have been angry or humiliated. As she'd stood there wanting to argue with him about carrots, all Gabriel had been able to think of was how much he wanted to carry her somewhere cool and dark and quiet, and have her all to himself.

Pandora launched into a detailed account of her conversation with the hermit crab, reporting that his name was Shelley, after the poet, whose works he admired. He was a well-traveled crustacean, having flown to distant lands while clinging to the pink leg of a herring gull who had no taste for shellfish, preferring hazelnuts and bread crumbs. One day, the herring gull, who possessed the transmigrated soul of an Elizabethan stage actor, had taken Shelley to see Hamlet at the Drury Lane theater. During the performance, they had alighted on the scenery and played the part of a castle gargoyle for the entire second act. Shelley had enjoyed the experience but had no wish to pursue a theatrical career, as the hot stage lights had nearly fricasseed him. Gabriel stopped digging and listened, transported by the wonder and whimsy of Pandora's imagination. Out of thin air, she created a fantasy world in which animals could talk and anything was possible. He was charmed out of all reason as he watched her, this sandy, disheveled, storytelling mermaid, who seemed already to belong to him and yet wanted nothing to do with him. His heart worked in strange rhythms, as if it were struggling to adjust to a brand new metronome. What was happening to him?

Lady Helen, who had been accompanied by her husband, Mr. Rhys Winterborne, was far more reserved than the twins. Instead of Pandora's raw and radiant energy, or Cassandra's effervescent charm, she possessed a quality of sweet, patient gravity. With her silver-blonde hair and willowy slenderness, Helen seemed as ethereal as a figure form from a painting by Bougereau.

The stories are charmingly told. They were (and are – the book is still in print) the gateway for so many of us into Greek myth and the classical world. But because we read them as children, we don’t always consider them critically: we tend to see them as a neutral, authoritative version from which other versions deviate. And – like all books – they reflect the values of their time. So while I don’t want to dissuade you from reading these stories to children, I would urge you to counterbalance the quiet prejudice which lurks within them.

There was a moment of stillness before something in him seemed to snap. she pounced on her with a sort of tigerish delight, and clamped his mouth over hers. She squeaked in surprise, wriggling in his hold, but his arms clamped around her easily, his muscles as solid as oak. He kissed her possessively, almost roughly at first, gentling by voluptuous degrees. Her body surrendered without giving her brain a chance to object, applying itself eagerly to every available inch of him. The luxurious male heat and hardness of him satisfied a wrenching hunger she hadn't been aware of until now. It also gave her the close-but-not-close-enough feeling she remembered from before. Oh, how confusing this was, this maddening need to crawl inside his clothes, practically inside his skin. She let her fingertips wander over his cheeks and jaw, the neat shape of his ears, the taut smoothness of his neck. When he offered no objection, she sank her fingers into his thick, vibrant hair and sighed in satisfaction. He searched for her tongue, teased and stroked intimately until her heart pounded in a tumult of longing, and a sweet, empty ache spread all through her. Dimly aware that she was going to lose control, that she was on the verge of swooning, or assaulting him again, she managed to break the kiss and turn her face away with a gasp. "Don't," she said weakly. His lips grazed along her jawline, his breath rushing unsteadily against her skin. "Why? Are you still worried about Australian pox?" Slowly it registered that they were no longer standing. Gabriel was sitting on the ground with his back against the grass-covered mound, and- heaven help her- she was in his lap. She glanced around them in bewilderment. How had this happened? "No," she said, bewildered and perturbed, "but I just remembered that you said I kissed like a pirate." Gabriel looked blank for a moment. "Oh, that. That was a compliment." Pandora scowled. "It would only be a compliment if I had a beard and a peg leg." Setting his mouth sternly against a faint quiver, Gabriel smoothed her hair tenderly. "Forgive my poor choice of words. What I meant to convey was that I found your enthusiasm charming." "Did you?" Pandora turned crimson. Dropping her head to his shoulder, she said in a muffled voice, "Because I've worried for the past three days that I did it wrong." "No, never, darling." Gabriel sat up a little and cradled her more closely to him. Nuzzling her cheek, he whispered, "Isn't it obvious that everything about you gives me pleasure?" "Even when I plunder and pillage like a Viking?" she asked darkly. "Pirate. Yes, especially then." His lips moved softly along the rim of her right ear. "My sweet, there are altogether too many respectable ladies in the world. The supply has far exceeded the demand. But there's an appalling shortage of attractive pirates, and you do seem to have a gift for plundering and ravishing. I think we've found you're true calling." "You're mocking me," Pandora said in resignation, and jumped a little as she felt his teeth gently nip her earlobe. Smiling, Gabriel took her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. "Your kiss thrilled me beyond imagining," he whispered. "Every night for the rest of my life, I'll dream of the afternoon in the holloway, when I was waylaid by a dark-haired beauty who devastated me with the heat of a thousand troubled stars, and left my soul in cinders. Even when I'm an old man, and my brain has fallen to wrack and ruin, I'll remember the sweet fire of your lips under mine, and I'll say to myself, 'Now, that was a kiss.'" Silver-tongued devil, Pandora thought, unable to hold back a crooked grin. Only yesterday, she'd heard Gabriel affectionately mock his father, who was fond of expressing himself with elaborate, almost labyrinthine turns of phrase. Clearly the gift had been passed down to his son.

Your house is lovely, ma’am.” The duchess gave her a radiant smile. “If you like, I’ll take you on a tour later this afternoon. We have some very good art, and interesting old f-furniture, and some beautiful views from the second floor.” “Oh, that would be—” Pandora began, but to her annoyance, Lord St. Vincent interrupted from behind them. “I had already planned to take Lady Pandora on an outing this afternoon.” Pandora glanced over her shoulder with a quick frown. “I would prefer a tour of the house with the duchess.” “I don’t trust you around unfamiliar furniture,” Lord St. Vincent said. “It could be disastrous. What if I have to pull you out of an armoire, or God forbid, a credenza?” Embarrassed by the reminder of how they’d met, Pandora said stiffly, “It wouldn’t be proper for me to go on an outing without a chaperone.” “You’re not worried about being compromised, are you?” he asked. “Because I’ve already done that.” Forgetting her resolution to be dignified, Pandora stopped and whirled to face the provoking man. “No, you didn’t. I was compromised by a settee. You just happened to be there.” Lord St. Vincent seemed to enjoy her indignation. “Regardless,” he said, “you have nothing to lose now.” “Gabriel—” the duchess began, but fell silent as he slid her a glance of bright mischief. The duke regarded his son dubiously. “If you’re trying to be charming,” he said, “I should tell you that it’s not going well.” “There’s no need for me to be charming,” Lord St. Vincent replied. “Lady Pandora is only pretending disinterest. Beneath the show of indifference, she’s infatuated with me.” Pandora was outraged. “That is the most pomposterous thing I’ve ever heard!” Before she had finished the sentence, however, she saw the dance of mischief in Lord St. Vincent’s eyes. He was teasing, she realized. Turning pink with confusion, she lowered her head. Within a few minutes of arriving at Heron’s Point, she had tumbled on the drive, lost her hat and her temper, and had used a made-up word. It was a good thing Lady Berwick wasn’t there, or she’d have had apoplexy. As they continued to walk, Lord St. Vincent fell into step beside Pandora while the duchess followed with the duke. “Pomposterous,” he murmured, a smile in his voice. “I like that one.” “I wish you wouldn’t tease,” Pandora muttered. “It’s difficult enough for me to be ladylike.” “You don’t have to be.” Pandora sighed, her momentary annoyance fading into resignation. “No, I do,” she said earnestly. “I’ll never be good at it, but the important thing is to keep trying.” It was the statement of a young woman who was aware of her limitations but was determined not to be defeated by them. Gabriel didn’t have to look at his parents to know they were thoroughly charmed by Pandora. As for him . . .

OK, I'm insane, too, but I'm also charming, so that makes it all right.

Plague pits of London,” she said. “There are many, leading some to name it the city of bones. From one end to the other you need only dig a few yards beneath the surface to discover its many hidden secrets—tens of thousands of bodies are buried beneath the sprawling capital, a land of skeletons. In addition to the Knightsbridge pit I mentioned earlier we have another at the center of Soho—Golden Square. Now a charming little area, it has a secret history as a plague pit. In 1685 Lord Macauley described it as ‘a field not to be passed by without a shudder by any Londoner of that age’. Here, as the great plague raged, nightly cartloads of corpses were dropped and buried. It was believed that the earth was deeply infected and could never again be interred without the risk of infection.

No one knew Greek mythology like my friend. He was no doubt running through the entire story in his head. How Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. And Zeus decided to punish Prometheus by making a clay figure of a smokin’ hot chick which he then brought to life. The gods gave that lady, Pandora, all sorts of gifts like beauty, charm, wit, and curiosity. Then Zeus gave her a box, told her she was never to open it, and told Prometheus he could have this drop-dead gorgeous girl as a wife. Prometheus wasn’t stupid; he knew it was a trick and said, “No way.” Zeus got ticked off and punished Prometheus by chaining him to a rock and then let a vulture chow down on him. Prometheus’s brother married Pandora, and the couple settled down for a happy life. But Pandora always wondered what was in the box Zeus gave her. Finally her curiosity won out. She opened the box, and out flew hate, anger, sickness, poverty, and every bad thing in the world. She slammed the lid down and managed to trap one final thing in the box: hope. So today, even when the going gets tough, every human still has hope. No

THE HAPPY SPRUCE INN, it said. Cartoon trees with googly eyes and idiotically smiling faces grinned down at the Stiff as it pulled into the driveway of a large, boxy building with all the charm of a haunted mental institution. “What a lovely setting,” Driggs said. “For murder.” “Okay, Lex,” Uncle Mort said as Pandora put the car into park some distance away from the front door. “You’re going in. Now—” “Wait, I’m going in? Why not you?” “Because I’m deriving far too much enjoyment from the Stiff’s leaky fumes. Now just go in, tell the person at the front desk your Uncle Mort sent you, and find the rest of the Juniors. It shouldn’t be hard. You seem to have a knack for attracting large groups of angry people.” She cringed. “You think they’ll be angry?” “No time like the present to find out. Now go.” “By myself? What about—” She looked at her other choices. Pandora was picking her teeth in the rearview mirror. Grotton was Grotton. And Driggs’s hand was still stuck. “Sorry,” he said to her, giving his wrist another futile tug. “The old arm-in-the-seat dilemma.” Lex haughtily unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car. “You are the worst band of fugitives ever,” she said, slamming the door.

off from the same line, they were scattered peacefully across the globe for centuries, each mostly disregarding the others. But in the Middle Ages, the witches, who by nature did the most interacting with normal humans, began to be discovered. And then persecuted, and tortured, and murdered. Their leaders went to the vampires and the wolves and begged for help, but both groups turned away, the vampires from apathy and the wolves from fear of meeting the same fate. Wolves are pack animals, and look after their pack before anything else. So the witches did the only thing they could: they looked to strengthen their magic. They didn’t know about evolution and magical lines back then, but during their research, the witches managed to stumble upon a group of plants that magic had bonded itself to, just like the human conduits. They were known as nightshades: belladonna, mandragora, Lycium barbarum (which also became known as wolfberry), tomatillo, cape gooseberry flower, capsicum, and solanum. The entire subspecies was rife with magic. The latter four plants could be used in hundreds of charms and potions, many of which helped the witches to deter the human persecutors. But the former three plants were unique; they interacted with the remaining magical beings in mystifying ways. Belladonna was poisonous to vampires—it took unbelievable amounts to actually kill them, but even a sprinkle of the plant would work as a paralytic. Proximity to wolfberry caused the shifters to lose control, painfully unable to stop from changing, again and again, which was very dangerous to anyone nearby. And mandragora, also called mandrake, was the key ingredient in a spell that could grant a very powerful witch the ability to communicate between living and dead. Which is how I ended up disposing of that naked guy’s body in Culver City, all those years ago. This discovery was your classic Pandora’s box scenario. A small group of witches, furious that the vampires and the wolves had abandoned them during their darkest time, began to use wolfberry and belladonna against them—sometimes without much provocation. The balance of power shifted once again, and while the witches’ discovery didn’t cause a full-out war, it did spawn thousands of skirmishes, minor battles breaking out between the three major factions. Eventually, the use of those herbs was “outlawed” in the Old World, but it was done the way that marijuana has been outlawed in the US—basically, don’t get caught. The witches are always arguing about this among themselves; some of them think it should be open season, and others think the ban should be more strictly enforced. But while they may not be able to pull together a majority vote, in Los Angeles Kirsten has organized the witches into sort of an informal union. I know it sounds crazy, but if actors and directors can have unions in this town, why not witches? As I understand it, the real benefit to joining the union is access: to chat rooms, newsletters, support groups, spell sessions—and me. The witches’ dues pay Kirsten a small salary, and she uses the rest to organize the network and pay me. There are plenty of “non-union” witches in LA, too, ones who either haven’t

Later, when there's an opportunity, I want to introduce you to your two remaining siblings. You would enjoy their company. You and Gabriel, in particular, are much alike in temperament. He married into the Ravenel family, and his wife is a thoroughly charming woman---" "Oh, Pandora is my favorite!" came a new voice from the doorway, and they both glanced at the threshold where Seraphina was standing. "She's very witty and fun, and a bit odd in the nicest possible way." With her slender form clad in a green dress, and her brilliant golden-red hair trailing over her shoulder in a thick braid, she reminded Keir of a mermaid.

To Helen’s mingled consternation and excitement, Winterborne accepted an invitation to dinner the very next evening. She wanted very much to see him, almost as much as she dreaded it. Winterborne arrived punctually and was shown to the main floor drawing room, where the Ravenels had gathered. His powerful form was dressed with elegant simplicity in a black coat, gray trousers, and a gray waistcoat. Although his broken leg was still healing, the cast had been removed and he walked with the use of a wooden cane. One could have easily singled him out in a crowd, not only from his distinctive height and size, but also from his raven hair and swarthy complexion. The coloring, thought to be the result of Spanish Basque influence in Wales, was not considered aristocratic…but Helen thought it very handsome and striking. His gaze came to Helen, dark heat framed with black lashes, and she felt a nervous flutter. Maintaining her composure, she gave him a neutral smile, wishing she had the confidence to say something charming or flirtatious. To her chagrin, Pandora and Cassandra--two years younger than she--were both far more comfortable with Winterborne. They amused him with nonsense such as asking whether there was a sword concealed in his cane (regrettably, no) and describing the mummified dogs in the Egyptian gallery.

The sounds of piano music and feminine voices drifted from one of the upper floors. Perhaps he was mistaken, but Devon thought he could hear a distinctly masculine tone filtering through the conversation. Noticing a housemaid cleaning the stair rails of the grand staircase with a banister brush, he asked, “Where is that noise coming from?” “The family is taking their afternoon tea in the upstairs parlor, milord.” Devon began to ascend the staircase with measured footsteps. By the time he reached the parlor, he had no doubt that the voice belonged to his incorrigible brother. “Devon,” West exclaimed with a grin as he entered the room. “Look at the charming little bevy of cousins I’ve discovered.” He was sitting in a chair beside a game table, pouring a hefty splash of spirits from his flask into a cup of tea. The twins hovered around him, busily constructing a dissected map puzzle. Sliding a speculative glance over his brother, West remarked, “You look as though you’d been pulled backward through the hedgerow.” “You shouldn’t be in here,” Devon told him. He turned to the room in general. “Has anyone been corrupted or defiled?” “Since the age of twelve,” West replied. “I wasn’t asking you, I was asking the girls.” “Not yet,” Cassandra said cheerfully. “Drat,” Pandora exclaimed, examining a handful of puzzle pieces, “I can’t find Luton.” “Don’t concern yourself with it,” West told her. “We can leave out Luton entirely, and England will be none the worse for it. In fact, it’s an improvement.