Pupil Voice Quotes

When he backed away, his pupils were huge and unfocused. He blinked, and then he cleared his throat. "Belly," he said, and his voice was foggy. He didn't say anything else, just my name. "Do you still--" Care. Think about me. Want me. Roughly, he said, "Yes. Yes, I still." And then we were kissing again.

I knew him instantly, even though he'd...changed. I think in a crowd of a million people, I would have recognized him. The connection between us would allow nothing else. And after being deprived of him for so long, I drank in every feature. The dark, chin-length hair, worn loose tonight and curling slightly around his face. The familiar set of lips, quirked now in an amused yet chilling smile. He even wore the duster he always wore, the long leather coat that could have come straight out of a cowboy movie. [...] The eyes. Oh God, the eyes. Even with that sickening red ring around his pupils, his eyes still reminded me of the Dimitri I'd known. The look in his eyes—the soulless, malicious gleam—that was nothing like him. But there was just enough resemblance to stir my heart, to overwhelm my senses and feelings. My stake was ready. All I had to do was keep swinging to make the kill. I had momentum on my side... But I couldn't. I just needed a few more seconds, a few more seconds to drink him in before I killed him. And that's when he spoke. "Roza." His voice had the same wonderful lowness, the same accent...it was just colder. "You forgot my first lesson: Don't hesitate.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz

Well,” said a very amused voice. “This is unexpected.” Tessa sat bolt upright, pulling the heavy coverlet around her. Beside her, Will stirred, propping himself up on his elbows, eyelids fluttering open slowly. “What—” The room was filled with bright light. The torches had come on at full strength, and it was like the place was lit with daylight. Tessa could see the wreck of the room that they had made: their clothes scattered across the floor and the bed, the rug before the fireplace rucked up, the bedclothes wound about them. On the other side of the invisible wall was lounging a familiar figure in an elegant dark suit, one thumb hooked into the waistband of his trousers. His cat-pupilled eyes glimmered with mirth. Magnus Bane. “You might want to get up,” he said. “Everyone will be here quite soon to rescue you, and you may prefer to have clothes on when they arrive.” He shrugged. “I would, at any rate, but then, I am well known to be remarkably shy.

What do you feel for me?” Nyktos was silent and then tipped his head back to look at me. Eather pulsed intensely behind his pupils. “I feel too many things. Curiosity and excitement that remind me of what I think yearning must feel like. Need. Want,” he said roughly, his voice low. “Amusement at times. Sometimes, even anger. But always awe. I am always in awe of you. I could keep going, but most of all, what I feel is the closest thing to peace I’ve ever experienced.

I bet Josh doesn’t kiss you like that, Lauren,” he said, his voice as strained as her own. He pulled a ragged breath, his eyes half-lidded, his pupils dilated. “Tell me he does and I’ll walk away right now, but I’ll know if you’re lying. I always did. I don’t want to compete for you, babe, but I will. I will show you what this Josh can’t give you, I will reawaken the pleasure I gave you all those years ago until you can’t think of anyone else but me. Until you forget all about Josh and let me make you mine again.

You can’t be afraid to stare into the pupils of the possibility of pain and see it for what it is.

Feels almost like real agent work, doesn’t it?” Barron says as we walk down the street, heads bowed against the wind. “You know, if we caught your girlfriend committing a crime, I bet Yulikova would give us a bonus or something for being prize pupils.” “Except that we’re not going to do that,” I say. “I thought you wanted us to be good guys.” He grins a too-wide grin. He’s enjoying needling me, and my reacting only makes it worse, but I can’t stop. “Not if it means hurting her,” I say, my voice as deadly as I can make it. “Never her.” “Got it. Hurting, bad. But how do you excuse stalking her and her friends, little brother?” “I’m not excusing it,” I say. “I’m just doing it.

Perhaps,” he said, his voice low. He trailed his hand up her thigh. “All goddesses are just beliefs draped on the scaffolding of ideas. I can’t touch what’s not real.” Séverin looked up at her. His pupils were blown out. “But I can worship it all the same.

You shouldn't let the voices of your past or present define who you are. Let God do that. And he says you're precious." His eyes moved in a mesmerizing sort of back-and-forth motion, his pupils large in the dim stairwell. "So think of yourself that way, Mercy.

I circled the site before I came in. If there's anyone within five kilometers, I'll eat my quiver." Halt regarded him, eyebrow arched once more. "Anyone?" "Anyone other than Crowley," Will amended, making a dismissive gesture. "I saw him watching me from that hide he always uses about two kilometers out. I assumed he'd be back in here by now." Halt cleared his throat loudly. "Oh, you saw him, did you?" he said. "I imagine he'll be overjoyed to hear that." Secretly, he was pleased with his former pupil. In spite of his curiosity and obvious excitement, he hadn't forgotten to take the precautions that had been drilled into him. THat augured well for what lay ahead, Halt thought, a sudden grimness settling onto his manner. Will didn't notice the momentary change of mood. He was loosening Tug saddle girth. As he spoke, his voice was muffled against the horses's flank. "he's becoming too much a creature of habit," he said. "he's used that hide for the last three Gatherings. It's time he tried something new. Everyone must be onto it by now." Rangers constantly competed with each other to see before being seen and each year's Gathering was a time of heightened competition. Halt nodded thoughtfully. Crowley had constructed teh virtually invisible observation post some four years previously. Alone among the younger Rangers, Will had tumbled to it after one year. Halt had never mentioned to him that he was the only one who knew of Crowley's hide. The concealed post was the Ranger Commandant's pride and joy. "Well, perhaps not everyone," he said. Will emerged from behind his horse, grinning at the thought of the head of the Ranger Corps thinking he had remained hidden from sight as he watched Will's approach. "All the same, perhaps he's getting a bit long in the tooth to be skulking around hiding in the bushes, don't you think?" he said cheerfully. Halt considered the question for a moment. "Long in the tooth? Well, that's one opinion. Mind you, his silent movement skills are still as good as ever," he said meaningfully. The grin on Will's face slowly faded. He resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder. "He's standing behind me, isn't he?" he asked Halt. THe older Ranger nodded. "He's standing behind me, isn't he?" Will continued and Halt nodded once more. "Is he...close enough to have heard what I said?" Will finally managed to ask, fearin teh worst. This time, Halt didn't have to answer. "Oh, good grief no," came a familiar voice from behind him. "he's so old and decrepit these days he's as deaf as a post." Will's shoulders sagged and he turned to see the sandy-haired Commandant standing a few meters away. The younger man's eyes dropped. "Hullo, Crowley," he said, then mumbled, "Ahhh...I'm sorry about that." Crowley glared at teh young Ranger for a few more seconds, then he couldn't help teh grin breaking out on his face. "No harm done," he said, adding with a small note of triumph, "It's not often these days I amange to get the better of one of you young ones." Secretly, he was impressed at teh news that Will had spotted his hiding place. Only the sarpest eyes could have picked it. Crowley had been in the business of seeing without being seen for thirty years or more, and despite what Will believed, he was still an absolute master of camouflage and unseen movement.

She raised the long glass and peered back down at the harbor, at the passengers disembarking, but the image was blurry. Reluctantly, she released his hand. It felt like a promise, and she didn’t want to let go. She adjusted the lens, and her gaze caught on two figures moving down the gangplank. Their steps were graceful, their posture straight as knife blades. They moved like Suli acrobats. She drew in a sharp breath. Everything in her focused like the lens of the long glass. Her mind refused the image before her. This could not be real. It was an illusion, a false reflection, a lie made in rainbow-hued glass. She would breathe again and it would shatter. She reached for Kaz’s sleeve. She was going to fall. He had his arm around her, holding her up. Her mind split. Half of her was aware of his bare fingers on her sleeve, his dilated pupils, the brace of his body around hers. The other half was still trying to understand what she was seeing. His dark brows knitted together. “I wasn’t sure. Should I not have—” She could barely hear him over the clamor in her heart. “How?” she said, her voice raw and strange with unshed tears. “How did you find them?” “A favor, from Sturmhond. He sent out scouts. As part of our deal. If it was a mistake—” “No,” she said as the tears spilled over at last. “It was not a mistake.” “Of course, if something had gone wrong during the job, they’d be coming to retrieve your corpse.” Inej choked out a laugh. “Just let me have this.” She righted herself, her balance returning. Had she really thought the world didn’t change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible. Now Inej was shaking, her hands pressed to her mouth, watching them move up the dock toward the quay. She started forward, then turned back to Kaz. “Come with me,” she said. “Come meet them.” Kaz nodded as if steeling himself, flexed his fingers once more. “Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?” Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair. “That’s the laugh,” he murmured, but she was already setting off down the quay, her feet barely touching the ground. “Mama!” she called out. “Papa!” Inej saw them turn, saw her mother grip her father’s arm. They were running toward her. Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.

I read your poem," I croaked. "'Fall.'" Then something I never thought would happen, happened: Marcus Flutie was shocked by something I said. "You did?" he said. "I thought you lost it!" "Well someone found it for me. Where do you get off saying," I lowered my voice, "we'll be naked without shame in paradise?" He didn't open his mouth. "I know what that means, you know. Who do you think I am?" He didn't open his mouth. "We are never going to be naked without shame in paradise." He didn't open his mouth. "We're NEVER going to have sex," I whispered, clearly over-stating my case. He didn't open his mouth. The mouth that used to bite mine. "And I'm just going to forget about that biting thing from the other night," I said. He looked at me right in the eyes. If he'd focused hard enough on my pupils, he could've seen his own reflection, his own face smirking at me. "You couldn't forget if you tried," he said, before walking away. He's right. And I don't know if I hate him or love him for that.

Harry took a deep, steadying breath and then said, “Okay, I can’t see the World Cup. Can I go now, then? Only I’ve got a letter to Sirius I want to finish. You know — my godfather.” He had done it. He had said the magic words. Now he watched the purple recede blotchily from Uncle Vernon’s face, making it look like badly mixed black currant ice cream. “You’re — you’re writing to him, are you?” said Uncle Vernon, in a would-be calm voice — but Harry had seen the pupils of his tiny eyes contract with sudden fear. “Well — yeah,” said Harry, casually. “It’s been a while since he heard from me, and, you know, if he doesn’t, he might start thinking something’s wrong.” He stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. He could almost see the cogs working under Uncle Vernon’s thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If he tried to stop Harry writing to Sirius, Sirius would think Harry was being mistreated. If he told Harry he couldn’t go to the Quidditch World Cup, Harry would write and tell Sirius, who would know Harry was being mistreated. There was only one thing for Uncle Vernon to do. Harry could see the conclusion forming in his uncle’s mind as though the great mustached face were transparent. Harry tried not to smile, to keep his own face as blank as possible. And then — “Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy … this stupid … this World Cup thing. You write and tell these — these Weasleys they’re to pick you up, mind. I haven’t got time to go dropping you off all over the country. And you can spend the rest of the summer there. And you can tell your — your godfather … tell him … tell him you’re going.” “Okay then,” said Harry brightly.

Annabel,” I whispered in her ear, making sure not to touch her. Her heartbeat accelerated, her skin got the chills, and her pupils dilated, not to mention how delicious she smelled and how the excitement only increased the scent. My own body got tense and aroused. “Let your guard down and trust me. Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen. I’m not trying to get you drunk or trick you. I just want to get to know you better.” “Shane,” she replied with her sexy, hot, and alluring voice that sent spirals of lust down my spine. “I have nothing against sleeping with you. I’m fully dressed for that.

My Song” This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like the fond arms of love. This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of blessing. When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper ini your ear, when you are in the crowd it will fence you about with aloofness. My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes, and will carry your sight into the heart of things. And when my voice is silent in death, my song will speak in your leaving heart.

I thought you were dead," he said, his voice a bare rasp while Samual moved from his hands to his feet. It didn't seem to hurt as much—at a guess there weren't a lot of nerves left. He jumped into a burning building barefoot to save me. "Stupid," I said, blinking hard. "As if I'd die without taking you with me." He smiled faintly. "Was it Mary Jo who betrayed us at the bowling alley? " he asked, proven he hadn't been entirely unaware of what had been going on while he was changing. Both of us ignore the pained sound Mary Jo made. "I'll ask her later." He nodded. "Better—" He quit talking, and his pupils contracted despite the morphine he'd been giving. He arched up and twisted so he could press his face into my belly, making a noise somewhere between a screem and a growel. I held him there well Samual snared at Ben and Mary Jo to hold him still. Another shot of morphine, and Samuel moved us all around. Ben across Adams legs— "And don't think I haven't noticed your hands, Ben. You're next up." Mary Jo on one arm, just above the elbow. Me on the other. "Can you hold him?" asked Samuel. "Not if he doesn't want me to," I told him. "It'll be alright," Adam said. "I won't hurt her." Samuel smiled tightly. "No, I didn't think you would." When Samuel started on Adams face with the brush, I had to close my eyes. "Shh," Adam comforted me. "It'll be over soon.

He spoke two short sentences in a low voice, watching her all the time; for the pupils of her eyes dilated into a black horror, and the whiteness of her complexion became livid. He ceased speaking.

Fingers still inside me, he looks up, eyes soft and earnest and swallowed by his pupils. “Thank you.” Oh. “I think . . .” I clear my throat. My voice remains scratchy. “Maybe I should be the one thanking you.

He had never got so much back for himself from any pupil as he did from Miss Kronborg. From the first she had stimulated him; something in her personality invariably affected him. Now that he was feeling his way toward her voice, he found her more interesting than ever before. She lifted the tedium of the winter for him, gave him curious fancies and reveries. Musically, she was sympathetic to him. Why this was true, he never asked himself. He had learned that one must take where and when one can the mysterious mental irritant that rouses one's imagination; that it is not to be had by order. She often wearied him, but she never bored him.

The Bear is awake.” “What bear?” “The shadow on the wall,” said the rusalka, breathing quickly. “The voice in the dark.” Her face did not move like a human face, but the pupils of her eyes swelled black. “Beware the dead. You must heed me, Vasya, for I will not come again. Not as myself. He will call me, and I will answer; he will have my allegiance and I will turn against you. I cannot do otherwise. The leaves are falling. Do not leave the forest.

Daphne turned to Simon with an amused expression. “I can’t quite decide if she is being terribly polite or exquisitely rude.” “Exquisitely polite, perhaps?” Simon asked mildly. She shook her head. “Oh, definitely not that.” “The alternative, of course, is—” “Terribly rude?” Daphne grinned and watched as her mother looped her arm through Lord Railmont’s, pointed him toward Daphne so that he could nod his good-bye, and led him from the room. And then, as if by magic, the remaining beaux murmured their hasty farewells and followed suit. “Remarkably efficient, isn’t she?” Daphne murmured. “Your mother? She’s a marvel.” “She’ll be back, of course.” “Pity. And here I thought I had you well and truly in my clutches.” Daphne laughed. “I don’t know how anyone considered you a rake. Your sense of humor is far too superb.” “And here we rakes thought we were so wickedly droll.” “A rake’s humor,” Daphne stated, “is essentially cruel.” Her comment surprised him. He stared at her intently, searching her brown eyes, and yet not really knowing what it was he was looking for. There was a narrow ring of green just outside her pupils, the color as deep and rich as moss. He’d never seen her in the daylight before, he realized. “Your grace?” Daphne’s quiet voice snapped him out of his daze. Simon blinked. “I beg your pardon.” “You looked a thousand miles away,” she said, her brow wrinkling. “I’ve been a thousand miles away.” He fought the urge to return his gaze to her eyes. “This is entirely different.” Daphne let out a little laugh, the sound positively musical. “You have, haven’t you? And here I’ve never even been past Lancashire. What a provincial I must seem.” He brushed aside her remark. “You must forgive my woolgathering. We were discussing my lack of humor, I believe?” “We were not, and you well know it.

Defying her immutably kind voice, when Juniper draws nearer, she notices that the woman’s eyes are completely black and without pupils. Juniper gawks at the strange-looking, devilish deity for a long while before the woman, herself, breaks the noiselessness, “Am I so strange that you have to stare?

Once this is over,' he says, 'there are some things I want to tell you. Some explanation I have to give.' 'Like what?' I ask, keeping my voice low. He looks away, toward the edge of the pine forest. 'I let you believe- well, something that's untrue.' I think about the feeling of Oak's breath against my neck, the way his fox eyes looked with the pupils gone wide and black, the way it felt to bite his shoulder almost hard enough to break skin. 'Tell me, then.' He shakes his head, looking pained, but so many of his expressions are masks that I can no longer tell what is real. 'If I did, it would serve nothing but to clear my conscience and would put you in danger.' 'Tell me anyway,' I say. But Oak only shakes his head again. 'Then let me tell you something,' I say. 'I know why you smile and jest and flatter, even when you don't need to. At first I thought it was to make people like you, then I thought it was to keep them off-balance. But it's more than that. You're worried they're scared of you.' Wariness comes into his face. 'Why ever would they be?' 'Because you terrify yourself,' I say. 'Once you start killing, you don't want to stop. You like it. Your sister may have inherited your father's gift for strategy, but you're the one who got his bloodlust.' A muscle moves in his jaw. 'Are you afraid of me?' 'Not because of that.' The intensity of his gaze is blistering. It doesn't matter. It feels good to pierce his armour, but it doesn't change anything.

You had to find the truth for yourself. That is how we all find the truth.' ' And if the truth is terrible?' 'I think you know the answer to that one, Nutt,' said the voice of Ladyship. 'The answer is that, terrible or not, it is still the truth,' said Nutt. 'And then?' said her voice, like a teacher encouraging a promising pupil. 'And then the truth can be changed,' said Nutt.

[I]t's a con, at children's expense. When self-esteem advocates tell us to flatter the young about their views, in reality they ask adults to abandon the difficult task of disciplining them. Emphasizing that adults must 'express unconditional positive regard and acceptance for children' effectively destroys the inter-generational duty of passing on knowledge, setting boundaries for behavior and the broader task of socialization. It is not good for children and can mean adults indulging even the most destructive aspects of young people's behavior. In 2013, a self-harming pupil at Unsted Park School in Godalming, Surrey was given a disposable safety razor to slash himself with, supervised by a teacher. A spokeswoman from selfharm.co.uk justified this irresponsible collapse of adult judgement using the mantras of pupil voice and self-esteem: 'The best way to help is to listen without judging, accept that the recovery process may take a while and avoid "taking away" the self-harm' because 'self-harm can be about control, so it's important that the young person in the center feels in control of the steps taken to help them'. That's an extreme case but it touches on how focusing on the schoolchild's self-esteem can create the impression that the world should circle around pupils' desires. This in turn puts pressure on adults to tip-toe around young people's sensitivities and to accede to their opinions. Combined with student voice orthodoxies, this can lead to the peculiar diktat that teachers express respect for pupils' views, however childish or even poisonous.

Ultimately, Roger learned only of the encounter with the urban bees. The boy remained thoroughly fascinated by what he heard nonetheless, his blue-eyed stare never once straying from Holmes; his visage passive and accepting, his eyes wide, Roger's pupils stated fixed on those venerable, reflective eyes, as though the boy were seeing distant lights shimmering along an opaque horizon, a glimpse of something flickering and alive existing beyond his reach. And, in turn, the gray eyes that focused sharply on him - piercing and kind at the same instant - endeavoured to bridge the lifetime that separated the two of them, attempting to do so as brandy was sipped, and the vial's glass grew warmer against soft palms, and that seasoned, well-lived voice somehow made Roger feel much older and more worldly than his years.

I Love You" I love you... and you move the time of my life without hours. I love you in the pallid streams that travel in the night, and never finish conveying stars to the sea. I love you in that morning unpinned from the flight of centuries that fled its white ship to the water without waves where your voice and my song sadly swam. I love you in the pain without tears that tell so many nights the dream has gathered: in the sky inverted in my pupils to look at you cosmically; in the hollow voice of my noise of centuries crumbling. I love you (scream of white night) in the insomniac thoughts where in birds my spirit has returned. I love you... My love lightly escapes from expressions and routes, and goes breaking the shadows and reaching your image from the innocent point where I am grass and birdsong.

Dammholt’s voice goes yelling through the playground. I wonder to myself whether a more comradely attitude on the part of the teacher toward the pupil might not help matters. It might possibly improve the relationship a little and get over a few of the difficulties—but at bottom it would merely be an illusion. Youth is sharp-sighted and incorruptible. It hands together and presents an impenetrable front against the grown-ups. It is not sentimental; one may approach to it, but one cannot enter in to it. Who has once been evicted from that paradise can never get back. There is a law of the years. Dammholt, with his sharp eyes, would cold-bloodedly turn any such camaraderie to his own advantage. He might show even a certain affection; yet that would not prevent him looking to his own interest. Educationalists who think they can understand the young are enthusiasts. Youth does not want to be understood; it wants only to be let alone. It preserves itself immune against the insidious bacillus of being understood. The grown-up who would approach it too importunately is as ridiculous in its eyes as if he had put on children’s clothes. We may feel with youth, but youth does not feel with us. That is its salvation. The bell rings. The interval is over. Reluctantly Dammholt falls into the line before the door.

Thanks for getting me out of there,” I murmur, lacing my fingers around my knees, and looking up at him on his step. “Yeah. You looked a little green. “ “I don’t handle crowds too well. I’ve always been that way, I guess.” “You might get in trouble,” he warns, staring at me in that strange, hungry way that unravels me. He strokes his bottom lip with a finger. For a flash of a second, his eyes look strange. Different. All glowing irises and thin dark pupils. Almost drake-like. I blink to clear my vision. His eyes are normal again. Just my imagination in overdrive. I’m probably projecting missing home and Az—everything--onto him. “Pep rallies are mandatory,” he continues. “A lot of people saw you leave. Teachers included.” “They saw you leave, too,” I point out. He leans to the side, propping an elbow on one of the steps behind him. “I’m not worried about that. I’ve been in trouble before.” He smiles a crooked grin and holds up crossed fingers. “The principal and I are like this. The guy loves me. Really.” Laughter spills from me, rusty and hoarse. His grin makes me feel good. Free. Like I’m not running from anything. Like I could stay here in this world, if only I have him. The thought unsettles me. Sinks heavily in my chest. Because I can’t have him. Not really. All he can ever be for me is a temporary fix. “But you’re worried I’ll get in trouble?” I try not to show how much this pleases me. I’ve managed to ignore him for days now and here I sit. Lapping up his attention like a neglected puppy. My voice takes on an edge. “Why do you care? I’ve ignored you for days.” His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. “Yeah. You got to stop that.” I swallow back a laugh. “I can’t.” “Why?” There’s no humor in his eyes now, no mockery. “You like me. You want to be with me.” “I never said—” “You didn’t have to.” I inhale sharply. “Don’t do this.” He looks at me so fiercely, so intently. Angry again. “I don’t have friends. Do you see me hang with anyone besides my jerk cousins? That’s for a reason. I keep people away on purpose,” he growls. “But then you came along . . .” I frown and shake my head. His expression softens then , pulls at some part of me. His gaze travels my face, warming the core of me. “Whoever you are, Jacinda, you’re someone I have to let in.

I am quite safe, I assure you. But, even if I were not, I have the habits of a lifetime to protect me. And Lacey.” “Lacey?” I could not keep incredulity from my voice nor a grin from my face. I turned to exchange a wink with Lacey. Lacey glared at me as if affronted by my smile. Before I could even unfold from the hearth, Lacey sprang up from her rocking chair. A long needle, stripped of its eternal yarn, prodded my jugular vein, while the other probed a certain space between my ribs. I very nearly wet myself. I looked up at a woman I suddenly knew not at all, and dared not make a word. “Stop teasing the child,” Patience rebuked her gently. “Yes, Fitz, Lacey. The most apt pupil that Hod ever had, even if she did come to Hod as a grown woman.” As Patience spoke Lacey took her weapons away from my body. She reseated herself, and deftly rethreaded her needles into her work. I swear she didn’t even drop a stitch. When she was finished, she looked up at me. She winked. And went back to her knitting. I remembered to start breathing again.

Captain Quinn have the details, as usual?” She cocked a furry eyebrow at him. “Captain Quinn . . . will not be coming on this mission.” He swore her gold eyes widened, the pupils dilating. Her lips drew back baring her fangs further in what took him a terrifying moment to realize was a smile. In a weird way, it reminded him of the grin with which Thorne had greeted that same news. She glanced up; the bay had emptied of other personnel. “Aah?” Her voice rumbled, like a purr. “Well, I’ll be your bodyguard any time, lover. Just give me the sign.” What sign, what the hell— She

Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phæstias, a citizen of Stagira; and Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Æsculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle; and he lived with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a physician and a friend. II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato; he had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timotheus the Athenian, in his work on Lives. He had also very thin legs, they say, and small eyes; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous dress, and rings, and used to dress his hair carefully.

Shall we put our dance practice to some purpose?' he asks. 'Dance?' I ask, my voice coming out a little high. His gaze goes to the circles of leaping and cavorting Folk. I wonder if he is in shock. I have just come from betraying him. I feel rather shocked about it. I put my hand in his as if mesmerised. There is only the warmth of his fingers against my chilly skin. His amber fox eyes, pupils wide and dark. His teeth catch his lip, as though he's nervous. I reach up and touch his cheek. Blood and freckles. He's shaking a little. I guess if I'd done what he did, I'd still be shaking, too.

The explosion was deafening; a huge cloud of fire rolled out the window after us, its immense heat brushing my face as we tumbled into the snow. We hit the ground and rolled. Flaming debris from the house came down around us; Griffin shoved me flat on my back, covering us both with his heavy coat. The echoes of the explosion reflected back across the river, then slowly dwindled away, like dying thunder. The leaping flames threw warm light onto the falling snow, turning it into a storm of sparks pouring down from the heavens. Griffin started to push himself off of me, then stoped. His hands were braced on either side of my shoulders, his legs twined with mine. Mt heart pounded, my palms sweated, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of how close his face was to mine. "You're a madman," he whispered. "An utter madman." "Perhaps," I allowed. "But it worked." The leaping light from the burning house painted his features in gold, highlighting his patrician nose and finding threads of brown and blue in his green eyes. His pupils widened, the irises contracting to silver. "Whatever am I going to do with you?" he murmured. The warmth of his breath feathered over my skin. Heat collected in my groin, my lips. My mouth was dry, my voice hoarse, and perhaps he was right and it was madness when I whispered, "Whatever you want." A shiver went through his body, perhaps because we were lying on the cold ground. But instead of getting up, he leaned closer, his overlong hair tumbling over his forehead. He paused, his mouth almost touching mine, his eyes seeming to ask a question. It was madness; it was folly; it was sheer selfishness. I was delusional, misguided, wrong, out of control. I needed to pull back, to say something sane, to re-establish mastery over myself. I could not do this. I could not take the risk. Later tonight, I'd relive this moment in my lonely bed and wonder if I'd done the right thing. But at least that would be familiar, would be something I knew how to cope with. And yet the very thought felt like dying. I surged forward, crossing the final, tiny gap and pressing my lips to his. It was awkward and desperate and frantic, but the feel of his mouth against mine sent a bolt of electricity straight down my spine. Just a moment, just this one kiss, surely that would be enough... Then he kissed me back, and it would never be enough, a thousand years of this would not be enough. His mouth was hungry and insistent, his tongue probing my lips, asking for greater intimacy. I granted it, tongues swirling together, mine followed his when it retreated and tasting him in return. There came the clanging of bells in the distance, the fire company alerted to the explosion. Griffin drew back a fraction. His breath was as raged as mine, which left me dazed with wonder. "My dear," he whispered against my lips. Then he swallowed convulsively. "We should leave, before the fire companies come." "Y-Yes." It was amazing I managed that much coherence. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling. "Will you come home with me?" Was he asking...? "Yes." Oh, God, yes. His lips curved into a smile.

Gideon was quickly checking through her muscular structure and then weaving very gently into the complexities of her reproductive system. Suddenly Legna cried out again, her hands hitting his chest and grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, her entire body trembling from head to toe. This time Gideon gave the reaction his full attention. He looked into her wide eyes, the pupils dilating as he watched. Her mouth formed a soft, silent circle of surprise. “What are you doing?” she asked, her breath falling short and quick. “Nothing,” he insisted, his expression reflecting his baffled thoughts. “Merely continuing the exam. What are you feeling?” Legna couldn’t put the sensation into words. Her entire body felt as if it were pooling liquid fire, like magma dripping through her, centering under the hand he had just splayed over her lower belly. So, being the empath she was, she described it in the only way she could with any efficiency and effectiveness. She sent the sensations to him, deeply, firmly, without preparation or permission, exactly the way she had received them. In an instant, Gideon went from being in control of a neutral examination to an internal thermonuclear flashpoint of arousal that literally took his breath away. His hand flexed on her belly, crushing the silk of her dress within his fist. “Legna!” he cried hoarsely. “What are you doing?” She didn’t even seem aware of him, her eyes sliding closed and her head falling back as she tried to gulp in oxygen. His eyes slid down over her and he saw the flush and rigidity of erogenous heat building with incredible speed beneath her skin. And as it built in her, it built in him. She had created a loop between them, a locked cycle that started nowhere, ended nowhere. All it did was spill through and through them. “Stop,” he commanded, his voice rough and desperate as he tried to clear his mind and control the impulses surging through him. “Legna, stop this!” Legna dropped her head forward, her eyes flicking open and upward until she was gazing at him from under her lashes with the volatile, predatory gaze of a cat. A cat in heat.

As she chats away, the candlelight is reflected in her pupils, making them shine like cats’ eyes. When she smiles, her nose crinkles and dimples appear in her cheeks. I look at her, stare at her, and I think: I wish I could pick you up and put you in my pocket. I wish I could carry you with me all the time, safe and warm. I wish there was a way I could be with you all the time, every hour of every day. Each time you smile, it’s like the first time all over again, and my heart flutters in my chest. I want to reach out and hold you – it’s like a physical ache. I want to stroke your face and kiss your eyelashes and feel your skin and smell your hair. I love you. I love you so much. And it hurts. I don’t know why.

Flash after flash across the horizon: Tourists trying to take the Grand Canyon By night. They don’t know Every last shot will turn out black. It takes Rothko sixty years to arrive At the rim of his canyon. He goes there only after dark. As he stands at the railing, his pupils open Like a camera shutter at the slowest speed. He has to be patient. He has to lean Far over the railing To see the color as of darkness: Purple, numb brown, mud-red, mauve -an abyss of bruises. At first, you’d think it was black on black Something you son’t want to look at, he says As he waits, The colors vibrate in the chasm Like voices: You there with the eyes, Bring back something from The brink of nothing to make us see.

I hope Peter’s still out there. I don’t want to lose my nerve. So I quicken my pace and that’s when I spot him, alone in the hot tub, his head tipped back with his eyes closed. “Hi,” I say, and my voice echoes into the woods. His eyes fly open. Nervously, he looks over my shoulder. “Lara Jean! What are you doing out here?” “I came to see you,” I say, and my breath comes out in white puffs. I start taking off my boots and socks. My hands are shaking, and not because I’m cold. I’m nervous. “Uh…what are you doing?” Peter’s looking at me like I’m crazy. “I’m getting in!” Shivering, I unzip my puffy coat and set it on the bench. Steam is rising out of the water. I dip my feet in and sit down on the ledge of the hot tub. It’s hotter than a bath, but it feels nice. Peter’s still watching me warily. My heart is racing out of control and it’s difficult to look him in the eyes. I’ve never been so scared in my life. “That thing you brought up earlier…you caught me off guard, so I didn’t know what to say. But…well, I like you too.” It comes out so fumbly and uncertain, and I wish I could start over and say it smoothly and confidently. I try again, louder. “I like you, Peter.” Peter blinks, and he looks so young all of a sudden. “I don’t understand you girls. I think I have you figured out, and then…and then…” “And then?” I hold my breath as I wait for him to speak. I’m so nervous; I keep swallowing, and it sounds loud to my ears. Even my breathing sounds loud, even my heartbeat. His pupils are dilated he’s looking at me so hard. He’s staring at me like he’s never seen me before. “And then I don’t know.” I think I stop breathing when I hear him say “I don’t know.” Did I screw things up that badly that now he doesn’t know? It can’t be over, not when I finally found my courage. I can’t let it be. My heart is pounding like a million trillion beats a minute as I scoot closer to him. I bend my head down and press my lips against his, and I feel his jolt of surprise. And then he’s kissing me back, open-mouthed, soft-lipped kissing-me-back, and at first I’m nervous, but then he puts his hand on the back of my head, and he strokes my hair in a reassuring way, and I’m not so nervous anymore. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down on this ledge, because I am weak in the knees. He pulls me into the water so I’m sitting in the hot tub too, and my nightgown is soaked now but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I never knew kissing could be this good.

Your pupils are dilated." "It's a design flaw. It happens when sexy men get too close." A smile tugged at his lips. "You think I'm sexy?" "You are when you talk in that soft, deep voice and sit so close I can feel the heat of your body, and wear that craze-inducing cologne, and cradle my face like I'm a delicate flower." She licked her lips and his gaze fell to her soft, lush mouth. It was an invitation he couldn't ignore. "You forgot the part where I tried to kill you by crashing into a deer at high speed," he offered, just in case he was misreading the signs. "I'm trying not to remember it because you busted out some pretty slick moves to keep us from going over the cliff. Nothing sexier than a man who can stay calm in a crisis and save a girl so she can live to get fired another day. You, Sam Mehta, are a hero." She thought he was worthy. It was a balm to his soul.

As young children, seen in the laboratory for the first time, their heartbeat rates are generally higher and under stress show less change. (Heart rate can’t change much if it is already high.) Also when under stress, their pupils dilate sooner, and their vocal cords are more tense, making their voice change to a higher pitch. (Many HSPs are relieved to know why their voice can become so strange sounding when they are aroused.) The body fluids (blood, urine, saliva) of sensitive children show indications of high levels of norepinephrine present in their brains, especially after the children are exposed to various forms of stress in the laboratory. Norepinephrine is associated with arousal; in fact, it is the brain’s version of adrenaline. Sensitive children’s body fluids also contain more cortisol, both when under stress and when at home. Cortisol is the hormone present when one is in a more or less constant state of arousal or wariness. Remember cortisol; it comes up again.

That which is unnamed was first,” it said. “But I am named, flesh queen. Remember.” Its pupils thinned. “The cold one on the ship. She was your kin.” Glorian looked at the other skull. “She fell to my flame. So will this land. We will finish the scouring, for we are the teeth that harrow and turn. The mountain is the forge and smith, and we, its iron offspring—come to avenge the first, the forebear, he who sleeps beneath.” Every warrior should know fear, Glorian Brightcry. Without it, courage is an empty boast. “You confess,” Glorian said, “that you slew the blood of the Saint.” Her voice kept breaking. “Do you then declare war on Inys?” Fyredel—the wyrm—let out a rattle. A score of complex scales and muscles shifted in its face. “When your days grow long and hot,” he said, “when the sun in the North never sets, we shall come.” On both sides of the Strondway, those who had not fled were rooted to the spot, fixated on Glorian. She realized what they must be thinking. If she died childless, the eternal vine was at its end. What she did next could define how they saw the House of Berethnet for centuries to come. Start forging your armour, Glorian. You will need it. She looked down once more at her parents’ remains, the bones the wyrms had dumped here like a spoil of war. In her memory, her father laughed and drew her close. He would never laugh again. Never smile. Her mother would never tell her she loved her, or how to calm her dreams. And where there had been fear, there was anger. “If you—If you dare to turn your fire on Inys,” Glorian bit out, “then I will do as my ancestor did to the Nameless One.” She forced herself to lift her chin in defiance. “I will drive you back with sword and spear, with bow and lance!” Shaking, she heaved for air. “I am the voice, the body of Inys. My stomach is its strength—my heart, its shield— and if you think I will submit to you because I am small and young, you are wrong.” Sweat was running down her back. She had never been so afraid in her life. “I am not afraid,” she said. At this, the wyrm unfurled its wings to their full breadth. From tip to hooked tip, they were as wide as two longships facing each other. People scrambled out of their shadow. “So be it, Shieldheart.” It steeped the word in mockery. “Treasure your darkness, for the fire comes. Until then, a taste of our flame, to light your city through the winter. Heed my words.

Tresses of lustrous, snow-white hair tumbled from their cloth-bound imprisonment, streaming like a waterfall down the young woman’s back. In an effort to make his student more at ease, Alexi did his best to appear wholly disinterested as she carefully removed her protections with delicate, private ceremony. But then she turned to face him, clutching those items that had held her unusual features in mystery : glasses, gloves, long scarf. "As you would have it so, Professor, here is your pupil in all her ghastliness." Though Miss Parker's hands clearly trembled, her voice did not. Luminous crystal eyes held streaks of pale blue shooting from tiny black pupils. A face youthful but devoid of color, smooth and unblemished like porcelain, had graceful lines as well-defined and proportioned as a marble statue. Her long, blanched locks shimmered in the candlelight like spider silk. Upon high cheekbones lay hints of rouge : any more would have appeared garish against her blindingly white skin, but she had been artful in her application. Her rosebud lips were tinted in the same manner. "You see, Professor, even you, so stern and stoic, cannot hide your shock, surprise, distaste-" "Distaste ?" he interrupted quietly. "Is that what you see ?

It's rich. And smooth. And thick. And fatty, but in a good way. Like butter, but with a deeper, fuller, nuttier flavor." Max's inky black pupils start to dilate as he gazes down at me, his mouth cracked open, like he's hypnotized and intrigued at once. I cease breathing. He clears his throat. "Damn..." I nod quickly. "On hot, crusty bread, it is divine. You need to try it." He nods right back, like he's in a trance. I'm in a trance too. I can't seem to stop looking at him as I wax poetic about one of my favorite food combinations. "How is it served?" he asks, his voice between a groan and a growl. "The marrow, I mean." I watch, mesmerized at the slow movement along his stubbled throat. I swear I can feel my skin tingling as my internal temperature rises. Who knew talking about bone marrow could get me this worked up? "Sometimes they cut the bone lengthwise and you can just scrape your knife along the hollow part of the bone and out comes the marrow," I say. "And sometimes they cut it into chunks and the marrow's in the middle, so you scrape out as much as you can, but there's almost always some left, so the best way to get it out is to just put the bone in your mouth and suck it out, really get your tongue in the hole and lick and...

As I contemplated the silent world before me, I thought of the many romantic ideas attached to blindness. Ideas of unusual sensitivity and genius were evoked by the names of Milton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Borges, Ray Charles; to lose physical sight, it is thought, is to gain second sight. One door closes and another, greater one, opens. Homer’s blindness, many believe, is a kind of spiritual channel, a shortcut to the gifts of memory and of prophecy. When I was a child in Lagos, there was a blind, wandering bard, a man who was held in the greatest awe for his spiritual gifts. When he sang his songs, he left each person with the feeling that, in hearing him, they had somehow touched the numinous, or been touched by it. Once, in a crowded market at Ojuelegba, sometime in the early eighties, I saw him. It was from quite a distance, but I remember (or imagine that I remember) his large yellow eyes, calcified to a gray color at the pupils, his frightening mien, and the big, dirty mantle he wore. He sang in a plaintive and high-pitched voice, in deep, proverbial Yoruba that was impossible for me to follow. Afterward, I imagined that I had seen something like an aura around him, a spiritual apartness that moved all his hearers to reach into their purses and put something in the bowl his assistant boy carried.

Who has not known you, O deep joys of wine? Whoever has had some remorse to appease, a memory to evoke, a sorrow to drown, a castle to build in Spain, in fact all men have invoked you, mysterious god concealed in the tendrils of the vine. Wine is like man himself: one never knows to what extent one may esteem or despise him, love or hate him, nor of what sublime actions or monstrous crimes he is capable. Let us not then be crueller towards wine than towards ourselves, let us treat him as an equal. Sometimes I think I can hear wine speak (he speaks with his soul, the spiritual voice heard only by the spirit) and he says: “Man, my beloved, I would pour out for you, in spite of my prison of glass and fetters of cork, a song full of brotherhood, a song full of joy, light and hope. I am no ingrate; I know that I owe you my life. I know what it cost you in toil, your back under the burning sun. You gave me life and I shall reward you for it. I am the soul of your country. I am half-lover, half-soldier. I shall light up your aged wife’s eyes, the old companion of your everyday cares and your oldest hopes. I shall soften her glance and drop into the pupil of her eye the lightning-flash of her youth. Our close reunion will create poetry. Between us we shall make a god. This is what wine sang in its mysterious language.

329 Leisure and Idleness. - There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold: and the breathless hurry of their work- the characteristic vice of the New World-already begins to infect old Europe, and makes it savage also, spreading over it a strange lack of intellectuality. One is now ashamed of repose: even long reflection almost causes remorse of conscience. Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually " afraid of letting opportunities slip." " Better do anything whatever, than nothing "-this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear. The proof of this is the clumsy perspicuity which is now everywhere demanded in all positions where a person would like to be sincere with his fellows, in intercourse with friends, women, relatives, children, teachers, pupils, leaders and princes,-one has no longer either time or energy for ceremonies, for roundabout courtesies, for any esprit in conversation, or for any otium whatever. For life in the hunt for gain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to exhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling: the real virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse permitted: in them, however, people are tired, and would not only like " to let themselves go," but to stretch their legs out wide in awkward style. The way people write their letters nowadays is quite in keeping with the age; their style and spirit will always be the true " sign of the times." If there be still enjoyment in society and in art, it is enjoyment such as over-worked slaves provide for themselves. Oh, this moderation in "joy" of our cultured and uncultured classes! Oh, this increasing suspiciousness of all enjoyment! Work is winning over more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment already calls itself " need of recreation," and even begins to be ashamed of itself. " One owes it to one's health," people say, when they are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could not yield to the desire for the vita contemplativa (that is to say, excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad conscience.-Well! Formerly it was the very reverse: it was "action" that suffered from a bad conscience. A man of good family concealed his work when need compelled him to labour. The slave laboured under the weight of the feeling that he did something contemptible :- the "doing" itself was something contemptible. "Only in otium and bellum is there nobility and honour:" so rang the voice of ancient prejudice !

Was it a convent you escaped from, Miss Turner?” He turned the boat with a deft pull on one oar. “Escaped?” Her heart knocked against her hidden purse. “I’m a governess, I told you. I’m not running away, from a convent or anywhere else. Why would you ask that?” He chuckled. “Because you’re staring at me as though you’ve never seen a man before.” Sophia’s cheeks burned. She was staring. Worse, now she found herself powerless to turn away. What with the murky shadows of the tavern and the confusion of the quay, not to mention her own discomposure, she hadn’t taken a good, clear look at his eyes until this moment. They defied her mental palette utterly. The pupils were ringed with a thin line of blue. Darker than Prussian, yet lighter than indigo. Perhaps matching that dearest of pigments-the one even her father’s generous allowance did not permit-ultramarine. Yet within that blue circumference shifted a changing sea of color-green one moment, gray the next…in the shadow of a half-blink, hinting at blue. He laughed again, and flinty sparks of amusement lit them. Yes, she was still staring. Forcing her gaze to the side, she saw their rowboat nearing the scraped hull of a ship. She cleared her throat and tasted brine. “Forgive me, Mr. Grayson. I’m only trying to make you out. I understood you to be the ship’s captain.” “Well,” he said, grasping a rope thrown down to him and securing it to the boat, “now you know I’m not.” “Might I have the pleasure, then, of knowing the captain’s name?” “Certainly,” he said, securing a second rope. “It’s Captain Grayson.” She heard the smirk in his voice, even before she swiveled her head to confirm it. Was he teasing her?

He strode forward, heedless of the murmuring that began among the women when they saw him. Then Sara turned, and her gaze met his. Instantly a guilty blush spread over her cheeks that told him all he needed to know about her intent. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said in steely tones. “Class is over for today. Why don’t you all go up on deck and get a little fresh air?” When the women looked at Sara, she folded her hands primly in front of her and stared at him. “You have no right to dismiss my class, Captain Horn. Besides, we aren’t finished yet. I was telling them a story—” “I know. You were recounting Lysistrata.” Surprise flickered briefly in her eyes, but then turned smug and looked down her aristocratic little nose at him. “Yes, Lysistrata,” she said in a sweet voice that didn’t fool him for one minute. “Surely you have no objection to my educating the women on the great works of literature, Captain Horn.” “None at all.” He set his hands on his hips. “But I question your choice of material. Don’t you think Aristophanes is a bit beyond the abilities of your pupils?” He took great pleasure in the shock that passed over Sara’s face before she caught herself. Ignoring the rustle of whispers among the women, she stood a little straighter. “As if you know anything at all about Aristophanes.” “I don’t have to be an English lordling to know literature, Sara. I know all the blasted writers you English make so much of. Any one of them would have been a better choice for your charges than Aristophanes.” As she continued to glower at him unconvinced, he scoured his memory, searching through the hundreds of verse passages his English father had literally pounded into him. “You might have chosen Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, for example—‘fie, fie! Unknit that threatening unkind brow. / And dart not scornful glances from those eyes / to wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.’” It had been a long time since he’d recited his father’s favorite passages of Shakespeare, but the words were as fresh as if he’d learned them only yesterday. And if anyone knew how to use literature as a weapon, he did. His father had delighted in tormenting him with quotes about unrepentant children. Sara gaped at him as the other women looked from him to her in confusion. “How . . . I mean . . . when could you possibly—” “Never mind that. The point us, you’re telling them the tale of Lysistrata when what you should be telling them is ‘thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. /thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee / and for thy maintenance commits his body / to painful labour by both sea and land.’” Her surprise at this knowledge of Shakespeare seemed to vanish as she recognized the passage he was quoting—the scene where Katherine accepts Petruchio as her lord and master before all her father’s guests. Sara’s eyes glittered as she stepped from among the women and came nearer to him. “We are not your wives yet. And Shakespeare also said ‘sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / men were deceivers ever / one foot on sea and one on shore / to one thing constant never.’” “Ah, yes. Much Ado About Nothing. But even Beatrice changes her tune in the end, doesn’t she? I believe it’s Beatrice who says, ‘contempt, farewell! And maiden pride, adieu! / no glory lives behind the back of such./ and Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, / taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.’” “She was tricked into saying that! She was forced to acknowledge him as surely as you are forcing us!” “Forcing you?” he shouted. “You don’t know the meaning of force! I swear, if you—” He broke off when he realized that the women were staring at him with eyes round and fearful. Sara was twisting his words to make him sound like a monster. And succeeding, too, confound her.

As it is written, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2Ti 2:15  But how can we rightly divide the word of truth? Where does the truth come from? The Lord no doubt. But without His wisdom how can we rightly divide it? Where does this wisdom come from and how do we come to the knowledge of the truth which is the word of God? But as it is also written, “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.” Joh 16:13  Seeing that He guides us into all truth, we can find the power to retain the word of truth through the Holy Spirit. He likewise will bring the scriptures to remembrance when it comes time to apply them. But as we discussed earlier, the scriptures need to be speaking out to us first when we read. This is the Holy Spirit breathing life into the word of God and speaking it to you. This is the scripture He is teaching you and wants you to memorize and meditate on. We as good pupils and students, need to be listening to the voice of our Teacher and Master. We need to pay attention in class, and let Him teach the lesson. He is the one who guides us through the workbook (the Bible) even as the schoolteacher leads a student to the textbook. In school the teachers tell us what we should memorize. Likewise the Holy Spirit will tell you what you should memorize. Whatever speaks out to you, God is speaking to you. Whatever God is speaking to you, you should be memorizing for later practice. If you do this, you will be able to recall the scriptures better at all the appropriate times as we discussed earlier. But you need to lean on the Lord for strength to remember them. The Holy Spirit will speak to you in the time that you need to remember the scriptures. But only if you have sought Him in memorizing it and meditating on it. When we allow the first fruits to be the work of God in us, then all fruit will be the work of God. We are not called to walk about by our strength nor are we called to gain the wisdom of God with our own strength. Rather in ALL our ways we are called to lean on Him. As it is written, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” Pro 3:5-6 And earlier we said in James 1:5 that if we lack wisdom we need to ask God for it. But what does that scripture tell us? It says to ask in faith.

Commencez!' cried I, when they had all produced their books. The moon-faced youth (by name of Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learned) took the first sentence. The 'livre de lecteur' was 'The Vicar of Wakefield', much used in foreign schools, because it is supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English. It might, however, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the worse, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! how he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was said in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak; but I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred 'Anglais'. In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in rotation; and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book. 'Arrêtez!', said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all with a steady and somewhat stern gaze. A dog, if stared at hard enough and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands, and ejaculated in a deep 'voix de poitrine' - 'Comme c'est affreux!' They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels, they were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation - not a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of betraying my own deficiencies. 'Ecoutez, messieurs!' I said, and I endeavoured to throw into my accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the extremity of the helplessness which at first only excited his scorn, deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with fixed attention. By the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then rose and said, - 'C'est assez pour aujourd'hui, messieurs; demain nous recommençerons, et j'espère que tout ira bien.' With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet quitted the schoolroom.

I cast my gangly body into the shadow of the stable and watched them, curious to see my uncle with a triumphant smile on his mouth. He called for Jedha, the Master-at-Arms, and they spoke in low, swift voices before turning in to the house. I stayed in the shadows and trailed them through the hall into the mahogany library, the wooden doors left slightly ajar. I can’t remember what they said to one another—how my uncle had gotten the Providence Card away from the highwaymen—only that they were consumed with excitement. I waited for them to leave, my uncle fool enough not to lock the Card away, and I stole into the heart of the room. Writ on the top of the Card were two words: The Nightmare. My mouth opened, my childish eyes round. I knew enough of The Old Book of Alders to know this particular Providence Card was one of only two of its kind, its magic formidable, fearsome. Use it, and one had the power to speak into the minds of others. Use it too long, and the Card would reveal one’s darkest fears. But it wasn’t the Card’s reputation that ensnared me—it was the monster. I stood over the desk, unable to tear my eyes away from the ghastly creature depicted on the Card’s face. Its fur was coarse, traveling across its limbs and down its hunched spine to the top of its bristled tail. Its fingers were eerily long, hairless and gray, tipped by great, vicious claws. Its face was neither man nor beast, but something in between. I leaned closer to the Card, drawn by the creature’s snarl, its teeth jagged beneath a curled lip. Its eyes captured me. Yellow, bright as a torch, slit by long, catlike pupils. The creature stared up at me, unmoving, unblinking, and though it was made of ink and paper, I could not shake the feeling it was watching me as intently as I was watching it. Trying to grasp what happened next was like mending a shattered mirror. Even if I could realign the pieces, cracks in my memory still remained. All I’m certain of was the feel of the burgundy velvet—the unbelievable softness along the ridges of the Nightmare Card as my finger slipped across it. I remember the smell of salt and the white-hot pain that followed. I must have fallen or fainted, because it was dark outside when I awoke on the library floor. The hair on the back of my neck bristled, and when I sat up, I was somehow aware I was no longer alone in the library. That’s when I first heard it, the sound of those long, vicious claws tapping together. Click. Click. Click. I jumped to my feet, searching the library for an intruder. But I was alone. It wasn’t until it happened again—click, click, click—that I realized the library was empty. The intruder was in my mind.

When an ovulating woman offers herself to you, she's the choicest morsel on the planet. Her nipples are already sharp, her labia already swollen, her spine already undulating. Her skin is damp and she pants. If you touch the center of her forehead with your thumb she isn't thinking about her head—she isn't thinking at all, she's imagining, believing, willing your hand to lift and turn and curve, cup the back of her head. She's living in a reality where the hand will have no choice but to slide down that soft, flexing muscle valley of the spine to the flare of strong hips, where the other hand joins the first to hold both hip bones, immobilize them against the side of the counter, so that you can touch the base of her throat gently with your lips and she will whimper and writhe and let the muscles in her legs go, but she won't fall, because you have her. She'll be feeling this as though it's already happening, knowing absolutely that it will, because every cell is alive and crying out, Fill me, love me, cherish me, be tender, but, oh God, be sure. She wants you to want her. And when her pupils expand like that, as though you have dropped black ink into a saucer of cool blue water, and her head tips just a little, as though she's gone blind or has had a terrible shock or maybe just too much to drink, to her she is crying in a great voice, Fuck me, right here, right now against the kitchen counter, because I want you wrist-deep inside me. I hunger, I burn, I need. It doesn't matter if you are tired, or unsure, if your stomach is hard with dread at not being forgiven. If you allow yourself one moment's distraction—a microsecond's break in eye contact, a slight shift in weight—she knows, and that knowledge is a punch in the gut. She will back up a step and search your face, and she'll feel embarrassed—a fool or a whore—at offering so blatantly what you're not interested in, and her fine sense of being queen of the world will shiver and break like a glass shield hit by a mace, and fall around her in dust. Oh, it will still sparkle, because sex is magic, but she will be standing there naked, and you will be a monster, and the next time she feels her womb quiver and clench she'll hesitate, which will confuse you, even on a day when there is no dread, no uncertainty, and that singing sureness between you will dissolve and very slowly begin to sicken and die. The body knows. I listened to the deep message—but carefully, because at some point the deep message also must be a conscious message. Active, not just passive, agreement. I took her hand and guided the wok back down to the gas burner. Yes, her body still said, yes. I turned off the gas, but slowly, and now she reached for me.

But…but that’s tragic! To go through life without color? Unable to appreciate art, or beauty?” He laughed. “Now, sweet-hold your brush before you paint me a martyr’s halo. It’s not as though I’m blind. I have a great appreciation for art, as I believe we’ve discussed. And as for beauty…I don’t need to know whether your eyes are blue or green or lavender to know that they’re uncommonly lovely.” “No one has lavender eyes.” “Don’t they?” His gaze caught hers and refused to let go. Leaning forward, he continued, “Did that tutor of yours ever tell you this? That your eyes are ringed with a perfect circle a few shades darker than the rest of the…don’t they call it the iris?” Sophia nodded. “The iris.” He propped his elbow on the table and leaned forward, his gaze searching hers intently. “An apt term it is, too. There are these lighter rays that fan out from the center, like petals. And when your pupils widen-like that, right there-your eyes are like two flowers just coming into bloom. Fresh. Innocent.” She bowed her head, mixing a touch of lead white into the sea-green paint on her palette. He leaned closer still, his voice a hypnotic whisper. “But when you take delight in teasing me, looking up through those thick lashes, so saucy and self-satisfied…” She gave him a sharp look. He snapped his fingers. “There! Just like that. Oh, sweet-then those eyes are like two opera dancers smiling from behind big, feathered fans. Coy. Beckoning.” Sophia felt a hot blush spreading from her bosom to her throat. He smiled and reclined in his chair. “I don’t need to know the color of your hair to see that it’s smooth and shiny as silk. I don’t need to know whether it’s yellow or orange or red to spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how it would feel brushing against my bare skin.” Opening his book to the marked page, he continued, “And don’t get me started on your lips, sweet. If I endeavored to discover the precise shade of red or pink or violet they are, I might never muster the concentration for anything else.” He turned a leaf of his book, then fell silent. Sophia stared at her canvas. Her pulse pounded in her ears. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck, channeling down between her shoulder blades, and a hot, itchy longing pooled at the cleft of her legs. Drat him. He’d known she was taunting him with her stories. And now he sat there in an attitude of near-boredom, making love to her with his teasing, colorless words in a blatant attempt to fluster her. It was as though they were playing a game of cards, and he’d just raised the stakes. Sophia smiled. She always won at cards. “Balderdash,” she said calmly. He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. “No one has violet lips.” “Don’t they?” She laid aside her palette and crossed her arms on the table. “The slope of your nose is quite distinctive.” His lips quirked in a lopsided grin. “Really.” “Yes.” She leaned forward, allowing her bosom to spill against her stacked arms. His gaze dipped, but quickly returned to hers. “The way you have that little bump at the ridge…It’s proving quite a challenge.” “Is that so?” He bent his head and studied his book. Sophie stared at him, waiting one…two…three beats before he raised his hand to rub the bridge of his nose. Quite satisfactory progress, that. Definite beginnings of fluster.

glaze with the trance. “I see you.” “Do you hear me, Twila? Do you hear my voice? Do you hear my heartbeat? Do you hear what lives in me stir and rise?” “I hear you.” Fallon ignored the sound of running feet, a cry of alarm, and kept what she was, all she was, focused on the girl. Behind her, Mick’s father gripped Twila’s mother’s arm. “Wait. Wait. The One has her.” “I will be in you, you will be in me. Your bones are soft still, and the break is clean. I’m in you, you’re in me. We share the pain, and it lessens. Here. See me, only me.” Fallon laid her hand on the break, gave herself to the knowing. “With me, Twila. Quick.” And gripping the snapped bone, squeezed. Her breath caught as the girl’s did in that shared moment of heat and pain. Twila’s eyes widened in shock, pupils going from saucers to pinpoints, then back again until her eyes closed on a whimpering sigh. A new tear slipped out. “You’re all right now. She’s all right.” With the power still bubbling

Ah, now," he soothed in his low, easy voice, the way he would a spooked horse or a woman whose bodice he was about to slip lower. It worked a treat. Her pupils dilated in sudden interest, for it was 'that' kind of voice and she was a woman after all. She'd decided he was attractive and pleasant and she visibly softened. When he bothered to use that tone on women they generally did.

It is illegal to portal anyone while they are under duress,I could lose my license if I were to do so." "You're going to lose a lot more than that if you don't tell me where my twin went," I said in a low, mean voice. "Mayling, please. I must insist that you allow me to be the bad cop," Gabriel said as I slid the dagger at my ankle out of its sheath. "I have never subscribed to the sexist belief that women have to be good cop," I said, twirling the dagger around one finger. "Nonetheless, you are far more suited to the good cop role," Gabriel insisted. "I'm going to have to go against popular opinion and side with Mei Ling on this," Savian said, watching us with a delighted twinkle in his eye. "She looks like she knows how to use that blade. What is that, a stiletto?" "Sicilian castrating knife," I said with a smile at the portal man. "She wins," Savian told Gabriel. "Er..." Jarilith said, his expression starting to slide into worry. "I am a wyvern! I can do far more to this man than merely remove his genitalia," Gabriel answered in an outraged tone, a little tendril of smoke emerging from between his lips as he spoke. "Eh..." Jarilith said, taking a step backward. "Hmm. He's a weaver," Savian said thoughtfully as he examined the portalist. "Those are immortal, aren't they? So he could survive a castration, but the question is would a dragon barbeque be enough to finish him off?" "Absolutely," Gabriel said. He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Threatening a weaver is strictly prohibited by law," Jarilith said indignantly, but the fight had gone out of him. His gaze was flickering back and forth from Gabriel to Savian to the dagger I held casually. "I could have the watch on you for what you're saying!" "Oh, please," I said with a dramatic roll of my eyes. "Just about every thief taker in this hemisphere is after me. I've already been sentenced to banishment to the Akasha. You think one little murder is going to make that any worse? Not likely." Jarilith's eyes widened. "It's true," Savian said. "The price on her head has already gone over six figures." The color washed out of the portalist's face. "Erm..." "Mate," Gabriel said sternly. "I must insist that you refrain from slicing and dicing this man." Jarilith nodded quickly. "Listen to the dragon." "It is my place to destroy those who stand in your way," Gabriel continued, the pupils in his eyes narrowing as he turned to the now hastily backing away Jarilith. "Let's not lose our heads, here," the latter said in a rush. "I don't think it's your head the lady has in mind," Savian said as he looked pointedly at the portalist's crotch. Jarilith's hands hovered protectively over his fly. "Such an atrocity would constitute torture. You wouldn't do that to an innocent man, would you?" "What makes you think I'd stop at the castration?" I twirled the knife around my fingers again. "This little jobby fillets, as well." "She went to Paris," Jarilith said quickly as he dashed for a door to a back room. "Your portal is ready in room number three. Have a pleasant journey..." His voice trailed off as he bolted. I turned a frown on Gabriel. "You really wouldn't have let me be bad cop? I'm very good at it, as you can see." "I'm sorry," he said, his dimples belying the grave look he was trying to maintain.."Wyverns have some standards to maintain with their mates, and one of them is always being the bad cop.Although I do admit that you have a particularly effective manner. Would you really have castrated him to get the information about your twin?" "Would you really have burnt him to acrisp for not answering?" "Such a bloodthirsty little bird," he said fondly, giving my butt a little pinch. Savian stood still for a moment, giving us an odddisbelieving look before shaking his head and following. "You two are the strangest couple I've ever met. And I have to tell you-I've met some real weirdos

A Chinese Zen master[FN#230] tells us that the method of instruction adopted by Zen may aptly be compared with that of an old burglar who taught his son the art of burglary. The burglar one evening said to his little son, whom he desired to instruct in the secret of his trade: "Would you not, my dear boy, be a great burglar like myself?" "Yes, father," replied the promising young man." "Come with me, then. I will teach you the art." So saying, the man went out, followed by his son. Finding a rich mansion in a certain village, the veteran burglar made a hole in the wall that surrounded it. Through that hole they crept into the yard, and opening a window with complete ease broke into the house, where they found a huge box firmly locked up as if its contents were very valuable articles. The old man clapped his hands at the lock, which, strange to tell, unfastened itself. Then he removed the cover and told his son to get into it and pick up treasures as fast as he could. No sooner had the boy entered the box than the father replaced the cover and locked it up. He then exclaimed at the top of his voice: "Thief! thief! thief! thief!" Thus, having aroused the inmates, he went out without taking anything. All the house was in utter confusion for a while; but finding nothing stolen, they went to bed again. The boy sat holding his breath a short while; but making up his mind to get out of his narrow prison, began to scratch the bottom of the box with his finger-nails. The servant of the house, listening to the noise, supposed it to be a mouse gnawing at the inside of the box; so she came out, lamp in hand, and unlocked it. On removing the cover, she was greatly surprised to find the boy instead of a little mouse, and gave alarm. In the meantime the boy got out of the box and went down into the yard, hotly pursued by the people. He ran as fast as possible toward the well, picked up a large stone, threw it down into it, and hid himself among the bushes. The pursuers, thinking the thief fell into the well, assembled around it, and were looking into it, while the boy crept out unnoticed through the hole and went home in safety. Thus the burglar taught his son how to rid himself of overwhelming difficulties by his own efforts; so also Zen teachers teach their pupils how to overcome difficulties that beset them on all sides and work out salvation by themselves. [FN#230]

And stay the night if you want. My bed is on the other side of the house. You won't hear shit. And," I added, leaning forward slightly, watching as her pupils dilated when I was closer. She wanted me alright. "They won't hear anything either," I added with a smirk that made her cheeks heat up again. "You know," I added, wanting to see how red I could make a self-proclaimed 'cool, mature, experienced, metropolitan woman', "you could really get her back with a blowjob story of your own." "Sh!" she said, looking around herself, all paranoid about being overheard. "And I can't do that." "Why not?" "Because we haven't..." she said, waving a hand, eyes big. "Well," I said, feeling my cock twitch at the very idea. "We will have to see what we can do about that, won't we?" I asked, watching her eyes get even more heated. Was there anything fucking hotter than a woman who got off on the idea of going down on you? Wasn't sure there was. I watched as she took a breath, seeming to pull herself together, and gave me a saucy smile, her eyes wicked. "I don't know. Maybe. If you're lucky," she added, walking away. I waited until she was about halfway across the room before I called to her. "I'll make dinner. You bring dessert. Something with some... whipped cream," I said, voice heavy with innuendo, loving watching the confident mask fall again as her eyes went big and she rushed out toward the back while a chorus of chuckles broke out across the space. As she moved into the doorway toward the kitchen, she looked over at me, giving me a 'you're gonna pay for that' look. Quite frankly, I was looking forward to it.

I’ve been praying,” he said. His voice was soft, a loving voice. “I’ve been praying about your decision to go to college.” His eyes opened. His pupils had dilated in the lamplight, absorbing the hazel of the iris. I’d never seen eyes so given over to blackness; they seemed unearthly, tokens of spiritual power. “The Lord has called me to testify,” he said. “He is displeased. You have cast aside His blessings to whore after man’s knowledge. His wrath is stirred against you. It will not be long in coming.

The striking almond shape and easy softness of his eyes draws you in and are likely the most attractive you've ever seen on another person, even if they're eclipsed by darkness from obvious lack of sleep and pupils blown wide from ecstasy. He feels familiar and inexplicably heart-warming, like the anticipated change of seasons or the scent of an extinguished candle after a family holiday, your bed when lined with clean sheets or the sound of a loved one's voice on the phone after not hearing it for some time.

He almost didn’t recognize his own voice when he said, “You don’t have to use a condom. Just don’t leave me so battered I need to go to the hospital.” Asa’s pupils blew wide at Zane’s words,

I seriously doubt that the smile is our species’s “happy” face, as is often stated in books about human emotions. Its background is much richer, with meanings other than cheeriness. Depending on the circumstances, the smile can convey nervousness, a need to please, reassurance to anxious others, a welcoming attitude, submission, amusement, attraction, and so on. Are all these feelings captured by calling them “happy”? Our labels grossly simplify emotional displays, like the way we give each emoticon a single meaning. Many of us now use smiley or frowny faces to punctuate text messages, which suggests that language by itself is not as effective as advertised. We feel the need to add nonverbal cues to prevent a peace offer from being mistaken for an act of revenge, or a joke from being taken as an insult. Emoticons and words are poor substitutes for the body itself, though: through gaze direction, expressions, tone of voice, posture, pupil dilation, and gestures, the body is much better than language at communicating a wide range of meanings.

Don’t waste your breath!” yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever. “He can’t hear you from here!” “Can’t I, Potter?” said a high, cold voice. Harry opened his eyes. Tall, thin, and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupiled eyes staring . . . Lord Voldemort had appeared in the middle of the hall, his wand pointing at Harry who stood frozen, quite unable to move.

I love the way she laughs when she squishes a tide-pod, especially that one time it burst, and she couldn’t stop apologizing. I love her clinical obsession with every shade of pink and how incredible she looks in it. I love the glow of her skin in the morning, as if the sun recognizes her as equal. I love how her smile is too big for her face, how her cheeks flush pink when I compliment her, and how her pupils grow in her eyes when we speak. I love the sound of her voice, silvery and sunny, especially when she shares stories of her childhood or asks me about mine. I love her ambitions, her passions, her dedication, and devotion to her craft.” I steal in a breath when beads of tears appear at her waterline. “I love everything she fails to love about herself.

The man's voice was soft with a slight southern twang, the likes of which sent a pleasurable shiver down Heather’s spine. He glanced up quickly with a tell-tale blush staining his lightly tanned cheeks. Smiling to herself, Heather knew she had found that one special pupil who could make the semester more than interesting.

Samuel," Amelie said, and her voice was low and quiet and warm. She bent closer to him. "Samuel. Come back to me." His eyes opened, and they were all pupil. Scary owl eyes. Claire bit her lip and thought again about running, but Hans and Gretchen were at her back and she knew she didn't have a chance, anyway. Sam blinked, and his pupils began to shrink slowly to a more normal size. His lips moved, but no sound came out. "Breathe in," Amelie said, in that same quiet, warm tone. "I'm here, Samuel. I won't leave you." She stroked fingers gently over his forehead, and he blinked again and slowly focused on her. It was like there was nobody else in all the world, just the two of them. Amelie was wrong, Claire thought. It isn't just that Sam loves her. She loves him just as much.

Sylvan, Gods!” Baird put out a hand. “At least let me carry her. It’s still a long way to the ship.” Sylvan, who had never even raised his voice to Baird before, pulled back his lips in a savage snarl. “Get back. She’s mine.” Surprise and dismay made Baird take a step back. He stared at his brother. Sylvan’s pupils were a bloody crimson and his fangs were long and sharp—as lethal as daggers. The look on his face was pure threat—all emotion and no reason whatsoever. “All right, fine.” Baird held out his hands, palms up in a gesture of peace. “Carry her yourself. But don’t blame me if you fall out from exhaustion or blood loss on the way. She wasn’t the only one who was wounded, Sylvan.” “She’s the only one who matters.” Sylvan’s voice was guttural and deep—almost bestial. Baird

Moreover, pupil dilation, blinking rate, voice pitch elevation, and other reliable cues not only measure cognitive load but emotional responses as

Bronson finally wandered off. Trevor handed me a Sprite and sat on the ottoman next to my chair. “Are you having a good time?” he asked, gulping down his own drink.  I couldn’t tell what he was drinking since the glass was opaque, but I hoped he was keeping his word that his partying days were behind him. I sipped at my soda. “It's okay. I don't really know anybody though.” “It's getting close to midnight. Do you want to get out of here?” Relieved he had made the suggestion, I smiled. “Yes, please.”  He took my hand as we walked out to his car. “Where should we go?” I asked as I put on my seatbelt. “I know just the place.” He grinned as he started the engine. We drove for a while and when we stopped we were overlooking the valley. Even though it was cold outside, the view was spectacular.  Trevor left the car running so we could stay warm. Even so, I cuddled up to him. He gazed at me, the black of his pupils enlarged in his blue eyes. “It's midnight, Lily.” His voice was husky as he reached out and cradled my face in his hands. I closed my eyes, ready to accept his kiss. He pressed his lips against mine, gently at first, then more urgently. “I don't think I can wait four more weeks,” he groaned. “We're practically married now. Do we really need to wait?” I pulled back. “But we’re not actually married.” He stared at me in the dim moonlight. “You’re one stubborn girl.” Wanting to change the subject, I groped around in my mind for something else to talk about. The messages I'd received popped into my head and they wouldn't leave. “Trevor, I got a weird e-mail the other day.” “Oh, yeah?” He said without much enthusiasm.  “Yes. They were about you.” That got his attention. He sat up straighter. “Who sent them?” “I don't know,” I said. “Okay. What did they say?” “Basically, they told me not to marry you.”  “What?” He shifted in his seat to face me more squarely.  “That's right. This time I sent an e-mail back, though,” I smiled, proud I had taken some sort of action. “And did you get a response?” “Not yet.” His hand shot out and grabbed me by the arm. “Tell me if you do. Will you promise me?” Startled by his response, I said, “Okay, if that's what you want.” He let go of my arm and I rubbed it where he had squeezed.  “It's getting late. I'd better get you home.” Trevor put the car in gear and we drove toward my apartment. His sudden change in attitude concerned me. What did he know that he wasn’t telling me? The spring semester started a few days later. I was excited to begin my new classes and went eagerly to my first one. It was a required Humanities course. I was surprised to find Justin sitting in the classroom. There was an empty seat beside him and I pulled it out and sat down. “What are you doing in this class?” I said. “Oh, hey, Lily. How's it going?” His smile was warm and friendly. “Great. How about you? I hear you and Pamela are getting serious.”  “Yeah, but not as serious as you, I hear.”  I noticed he seemed very pleased to hear about my own engagement and was surprised. I guess he's over me, I thought. That's good, I suppose. “Yes. Three and a

Roxann, have you ever wanted to kill someone?" At the eerily serious note in her cousin's voice, warning bells chimed in her head. "Everyone has moments of extreme anger," she said carefully. "No," Angora said, her gaze locked on Roxann's, her pupils dilated. "I mean really kill someone." In her lap, her hands convulsed. "I think I could kill Trenton and not feel a bit guilty." A chill tickled the back of Roxann's neck as she recalled moments in college when she'd questioned Angora's stability. "Passion is a powerful emotion. Sometimes it can feel like hate instead of love." But Angora seemed to be somewhere else. "All I know is that I put my life on hold too many times because of promises men made to me." Her voice had taken on a bitter tone. "What makes the beasts think they can use a woman and then toss her aside when she becomes inconvenient?

I added, my voice dropping to the husky growl that made his pupils dilate just....like....that.

He returned her smile with one of his own—the one-sided smile she’d learned to love even though it appeared so rarely. “I love your smile,” she said impulsively. “I mean, I hardly ever get to see it but it lights up your whole face.” “Thank you.” His voice was soft and deep and his eyes caught hers. In the lights from the instrument panel they appeared to be glowing a soft, pale blue which Sophie rather liked. It was so much less menacing than the blood red that took over his pupils when he went into the rage state.

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You wanted to take away my voice,” I whisper, watching as his pupils become black holes. “So kiss me until I can’t speak.

I don’t understand. I thought you didn’t…” She paused, as if reluctant to continue her thought. I stilled, wanting to know what she was thinking. “Didn’t what?” “Didn’t want anything to do with me. You act like I’m a pain in your ass.” “You are a pain in my ass.” My voice was as ragged and unforgiving as my need to possess her. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to bury my cock deep inside you.” Her eyes widened a fraction, the pupils dilating. She liked it when I talked dirty. Jesus, she couldn’t be any more perfect.

Hecate stood over him then, and she seemed taller, her pupils narrow slits like the cunning glare of a serpent. "Oh, Aidoneus. Aren't you tired of being afraid? Aren't you ready to take control of what is inside you?" "No," he denied, his voice a growl. "I do not wish it. I wish to forget." "Forget." Her laugh was low. "When the marks are so deep inside you, they are etched on your soul? Do you truly believe you can forget? You cannot be that naive.

Scarlett …” The alarming voice of Nickolas sounded from behind her. This girl was looking for her own execution. As much as he dreaded admitting it they had lost. The rebellion failed many and young people sacrificed their lives for this failure. Scarlett was a victim he was not willing to sacrifice. She only turned to him without saying a word. Her gaze was invincible. He saw literal flames burning in her blue eyes. He recognized the emotion immediately. Scarlett’s eyes were burning with rage! Was he seeing things, or were these actual flames? “It’s time for this bastard to pay for being such a treacherous ass!” she spoke. With every word, it was as if the fire in her eyes whirled around her pupils like a vortex. She felt her whole body start to burn. The blood in her veins was boiling like never before. Smoke began to emerge from her skin. It hurt her, she felt as if her whole body had set itself on fire. The pain could not be compared to the first time it happened with her palms. She was fighting the urge to scream as loud as she could, but could not afford even the slightest distraction. Nickolas’s life, as well as Chris’, depended on her. The men around her looked stunned at what was happening. Pratcher realized that nothing had played with his sanity when the soldiers, along with Hammerdell, took a step back after the girl’s body had begun emitting smoke. It was all very real indeed. What the hell was going on? “Get away from her! She will set herself on fire!” Christopher grabbed the man’s shoulders and pulled him back. He knew what was going to happen. He had seen Scarlett burn her palms, but never her whole body. He was afraid for her! The telekinesis with the jeep was a step away from killing her, and with that burning, her death could be inevitable. There was not enough energy in her body to escape without consequences. Scarlett did not stop focusing on her anger. She had to maintain it if she wanted to achieve the desired result. The pain was taking over her, she felt exhausted and gave out smoke. Her eyes did not go down from Hammerdell. At first, her hands were ablaze, and fire spread all over her body as if it had been covered with gas. Her clothes became ash. Scarlett remained naked under the tongues of the red flames. She fell to her knees on the pebble track - the fire swirled, and the pain was growing even more intolerable. “Shoot!” The mayor screamed in a voice full of fear. He had never seen such a thing. What was that hat girl? Definitely not an ordinary person! Seconds before they pulled the trigger, the guns jumped off from the hands of the soldiers all by themselves. A cone of fire separated from Scarlett and flew towards them, enclosing them in a perfect circle. She sacrificed her last drop of strength to create a fiery dome above them, which trapped her enemies and became a lid from which they could not get away. They burned alive with the last shrieking screams of panic, fear, and despair. It was over. Hammerdell had earned his merit. Now, the rebels could finally rest easy. In pain and exhaustion, she left herself get swallowed by the darkness.

Kate slid her gaze to Samuel, worried. She knew Evan’s words poked at his deepest feelings of unworthiness. “What can you possibly offer her?” Evan demanded, as Miss Elliott’s voice soared to operatic heights. “You’ve no breeding. No education. Not even an honorable trade. You can’t provide her with a home befitting a lady.” “I know.” Samuel’s expression hardened to that veneer of impenetrable stone. “You’re beneath her,” Evan said, “in every possible way.” “I know that, too.” Don’t agree with him, Kate shouted in her mind. Don’t ever believe it. Evan sneered. “Then how can you dare to ask for her hand?” “Because I love her,” Samuel replied in a low, quiet voice. “I have more love and devotion to give that woman than there is gold in England. And I have the manners not to prattle on while her pupil is singing.” He made a menacing thrust with his javelin. “Shut it, or I’ll skewer you.

We were getting ready to close the store for what we thought might be as long as two months now. I was looking over the day’s reports when Dissatisfaction came into the building. His fingers roamed along the spines of the books, sometimes tracing one, pulling it out to read the first line. Since he’d read The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald, he and I had compiled a list of short perfect novels. Short Perfect Novels Too Loud a Solitude, by Bohumil Hrabel Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson Sula, by Toni Morrison The Shadow-Line, by Joseph Conrad The All of It, by Jeannette Haien Winter in the Blood, by James Welch Swimmer in the Secret Sea, by William Kotzwinkle The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald First Love, by Ivan Turgenev Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf Waiting for the Barbarians, by J. M. Coetzee Fire on the Mountain, by Anita Desai These are books that knock you sideways in around 200 pages. Between the covers there exists a complete world. The story is unforgettably peopled and nothing is extraneous. Reading one of these books takes only an hour or two but leaves a lifetime imprint. Still, to Dissatisfaction, they are but exquisite appetizers. Now he needs a meal. I knew that he’d read Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and was lukewarm. He called them soap opera books, which I thought was the point. He did like The Days of Abandonment, which was perhaps a short perfect novel. ‘She walked the edge with that one,’ he said. He liked Knausgaard (not a short perfect). He called the writing better than Novocain. My Struggle had numbed his mind but every so often, he told me, he’d felt the crystal pain of the drill. In desperation, I handed over The Known World. He thrust it back in outrage, his soft voice a hiss, Are you kidding me? I have read this one six times. Now what do you have? In the end, I placated him with Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, the latest Amitav Ghosh, NW by Zadie Smith, and Jane Gardam’s Old Filth books in a sturdy Europa boxed set, which he hungrily seized. He’d run his prey to earth and now he would feast. Watching him closely after he paid for the books and took the package into his hands, I saw his pupils dilate the way a diner’s do when food is brought to the table.

His snowshoe paws are encased in chains as he hops on his hind legs. On his forehead was placed a wreath of thorns, crimson and blasphemous it was. His eyes were drenched in white, no colors can be discerned whatsoever in the reflection of his pupils, only a harrowing stillness of nothingness can be glimpsed through his gaze. He was the image of a ghostly figure, his silhouette swirling like the clouds in the loftiest mountains in eternal Paradise; a divine messenger before all animals and humanity. He wears shimmering chest armor resembling the scorching rays of the sunlight, with a fire crown of thorns burning on his forehead, which embodies the colors of the Earth's horizon, showcasing seventeen stars in its center. He had a voluminous, metallic beard, which was made of arctic sand from the Northern Winter lands - it was wizardly like - something out of a mythical folk tale that comes from a children's novel. His body glistens like the shattered fragments from the Moon, with his fur appearing like green moss surrounded by waterfalls flowing from each corner on his appearance - evolving into snowflakes, ice, as well as winter storms if you inflict your might at his anguish. He’s a supernatural being that all the Witches of the globe worshiped. He is greater, more superior, more virtuous than all deities people pray to on Earth. He’s the lunar father of all the Heavens and Earth, the All-father of all Animals and Mankind. When you see the Hare flying in the skies of the Universe, He’s bestowing the blessings of Sprout, Summer, Autumn, Winter. As the Hare Lunar King steps on the green grass, the mountains will begin to shake, the oceans will become huge typhoons, earthquakes will rumble across the nations as mankind annihilates each other in the guise of the Hare Lunar Emperor. However, the hare will grieve for all humankind, for he knows that the Earth is devoid of vengeance, so he must demolish it in preparation to reconstruct it from a pristine foundation. That future is nigh, that soon will arrive - it’s unfolding as I converse. The Lunar Rabbit King is coming back with his swarm of rabbits - mankind will not evade the menace of long ears - for their King will tell the sinister world with a voice of a thundering lion roar, ‘it is completed! go into the depths of your abysmal eternity, and enslave yourself as the locust of the earth in the fires of tribulation, for you will be tormented from sunrise to sunset, where sunlight is no more; forevermore.

My voice felt cold, lovely, and alien as crystal in my throat. "Why should I help you anywhere?" Though he was slumped against the wall now, he managed to look up at me. His catlike pupils were so dilated they looked almost human. "Well... I did save your life." Then he doubled up in pain and slid to the floor. As long as I could remember, the anger had writhed and clawed inside me, and no matter how much it hurt, I had choked it down. Now at last I hated someone who deserved hatred, and it felt like I was Zeus's thunder, like I was the storms of Poseidon upon the sea. I was shaking with fury, and I had never felt so glad. "You killed my mother. You enslaved my world. And as you pointed out, I will live here as your captive till I die. Tell me, my darling lord, why should I thank you for my life?" He was gasping and shuddering with pain, and he didn't seem to be seeing me anymore as he whispered, "Please." I knelt over him and smiled down into his face. My body was wrapped in ice; my voice came from somewhere very far away. "Do you think you are safe with me?" Then I stood and walked away, leaving him all alone in the dark.

Somebody had piled blankets over my shoulders. That was my first hazy thought as I awoke. Heavy, warm blankets. Something tickled my neck and I twitched. The blankets twitched back. My eyes snapped open. In one moment I realized that what tickled my neck was a tuft of black hair, the blankets were a warm body, and the Gentle Lord was draped over me like a lazy cat, his head resting on my shoulder. He raised his face and smiled. The stories were right that called him "the sweet-faced calamity," for he had one of the most beautiful faces I had ever seen: sharp nose and high cheekbones framed with tousled, ink-black hair and stamped all over with the arrogant softness of a man just out of boyhood who had never been defied. He wore a long dark coat with an immaculate white cravat tied at his neck and white lace foaming at his cuffs. If he had been human, I might have taken him for a gentleman. But his eyes had crimson irises with cat-slit pupils. My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest. I'd spent my whole life preparing for this moment, and I couldn't speak or even move. "Good afternoon," he said. His voice was like cream, light but rich. I pushed myself off the ground and sat up. He sat up too, with languid grace. "What," I managed to choke out. "You were asleep," he said. "I got so bored waiting that I fell asleep too. And now here you are." He tilted his head. "You were a good pillow but I think I prefer you awake. What's your name, lovely wife?

What you want in the end is to internalize the voice of your Master so that you become both teacher and pupil.

Socrates wrote nothing himself and we hear his voice mediated through writings of his pupil and admirer Plato, mostly in dialogue form. While he was teaching in Athens, his was an insistently and infuriatingly questioning voice, embodying the conviction that questions can never cease to be asked if human beings are to battle with any success against the constant affliction of public and private problems.

His pupils glowed silvery-white, an aura that seeped out in wispy tendrils across the blue. My head jerked to Jasper. His eyes had changed, too. I’d seen that strange light before. It had been what my skin had done when I healed Beckett’s broken legs—the same silvery glow that had radiated from me minutes earlier. Icy bursts of surprise raced through Casteel as he eyed the wolven, and then I felt…relief radiate from him. “You all knew.” Casteel’s voice filled with awe, something no one standing behind him felt. Even the easy grin was absent from the auburn-haired Atlantian. Emil looked at us with wide eyes, broadcasting a healthy dose of fear, as did Naill, who had always appeared utterly unfazed by everything—even when he’d been outnumbered in battle. Casteel slowly sheathed his swords at his sides. Hands empty, he kept them down. “You all knew something was happening to her. That’s why...” He trailed off, his jaw hardening.

Excellent, Miss Taverner!' murmured Mr Brummel. 'You are so apt a pupil that if I were only ten years younger I believe I should propose for your hand.' She laughed. 'I cannot suppose it possible. Did you ever propose to any lady, sir?' 'Yes, once,' replied Mr Brummel in a voice of gentle melancholy. 'But it came to nothing. I discovered that she actually ate cabbage, so what could I do but cut the connection?

General Tips for Better-than-Average Lie-Detecting Sit back and let the other person volunteer information, rather than pulling it out of them. Don’t let on what you know too early—or at all. Stay relaxed and causal. What you are observing is not the person themselves, but the person as they are in a quasi-interrogational situation with you. So don’t make it seem like an inquisition, otherwise you may simply be watching them feel distressed about the situation itself. Don’t worry about individual signs and clues like touching the nose, looking up to the right or stuttering. Rather, look at how the person responds in general to shifts in the conversation, especially at junctures where you believe they may be having to concoct a story on the fly. Listen for stories that seem unusually long or detailed—liars use more words, and they may even talk more quickly. Take your time. It may be a while before you uncover a deception. But the longer the other person talks, the more chance they have of slipping up or getting their story tangled. Watch primarily for inconsistencies—details of the story that don’t add up, emotional expressions that don’t fit the story, or abrupt shifts in the way the story is told. Being chatty and then all of a sudden getting quiet and serious when you ask a particular question is certainly telling. Always interpret your conversation in light of what you already know, the context, and other details you’ve observed in your interactions with this person. It’s all about looking at patterns, and then trying to determine if any disruptions in that pattern point to something interesting. Don’t be afraid to trust your gut instinct! Your unconscious mind may have picked up some data your conscious mind hasn’t become aware of. Don’t make decisions on intuition alone, but don’t dismiss it too quickly, either. Takeaways Casual observation of body language, voice and verbal cues can help with understanding honest people, but we need more sophisticated techniques to help us detect liars. Most people are not as good at spotting deception as they think they are. Bias, expectation and the belief that we can’t or shouldn’t be lied to can get in the way of realizing we’re being deceived. Good lie detection is a dynamic process that focuses on the conversation. Use open ended questions to get people to surrender information voluntarily, and observe. Look out for overly wordy stories that are presented all at once, inconsistencies in the story or emotional affect, delays or avoidance in answering questions, or inability to answer unexpected questions. Liars are easier to spot when lying is spontaneous—try not to allow the liar any time to prepare or rehearse a script, or else ask unexpected questions or plant a lie yourself to watch their response and gain a baseline against which to compare the possible lie. Increasing cognitive load can cause a liar to fumble their story or lose track of details, revealing themselves in a lie. Keep drilling for detail and be suspicious if details don’t add up, if emotion doesn’t match content, or if the person is deliberately stalling for time. Look out for specific signs that a person is cognitively overloaded. One example is that the liar will display less emotions while speaking than they or an average person normally would in their situation. These emotions will instead leak through in their body language. Most commonly, this manifests in more frequent blinking, pupil dilation, speech disturbances, and slips of tongue. Spotting liars is notoriously difficult, but we improve our chances when we focus on strategic and targeted conversations designed to make the liar trip up on his own story, rather than trying to guess hidden intentions from body language alone.

When he backed away, his pupils were huge and unfocused. He blinked, and then he cleared his throat. “Belly,” he said, and his voice was foggy. He didn’t say anything else, just my name. “Do you still—” Care. Think about me. Want me. Roughly, he said, “Yes. Yes, I still.” And then we were kissing again.

the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely. ‘Well, move along, then!’ said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. ‘Into the Great Hall, come on!’ Harry, Ron and Hermione slipped and slid across the Entrance Hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face. The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in mid-air. The four long house tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Harry, Ron and Hermione walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semi-transparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra festive and ensuring that his head didn’t wobble too much on his partially severed neck. ‘Good evening,’ he said, beaming at them. ‘Says who?’ said Harry, taking off his trainers and emptying them of water. ‘Hope they hurry up with the Sorting, I’m starving.’ The Sorting of the new students into houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harry hadn’t been present at one since his own. He was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table, ‘Hiya, Harry!’ It was Colin Creevey, a third-year to whom Harry was something of a hero. ‘Hi, Colin,’ said Harry warily. ‘Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother’s starting! My brother Dennis!’ ‘Er – good,’ said Harry. ‘He’s really excited!’ said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. ‘I just hope he’s in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harry?’ ‘Er – yeah, all right,’ said Harry. He turned back to Hermione, Ron and Nearly Headless Nick. ‘Brothers and sisters usually go in the same houses, don’t they?’ he said. He was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor. ‘Oh, no, not necessarily,’ said Hermione. ‘Parvati Patil’s twin’s in Ravenclaw, and they’re identical, you’d think they’d be together, wouldn’t you?’ Harry looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting

But then I remember the flash of fear when I had leaned over her. The way her pulse fluttered and eyes widened. The way her pupils constricted. An uneasy, sickening sort of anger rises up in me, with all the menace of a sharp-toothed ketos rising from Poteiden’s depths. “I won’t hurt you.” My voice sounds gravely, my throat tightening around the words. “You can lay beside me safely. I give you my word.” Her breath hitches, her body going still beside me. “I know.” Her answer is little more than a whisper. “Let me hold you,” I say, and for some reason, hearing that request from my own lips sends heat rushing like lightning up my spine. “Let me keep you warm.” “Okay…” That one word, it’s all the invitation I need. As if it has a mind of its own, my arm snakes around her trembling body, pulling her so that her back is flush against my chest. Her hands are tucked to her chest, and when my own hand brushes against her fingers, I feel sick at how unbelievably cold they are. If she had stayed out there all night – if I hadn’t invited her to share my blankets – she could have suffered irreparable damage. The thought of those pale, delicate hands being permanently disfigured sends an illogical burst of rage through me, so strong I can feel my muscles rippling and heating. Without thinking about it, I cover her small hand with my own, and pull her closer against me. She gives a small, shuddering sigh, and I can’t help but smile into the darkness when her shaking and chattering subsides. When her breaths become long and even, and her body becomes soft and pliant against my own. “Yes, sleep,” I whisper, when I know she won’t hear me.

Shh,” I murmur, taking care to keep my voice low. “It is only a dream. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” [...] "A dream,” she repeats, pupils dilated as she stares up at me. She licks her lips, and I follow the movement with my eyes, a heat pulsing low at the base of my spine. “It was just a dream.” I nod, trying to angle my hips away from her in a futile attempt to hide my thickening cock. But her body is pressed close to mine, tucked beside me under my and Jadi’s wool traveling blankets. I see the moment she realizes, my preternatural vision able to take in the details of her shock. I see the way her pale eyes go wide, cheeks flushing pink. Hear her breath hitch in surprise. I feel my own cheeks heat in response, a flush of shame tightening in my chest. Shame at how much I want her. At how I’ve treated her. Shame at how jealously I guarded Jadi’s affections. At the way I cruelly tried to drive him away from her. “Asterion?” My name is barely a whisper on her lips, but she doesn’t pull away from me. Instead, her thigh presses against my hardening length. Almost like she’s seeking me out. But of course, that can’t be right. No woman would seek me out. Not after the way I’ve treated her. “Yes?” My voice catches in my throat, but I don’t dare look away. “Do you – are you…” her voice trails off, but she keeps her eyes locked on mine. Guilt tightens its hold behind my ribs, but I nod. There’s no point in denying it. No point in lying to her. Not when she can feel the proof of my attraction to her pressing against her. “I’m sorry,” I grit out, pulling my hand away from her face. “I don’t mean to… Please, just ignore it.” I roll away until I’m lying on my back, my erection almost painful as it pushes against the weight of the blankets. “Because of Jadi?” she asks, her voice thready and uncertain. I furrow my brow, glaring with irritation into the darkness. “Jadi? What does Jadi have to do with it?” “I mean – just that you and Jadi are together. Lovers? I not know word,” she babbles. “And I know that. Respect that. I not want come between you and Jadi. At party, he asked if he could court me,” she confesses. “I sorry if I…” I cut her off with a frustrated hiss, hating myself even more for this proof of how I’ve hurt Jadi. How successfully I have pushed her away from him. “You have nothing to apologize for,” I grind out. “Jadi has every right to court you. Every right. The only one who could deny him that is you.” “But you and Jadi…” “Are lovers? Intertwined as closely as two threads woven into the same cloth? Yes.” I bark out a bitter, mirthless laugh. “Which makes my treatment of him – of you – even worse.” The words are spilling out now, like water into the hull of a ship once the wood has cracked. Now that I’ve started, there is no stopping it. “I’ve known for moon cycles that he cares for you, and I hurt him for it. I was cruel to him and tried to chase you away. Because I was afraid you would steal him away from me, and he’s all I have. He’s everything to me. He’s my heart. My heart.” I clutch my fist against my chest in emphasis, still staring at the ceiling, not daring to turn and meet her eyes with my own. “I was jealous, and it was wrong, and now the gods are probably laughing at me. Because I want you. I want you. After trying to drive Jadi away from you, now I want you for myself. But I don’t deserve you. Not after the way I’ve treated you. And even then, even if I hadn’t…” [...] “I want you too.” Her words are no more than a whisper, and I tense, my first instinct to dismiss them the moment I register what she’s said. “I want you. And Jadi,” she admits, and there’s a raw vulnerability in those simple words that I don’t understand. “I shouldn’t, should I? Want you both, I mean? Like that?” I roll to my side to stare at her in disbelief.

I want you too.” Her words are no more than a whisper “I want you. And Jadi,” she admits, and there’s a raw vulnerability in those simple words that I don’t understand. “I shouldn’t, should I? Want you both, I mean? Like that?” I roll to my side to stare at her in disbelief. With how close I am to her, the move has my face coming dangerously close to her own. “You want me?” “Why?” I ask. But I already know the answer. Because no one knows where Astarte’s arrow will strike, but when she aims, she strikes true. Because the gods are cruel and love to toy with their half-mortal children even more than they love to play with the mortals. Because Adrienne’s fate is somehow woven with mine and Jadi’s. Jadi told me that, he told me, and –fool that I am – I ignored him. “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to soften my voice. To curb the mocking, defensive bite in my words. “I just don’t see how you could. Not after how I’ve treated you.” Adrienne gives me a lopsided grin, then reaches over to lightly pat my shoulder. “You not that bad.” Her smile falls, expression growing serious. “I don’t know how explain it. I just feel… it feels…” she trails off, brow furrowing in frustration. She tucks her hands under her chin, and without thinking about it, I grasp them in my own. “I know.” The words come out in a low rumble. “I know. You don’t have to explain.” Because I feel it too. The pull towards her. It’s more than a physical attraction. More than desire – though that is certainly part of it. And now that I’m looking at her, with her mouth close to my own and her hands in mine and the heat of her body mixing with my own beneath the blankets. It feels right, and there’s no room for hesitation. Only action. I lean forward, slowly enough that she has time to object, my eyes never leaving her own. My nose brushes against hers for a brief moment, and then she’s pushing forward, her lips pressing against mine with a raw urgency that has fire racing through my veins and lust clouding my vision. It’s too much. Too much. I pull back, angling my body over hers, keeping my weight on my elbows as I cup her face in one hand, my thumb stroking the underside of her jaw, fingers tangling in her loose hair. I stare down at her – at her dilated pupils and sleep-mussed hair. At her parted lips and the delicate line of her throat. I can see her pulse thundering beneath the skin, and the rosy flush spreading down her neck. She’s so delicate. I’m torn between wanting to worship her and devour her. Carefully, I brush my mouth against hers, then trace the shape of her lips with my teeth and tongue. My hands tremble where they grip her face, keeping her from chasing my teasing kisses. It’s almost embarrassing, the way I’m quaking like an autumn leaf above her. She lets out a frustrated whimper, and I deepen the kiss, swallowing up the sound as I tangle my tongue with her own. When her own kisses become more insistent, I pull back, waiting for her to retreat before delving forward again. “Good,” I murmur, my thumb stroking her pulse point when she relaxes beneath me. “There’s no rush.” I’m speaking more to myself than to her. Because more than anything, I want to feel myself buried deep inside her. I want to push the fabric between us aside and feel her wet and clenching around me. I want to bury my head between her thighs and taste her, to turn those faint whimpers into wild, throaty cries. But now isn’t the time for that. I kiss her again, slowly this time. Deep. Controlled. I need to be controlled. Take this slow. Her thighs part, long limbs twining with mine, the heels of her feet pressing against the backs of my legs. Pulling me towards her, until my cock is pressed against her core and I can practically feel the heat of her, even with our clothes between us. She rocks against me, her faint mewling cry swallowed up by my mouth, and it’s like something in me snaps. Something primal and hungry and dark. Something that’s only come out with Jadi.

He tucked the fiddle under his chin, tightening his mouth and raising his head as he did so: and the tightening of his mouth was enough to release a flood of emotion. His face reddened, his breath heaved deep, his eyes grew larger and, because of the extreme contraction of their pupils, bluer: his mouth tightened still further, and with it his right hand. Pupils contract symmetrically to a diameter of about a tenth part of an inch, noted Stephen on a corner of a page. There was a loud, decided crack, a melancholy confused twanging, and with a ludicrous expression of doubt and wonder and distress, Jack held out his violin, all dislocated and unnatural with its broken neck. ‘It snapped,’ he cried. ‘It snapped.’ He fitted the broken ends together with infinite care and held them in place. ‘I would not have had it happen for the world,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I have known this fiddle, man and boy, since I was breeched.

This tiny voice in my head screamed “Slow down!” but it was so small and so faint that I could barely hear it and I didn’t want to. All I felt was Rafe’s mouth on mine, his arms around me, his body against me, and I didn’t care about anything else. It was like jumping from a cliff, a terrifying, exhilarating, mind-blowing rush, and I didn’t want it to end, didn’t care where it led, only wanted to follow. I could feel his heart beating, and I could hear it, pounding. I even swore I could smell him, just him. The world seemed to spin and fade, and I drifted in and out, and that voice kept saying that something was wrong, something was very wrong, but I didn’t care. One minute we were sitting up, making out. The next we were lying on the roof, and I was on top of him, and I didn’t know how I got there. I was kissing him and then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t. He was holding my face in his hands, poised above his, as he panted softly, his pupils so huge I could drown in them. “Hate to ask,” he said, struggling for breath. “How much did you drink?” “Nothing. Just Coke.” “Oh.” He held me there another moment, searching my gaze, his breath coming in soft puffs, fingers in my hair, looking like he was struggling to hold me there, away from him. I strained against his hands, and he said, “Okay,” hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure it was okay. Then he kissed me again deep and hard, like he didn’t care if it was okay.

You’d better muse over your lessons and sums,” said Marilla, concealing her delight at this development of the situation. “If you’re going back to school I hope we’ll hear no more of breaking slates over people’s heads and such carryings on. Behave yourself and do just what your teacher tells you.” “I’ll try to be a model pupil,” agreed Anne dolefully. “There won’t be much fun in it, I expect. Mr. Phillips said Minnie Andrews was a model pupil and there isn’t a spark of imagination or life in her. She is just dull and poky and never seems to have a good time. But I feel so depressed that perhaps it will come easy to me now. I’m going round by the road. I couldn’t bear to go by the Birch Path all alone. I should weep bitter tears if I did.” Anne was welcomed back to school with open arms. Her imagination had been sorely missed in games, her voice in the singing and her dramatic ability in the perusal aloud of books at dinner hour. Ruby Gillis smuggled three blue plums over to her during testament reading; Ella May MacPherson gave her an enormous yellow pansy cut from the covers of a floral catalogue—a species of desk decoration much prized in Avonlea school. Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new pattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons. Katie Boulter gave her a perfume bottle to keep slate water in, and Julia Bell copied carefully on a piece of pale pink paper scalloped on the edges the following effusion: When twilight drops her curtain down And pins it with a star Remember that you have a friend Though she may wander far.

We know that, when teaching students, only the utmost care and patience will ever work: we must never raise our voices, we have to use extraordinary tact, we must leave plenty of time for every lesson to sink in, and we need to ensure at least ten compliments for every one delicately inserted negative remark. Above all, we must remain calm. And yet the best guarantee of calm in a teacher is a relative indifference to the success or failure of his or her lesson. The serene teacher naturally wants for things to go well, but if an obdurate pupil flunks, say, trigonometry, it is—at base—the pupil’s problem. Tempers remain in check because individual students do not have very much power over their teachers’ lives; they don’t control their integrity and are not the chief determinants of their sense of contentment. An ability not to care too much is a critical aspect of unruffled and successful pedagogy.

Although I was her pupil, Even I reproach Myrtis of the crystalline voice. She was a mere woman poet, yet she challenged Pindar.

Well…I like your attitude,” he told me, smiling. “Although I don’t like yours Mr Lewiston,” he added, his voice suddenly going harsh. “Try to bring a whoopie cushion into my class again and you’ll find that your end of term Maths paper might just be mysteriously downgraded.

He lifted a naked kindjal from the table and held it up. “This in the hand of an enemy can let out your life’s blood! You’re an apt pupil, none better, but I’ve warned you that not even in play do you let a man inside your guard with death in his hand.” “I guess I’m not in the mood for it today,” Paul said. “Mood?” Halleck’s voice betrayed his outrage even through the shield’s filtering. “What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood’s a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It’s not for fighting.