Scars Like Wings Quotes

She conquered her demons and wore her scars like wings. 

She wore her battle scars like wings, looking at her you would never know that once upon a time she forgot how to fly

Such an angry little angel. Your wings are certainly dirty. They’re black.” “Like your heart.

Love can transform us. It can be a healing force or a disaster, a tidal wave, a tornado. It can burn and scar us or heal our scars. It can be the ghost that haunts us, or the best friend who reads our every thought. Love may arrive like an angel of mercy, a fairy with raven wings or a hairy beast that will tear us apart limb from limb, kill and savor us down to the bones.

When a wound’s that deep, it’s the healing that hurts.

This is why I don’t need mirrors; I can see my reflection in the eyes of everyone around me. My face always finds me.

It's a good reminder. Everyone has scars. Some are just easier to see.

He rolled his eyes and took my hand. His hand was hard and calloused, tough with muscle and old scars. The night settled around us like a blanket. I could hear the water lapping against the dock. We were totally alone. “You’re . . . ,” he began, and I waited, heart throbbing in my throat. “Such a pain,” he concluded. “What?” I asked, just as his head swooped in and his mouth touched mine. I tried to speak, but one of Fang’s hands held the back of my head, and he kept his lips pressed against me, kissing me softly but with a Fanglike determination. Oh, jeez, I thought distractedly. Jeez, this is Fang, and me, and . . . Fang tilted his head to kiss me more deeply, and I felt totally lightheaded. Then I remembered to breathe through my nose, and the fog cleared a tiny bit. Somehow we were pressed together, Fang’s arms around me now, sliding under my wings, his hands flat against my back. It was incredible. I loved it. I loved him. It was a total disaster. Gasping, I pulled back. “I, uh—,” I began oh so coherently, and then I jumped up, almost knocking him over, and raced down the dock. I took off, flying fast, like a rocket.

Funny how when your secret keeper is gone, all those dreams and conversations vanish, too.

Tell me what you're thinking.' I wind my arms around his neck. 'I was thinking you are exactly as I predicted the first time you took me in my room.' 'Oh yeah?' He draws back, curiosity sparking in his eyes. 'And what exactly was that?' 'A very dangerous addiction.' My gaze skims over the silver line of his scar, the thick lashes so many women would kill for, and over the bump in his nose to that perfectly sculped mouth. I've already told him that I love him, so it's not like I'm keeping secrets over here. Hell, compared to him, I'm an open book. 'Impossible to sate.' His eyes darken. 'I'm going to keep you,' he promises, just like he did last night. Or was it this morning? 'You're mine, Violet.' I lift my chin. 'Only if you're mine.' 'I've been yours for longer than you could ever imagine.

She had her scars just like the rest of us

Our demons may be smaller, but that doesn't make the fight — or the bravery — any less real.

There's always beauty in the ashes. Sometimes we just can't see it yet.

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze. A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that? Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most pitiful, amateur truth telling. So the soul must stand in her own meager feathers and learn to fly - or simply take hopeful jumps into the wind. In the Christian calendar, November 1 is the Feast of All Saints, a day honoring not only those who are known and recognized as enlightened souls, but more especially the unknowns, saints who walk beside us unrecognized down the millennia. In Buddhism, we honor the bodhisattvas - saints - who refuse enlightenment and return willingly to the wheel of karma to help other beings. Similarly, in Judaism, anonymous holy men pray the world from its well-merited destruction. We never know who is walking beside us, who is our spiritual teacher. That one - who annoys you so - pretends for a day that he's the one, your personal Obi Wan Kenobi. The first of November is a splendid, subversive holiday. Imagine a hectic procession of revelers - the half-mad bag lady; a mumbling, scarred janitor whose ravaged face made the children turn away; the austere, unsmiling mother superior who seemed with great focus and clarity to do harm; a haunted music teacher, survivor of Auschwitz. I bring them before my mind's eye, these old firends of my soul, awakening to dance their day. Crazy saints; but who knows what was home in the heart? This is the feast of those who tried to take the path, so clumsily that no one knew or notice, the feast, indeed, of most of us. It's an ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along a trail where other walkers had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme grass, red berries, and brown fern and laid it on the path: "nothing special," as Buddhists say, meaning "everything." Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an attitude, infinite shades of neutral. All contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way. Brought together by the eye of love, a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.

After a long time, one small hand moved, slowly, tentatively, tracing the feathers falling around her, stroking the black slashes along one huge wing. She didn't ask where he'd gotten them, didn't ask why they mimicked the marks on his shoulder. She didn't ask, just kept running her soft fingers through the down, along the spines… "How long will they last?" "A few hours," he said hoarsely. He should tell her, he thought, that the feathers weren't just a projection. That for the moment for however long the Irin's essence held out, they were an innate, physical part of him. And that her fingers stroking along the marks felt just like they once had, moving over his scars. He ought to tell her, ought to ask her to stop. It's what a gentleman would do, he knew that. But then he was half demon. And tonight, he thought maybe he'd just go with that. "They're nice," she murmured, pulling one around her. "Yes." One hand tightened in her thick soft hair. "Yes.

If you hold on to the old skin, you’ll never heal.

Their stares tell me I’m different, sure, but they reveal an even deeper truth: I’m less.

A dark shadow leaped from the stairs, his long coat flowing behind him like demon wings, landing in between her and Warrington. Dorian. He looked like the devil, come to take his minion. His hair black as obsidian. His scarred eye glittering with so many dark things, Farah couldn't identify a single one through her shock.

Moving on doesn't mean forgetting. It just means letting go of the hurt.

This week, pay attention to how you talk about yourself. Use words that give you power rather than strip it away.

I'm just saying maybe look up once in a while, who knows what you're missing.

Always healing, never healed.

But that was another lifetime, one where spontaneous choreographed dances and happy endings seemed not only plausible but likely. At some point, you realize life is not a musical.

It's hard watching someone you love in pain. You'd take their hurt in a heartbeat, but you can't. It's their pain.

Words have power because we give them meaning. Hate. Love. Hope. Anger.

Everyone saw you lose it,' I whisper, doing my best to mentally block the pain like I have countless times before. It's usually as easy as building a mental wall around the pulsing torment in my body, then telling myself the pain only exists in that box so I can't feel it, but it isn't working so well this time. 'I didn't lose it.' He kicks the door three times when we reach it. 'You shouted and carried me out of there like I mean something to you.' I focus on the scar on his jaw, the stubble on his tan skin, anything to keep from feeling the utter destruction in my shoulder. 'You do mean something to me.' He kicks again. And now everyone knows.

I averted my eyes, looked around, and stumbled through all the faces in the room till they finally rested on his. He was standing like a scared bird, waving one wing and using the other to hide his scar. Aya Rabah- Scars

He tells us we're having an assessment quiz and gives a boy in the front row a bunch of papers to hand out to the class. When the boy gets close to me, he hesitates, holding the sheets tentatively, like he's offering a bunny carcass to a rabid dog.

Come on, let's get you to bed.' I lean in and kiss the scar on his eyebrow. 'It will be tomorrow when you wake up.' 'I don't deserve you.' His arm curls around my hips and he tugs me closer. 'But I'm going to keep you all the same.' 'Good.' I lean in and brush my lips over his. 'Because I think I'm in love with you.' My heart beats erratically, and panic claws up my rib cage. I shouldn't have said it. His eyes flare wide and his arms tighten around me. 'You think? Or you know?' Be brave. Even if he doesn't feel the same, at least I will have spoken my truth. 'I know. I'm so wildly in love with you that I can't imagine what my life would even look like without you in it. And I probably shouldn't have said that, but if we're doing this, then we're starting from a place of complete honesty.' He crushes his mouth to mine and pulls me fully into his lap so I'm straddling him. He kisses me so deep that I lose myself in it, in him.

Azriel arrived first, no shadows to be seen, my sister a pale, golden mass in his arms. He, too, wore his Illyrian armour, Elain's golden-brown hair snagging in some of the black scales across his chest and shoulders. He set her down gently on the foyer carpet, having carried her in through the front door. Elain peered up at his patient, solemn face. Azriel smiled faintly. 'Would you like me to show you the garden?' She seemed so small before him, so fragile compared to the scales of his fighting leathers, the breadth of his shoulders. The wings peeking over them. But Elain did not balk from him, did not shy away as she nodded- just once. Azriel, graceful as any courtier, offered her an arm. I couldn't tell if she was looking at his blue Siphons or at his scarred skin beneath as she breathed, 'Beautiful.' Colour bloomed high on Azriel's golden-brown cheeks, but he inclined his head in thanks and led my sister toward the back doors into the garden, sunlight bathing them.

I won’t do a thing,” I said. “Without you I’m not moving.” Through the front window was another cliché, rain raging while the women inside wept like girls. The traffic screamed its emergency around us, but we could do this thing on our own. She was all the world’s money, and I would spend it with her, my sharpest friend who changed the tide, my only comfort from the brutal gamble of the world and the wicked ways of men. I grabbed her hands and clasped them together over her scar into a position of strength, like a prayer we wouldn’t be caught dead saying. Gather around us, heroic women of Haddam. Gather around us and put us under your silken wings. We are here, we are here, we are here, won’t someone take us across the sound together.

For the guard with the scar over her heart: I’ve been watching you. You’re not like the other guards — the bowing, scraping, mindlessly loyal lizards who live for your queen. You have your own thoughts, don’t you? You’re smarter than the average SandWing. And I think I know your secret. Let’s talk about it. Third cell down, the one with two NightWings in it. I’m the one who doesn’t snore. I HAVE NO INTEREST IN DISCUSSING ANYTHING WITH A NIGHTWING PRISONER. WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO LET YOU HAVE PAPER AND INK? You should be interested. You’re going to need allies for what you’re planning … and when I get out of here, I’m going to be a very useful ally indeed. AMUSING ASSUMPTIONS. MY QUEEN BELIEVES YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN HERE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME. True … but she also believes she’s going to be queen for a long, long time … doesn’t she. An interesting silence after my last note. Perhaps it would reassure you to know I set your notes on fire as soon as I’ve read them. You can tell me anything, my new, venomous-tailed friend. Believe me, Night-Wings are exceptionally skilled at keeping secrets. WE ARE NOT FRIENDS. I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT YOU, OTHER THAN WHAT IT SAYS IN YOUR PRISONER FILE. FIERCETEETH: TRAITOR. KIDNAPPER. RINGLEADER OF ASSASSINATION PLOT. TO BE HELD INDEFINITELY WITH FELLOW TRAITOR STRONGWINGS, ON BEHALF OF THE NIGHTWING QUEEN. OH, YES, CERTAINLY SOUNDS LIKE A DRAGON ANYONE CAN TRUST. She’s not my queen. You can’t be a traitor to someone who shouldn’t be ruling over you in the first place. Which might be a thought you’ve had lately yourself, isn’t it? I know some things about you, even without a file. Saguaro: Prison guard. Schemer. Connected to great secret plans. We’re not so different, you and I. Particularly when it comes to trustworthiness. Just think, if my alleged “assassination plot” had worked, the NightWings would have a different queen right now. Perhaps it would even be me. Well, if at first you don’t succeed … I could tell you my story, if you get me more paper to write on. Or you could stop by one midnight and listen to it instead. But I’ve noticed you don’t like spending too much time in the dungeon. Is it the tip-tap of little scorpion claws scrabbling everywhere? The stench rising from the holes in the floor? The gibbering mad SandWing a few cages down who never shuts up, all night long? (What is her story? Has she really been here since the rule of Queen Oasis?) Or is it that you can too easily picture yourself behind these bars … and you know how close you are to joining us? ALL RIGHT, NIGHTWING, HERE’S A BLANK SCROLL. GO AHEAD AND TRY TO CONVINCE ME THAT YOU’RE A DRAGON WHO EVEN DESERVES TO LIVE, LET ALONE ONE I SHOULD WASTE MY TIME ON. I DO ENJOY BEING AMUSED.

It had butterfly wings, like flakes of patterned wax. Under the wings it had a hairy body with tiny horns. Its fur looked very dry in the hot summer rays. It had an ox’s head, no bigger than her thumbnail, with a pink muzzle drawn into a grimace. A white splodge between its nostrils. The impossible detail of a scar on its bottom lip. There was warmth and a heartbeat in its body like that of a newborn chick.

A demon seduced an angel in the middle of the night and they gave the stars a glimpse. There was nothing casual about it, it was tender skin and battle scars breathless passion under storm clouds a rapid river stream mirroring the moon light. Until one day, he left her with nothing, just a bruised heart and carved memories iridescent wings chipped on the edges heat under her skin, like an ember burning low. I asked her, "What do you do after a love like that?" She laughed. And madness danced behind her eyes. But she flew so high the world was jealous.

Would you like to know what it’s like to have your wings again? Imagine falling, except instead of hitting the ground, you soar. Imagine beginning to believe that love is never a lie, even if there are liars. Imagine recalling that cracked bone grows back stronger. That scars are beautiful. You might not be quite who you were when you lost the power of flight. But it is only in having your wings resting heavy on your back again that you realize you always and forever belonged to the sky. You were always strong and fierce and full of magic. Even when you were stranded on the ground.

I reach out and trace the dragon relic on his back, my fingers lingering on the raised silver scars, and he stiffens. They're all short, thin lines, too precise to be a whip, no rhyme or reason to their pattern but never intersecting. 'What happened?' I whisper, holding my breath. 'You really don't want to know.' He's tense, but doesn't move away from my touch. 'I do.' They don't look accidental. Someone hurt him deliberately maliciously, and it makes me want to hunt the person down and do the same to them. His jaw flexes as he looks over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine. I bite my lip, knowing this moment can go either way. He can shut me out like always or he can actually let me in. 'There's a lot of them,' I murmur, dragging my fingers down his spine. 'A hundred and seven.' He looks away. The number makes my stomach lurch, and then my hand pauses. A hundred and seven. That's the number Liam mentioned. 'That's how many kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic.' 'Yeah.' I shift so I can see his face. 'What happened, Xaden?' He brushes my hair back, and the look that passes is over his face is so close to tender that it makes my heart stutter. 'I saw the opportunity to make a deal,' he says softly. 'And I took it.' 'What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?' Conflict rages in his eyes, but then he sighs. 'The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion's leaders left behind, and in return, we're allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents.' He averts his gaze. 'I chose the chance of death over the certainty.' The cruelty of the offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hits like a physical blow. I cradle his cheek and guide his face back to mine. 'So if any of them betray Navarre...' I lift my brows. 'Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.' It's why Liam says he owes him everything. 'I'm so sorry that happened to you.' Especially when he wasn't the one who led the rebellion. He looks at me like he sees into the very depths of who I am. 'You have nothing to apologise for.

Every time he moved, with every breath he took, it seemed the man was carried along by iridescent orange and black wings. She tried to convey how it was like travelling through the inside of a living body at times, the joints and folds of the earth, the liver-smooth flowstone, the helictites threading upward like synapses in search of a connection. She found it beautiful. Surely God would not have invented such a place as His spiritual gulag. It took Ali’s breath away. Sometimes, once men found out she was a nun, they would dare her in some way. What made Ike different was his abandon. He had a carelessness in his manner that was not reckless, but was full of risk. Winged. He was pursuing her, but not faster than she was pursuing him, and it made them like two ghosts circling. She ran her fingers along his back, and the bone and the muscle and hadal ink and scar tissue and the callouses from his pack straps astonished her. This was the body of a slave. Down from the Egypt, eye of the sun, in front of the Sinai, away from their skies like a sea inside out, their stars and planets spearing your soul, their cities like insects, all shell and mechanism, their blindness with eyes, their vertiginous plains and mind-crushing mountains. Down from the billions who had made the world in their own image. Their signature could be a thing of beauty. But it was a thing of death. Ali got one good look, then closed her eyes to the heat. In her mind, she imagined Ike sitting in the raft across from her wearing a vast grin while the pyre reflected off the lenses of his glacier glasses. That put a smile on her face. In death, he had become the light. There comes a time on every big mountain when you descend the snows and cross a border back to life. It is a first patch of green grass by the trail, or a waft of the forests far below, or the trickle of snowmelt braiding into a stream. Always before, whether he had been gone an hour or a week or much longer – and no matter how many mountains he had left behind – it was, for Ike, an instant that registered in his whole being. Ike was swept with a sense not of departure, but of advent. Not of survival. But of grace.

Jack took two steps towards the couch and then heard his daughter’s distressed wails, wincing. “Oh, right. The munchkin.” He instead turned and headed for the stairs, yawning and scratching his messy brown hair, calling out, “Hang on, chubby monkey, Daddy’s coming.” Jack reached the top of the stairs. And stopped dead. There was a dragon standing in the darkened hallway. At first, Jack swore he was still asleep. He had to be. He couldn’t possibly be seeing correctly. And yet the icy fear slipping down his spine said differently. The dragon stood at roughly five feet tall once its head rose upon sighting Jack at the other end of the hallway. It was lean and had dirty brown scales with an off-white belly. Its black, hooked claws kneaded the carpet as its yellow eyes stared out at Jack, its pupils dilating to drink him in from head to toe. Its wings rustled along its back on either side of the sharp spines protruding down its body to the thin, whip-like tail. A single horn glinted sharp and deadly under the small, motion-activated hallway light. The only thing more noticeable than that were the many long, jagged scars scored across the creature’s stomach, limbs, and neck. It had been hunted recently. Judging from the depth and extent of the scars, it had certainly killed a hunter or two to have survived with so many marks. “Okay,” Jack whispered hoarsely. “Five bucks says you’re not the Easter Bunny.” The dragon’s nostrils flared. It adjusted its body, feet apart, lips sliding away from sharp, gleaming white teeth in a warning hiss. Mercifully, Naila had quieted and no longer drew the creature’s attention. Jack swallowed hard and held out one hand, bending slightly so his six-foot-two-inch frame was less threatening. “Look at me, buddy. Just keep looking at me. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you. Why don’t you just come this way, huh?” He took a single step down and the creature crept forward towards him, hissing louder. “That’s right. This way. Come on.” Jack eased backwards one stair at a time. The dragon let out a warning bark and followed him, its saliva leaving damp patches on the cream-colored carpet. Along the way, Jack had slipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1, hoping he had just enough seconds left in the reptile’s waning patience. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” “Listen to me carefully,” Jack said, not letting his eyes stray from the dragon as he fumbled behind him for the handle to the sliding glass door. He then quickly gave her his address before continuing. “There is an Appalachian forest dragon in my house. Get someone over here as fast as you can.” “We’re contacting a retrieval team now, sir. Please stay calm and try not to make any loud noises or sudden movements–“ Jack had one barefoot on the cool stone of his patio when his daughter Naila cried for him again. The dragon’s head turned towards the direction of upstairs. Jack dropped his cell phone, grabbed a patio chair, and slammed it down on top of the dragon’s head as hard as he could.

Open the so-called body and spread out all its surfaces: not only the skin with each of its folds, wrinkles, scars, with its great velvety planes, and contiguous to that, the scalp and its mane of hair, the tender pubic fur, nipples, nails, hard transparent skin under the heel, the light frills of the eyelids, set with lashes - but open and spread, expose the labia majora, so also the labia minora with their blue network bathed in mucus, dilate the diaphragm of the anal sphincter, longitudinally cut and flatten out the black conduit of the rectum, then the colon, then the caecum, now a ribbon with its surface all striated and polluted with shit ; as though your dress maker' s scissors were opening the leg of an old pair of trousers, go on, expose the small intestines' alleged interior, the jejunum, the ileum, the duodenum, or else, at the other end, undo the mouth at its corners, pull out the tongue at its most distant roots and split it, spread out the bats' wings of the palate and its damp basements, open the trachea and make it the skeleton of a boat under construction; armed with scalpels and tweezers, dismantle and lay out the bundles and bodies of the encephalon; and then the whole network of veins and arteries, intact, on an immense mattress, and then the lymphatic network, and the fine bony pieces of the wrist, the ankle, take them apart and put them end to end with all the layers of nerve tissue which surround the aqueous humours and the cavernous body of the penis, and extract the great muscles, the great dorsal nets, spread them out like smooth sleeping dolphins. Work as the sun does when you're sunbathing or taking grass.

You said not to fall for you. Did you change your mind?' 'Absolutely not.' His jaw tenses. 'Right.' I don't expect that to hurt as much as it does, which is part of the problem. I'm already too emotionally involved to separate out the sex, no matter how phenomenal it is. 'Here's the thing. I don't think I can separate sex from emotion when it comes to you.' Well, shit, now I've said it. 'We're already too close for that, and if we hook up again, I'm going to eventually fall for you.' My heart pounds at the rushed confession, waiting for his response. 'You won't.' Something akin to panic flares in his eyes, and he crosses his arms. I swear I can actually see the man building his defenses against his own feelings. 'You don't really know me. Not at my core.' And whose fault is that? 'I know enough,' I argue softly. 'And we'd have all the time in the world to figure it out if you'd stop acting like such an emotional chickenshit and just admit that you're going to fall for me, too, if we keep this up.' There's no way he would have designed that saddle, spent all that time training me to fight and fly, if he didn't feel something. He's going to have to fight for this, too, or it will never work. 'I have absolutely no intention of falling for you, Sorrengail.' His eyes narrow and he enunciates every word, like I could possibly take that any other way. Fuck. That. He let me in. He told me about his scars. He had an arsenal crafted for me. He cares. He's just as wrapped up in this as I am, even if he's shitty at showing it. 'Ouch,' I wince. 'Well, it's apparent that you're not ready to admit where this is going. So yeah, I think it's best we agree that this was just a onetime thing.' I force my shoulders to shrug. 'We both needed to blow off some steam, and we did, right?' 'Right,' he agrees, apprehension lining his forehead.

I ran. It was fantastic how far I ran without stopping to rest. I can't even remember what places I passed. I must have left by the back gate next to the Kyohoku Tower in the north of the temple precincts, then I must have passed by the Myoo Hall, run up the mountain path that was bordered by bamboo grass and azalea, and reached the top of Mount Hidari Daimonji. Yes, it was surely on top of Mount Hidari Daimonji that I lay down on my hack in the bamboo field in the shadow of the red pines and tried to still the fierce beating of my heart. This was the mountain that protected the Golden Temple from the north. The cry of some startled birds brought me to my senses. Or else it was a bird that flew close to my face with a great fluttering of its wings. As I lay there on my back I gazed at the night sky. The birds soared over the branches of the redpines in great numbers and the thin flakes from the fire, which were already becoming scarce, floated in the sky above my head. I sat up and looked far down the ravine towards the Golden temple. A strange sound echoed from there. It was like the sound of crackers. It was like the sound of countless people's soul joints all cracking at once. From where I sat the Golden Temple itself was invisible. All that I could see was the eddying smoke and the great fire that rose into the sky. The flakes from the fire drifted between the trees and the Golden Temple's sky seemed to be strewn with golden sand. I crossed my legs and sat gazing for a long time at the scene. When I came to myself, I found that my body was covered in blisters and scars and that I was bleeding profusely. My fingers also were stained with blood, evidently from when I had hurt them by knocking against the temple door. I licked my wounds like an animal that has fled from its pursuers. I looked in my pocket and extracted the bottle of arsenic, wrapped in my handkerchief, and the knife. I threw them down the ravine. Then I noticed the pack of cigarettes in my other pocket. I took one out and started smoking. I felt like a man who settles down for a smoke after finishing a job of work. I wanted to live.

The fact is,” said Van Gogh, “the fact is that we are painters in real life, and the important thing is to breathe as hard as ever we can breathe.” So I breathe. I breathe at the open window above my desk, and a moist fragrance assails me from the gnawed leaves of the growing mock orange. This air is as intricate as the light that filters through forested mountain ridges and into my kitchen window; this sweet air is the breath of leafy lungs more rotted than mine; it has sifted through the serrations of many teeth. I have to love these tatters. And I must confess that the thought of this old yard breathing alone in the dark turns my mind to something else. I cannot in all honesty call the world old when I’ve seen it new. On the other hand, neither will honesty permit me suddenly to invoke certain experiences of newness and beauty as binding, sweeping away all knowledge. But I am thinking now of the tree with the lights in it, the cedar in the yard by the creek I saw transfigured. That the world is old and frayed is no surprise; that the world could ever become new and whole beyond uncertainty was, and is, such a surprise that I find myself referring all subsequent kinds of knowledge to it. And it suddenly occurs to me to wonder: were the twigs of the cedar I saw really bloated with galls? They probably were; they almost surely were. I have seen these “cedar apples” swell from that cedar’s green before and since: reddish gray, rank, malignant. All right then. But knowledge does not vanquish mystery, or obscure its distant lights. I still now and will tomorrow steer by what happened that day, when some undeniably new spirit roared down the air, bowled me over, and turned on the lights. I stood on grass like air, air like lightning coursed in my blood, floated my bones, swam in my teeth. I’ve been there, seen it, been done by it. I know what happened to the cedar tree, I saw the cells in the cedar tree pulse charged like wings beating praise. Now, it would be too facile to pull everything out of the hat and say that mystery vanquishes knowledge. Although my vision of the world of the spirit would not be altered a jot if the cedar had been purulent with galls, those galls actually do matter to my understanding of this world. Can I say then that corruption is one of beauty’s deep-blue speckles, that the frayed and nibbled fringe of the world is a tallith, a prayer shawl, the intricate garment of beauty? It is very tempting, but I cannot. But I can, however, affirm that corruption is not beauty’s very heart and I can I think call the vision of the cedar and the knowledge of these wormy quarryings twin fjords cutting into the granite cliffs of mystery and say the new is always present simultaneously with the old, however hidden. The tree with the lights in it does not go out; that light still shines on an old world, now feebly, now bright. I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds, upstream and down.

I like to eat chicken, but I don’t like live chickens. With their feathers and beaks and weird noises and flapping wings.” He visibly shivers, then points above his right eye. “How’d you think I got this scar?” “I thought you said your sister threw something at you when you were a kiddie.” Rob gives him a meaningful look. “A chicken?” Rob points at his scar again. “Them things are no joke.

I have always been secretly amused that others continually underestimated you, my love, he confessed, but I have found these last few nights have taught me that even I underestimate you and your strength. For the first time, he felt the familiar stirring in his mind, that beloved touch that signaled the love of his life had ever so gently merged with him. How she found the strength when there was so little blood left in her body, he didn’t know. Dimitri. His body came to life. His heart. His soul. That gentle touch, the brush of her voice across the scars in his mind held so much love he ached inside. She set up cravings with her soft gentle ways. Hunger. She found a well of tenderness in him that had been buried and forgotten for centuries. You scared me, he admitted. You can never do this again. She didn’t reply in words, the effort to talk even telepathically was too much in her weakened state, but she stroked a caress over the sorrow and fear he’d been holding inside. You must reenter your body, Skyler. It will be uncomfortable and there will be pain again, but not like we experienced before. He instilled absolute confidence in his voice, and kept it uppermost in his mind, although deep inside he was afraid she might balk. There was a flutter against the walls of his mind, as gentle as the gossamer wings of a butterfly. You? Every step of the way. I will hold you. You’ll never be alone, not in that dark cold world or the one above where we face war and persecution.

Holdfast The dead are for morticians & butchers to touch. Only a gloved hand. Even my son will leave a grounded wren or bat alone like a hot stove. When he spots a monarch in the driveway he stares. It’s dead, I say, you can touch it. The opposite rule: butterflies are too fragile to hold alive, just the brush of skin could rip a wing. He skims the orange & black whorls with only two fingers, the way he learned to feel the backs of starfish & horseshoe crabs at the zoo, the way he thinks we touch all strangers. I was sad to be born, he tells me, because it means I will die. I once loved someone I never touched. We played records & drank coffee from chipped bowls, but didn’t speak of the days pierced by radiation. A friend said: Let her pretend. She needs one person who doesn’t know. If I held her, I would have left bruises, if I undressed her, I would have seen scars, so we never touched & she never had to say she was dying. We should hold each other more while we are still alive, even if it hurts. People really die of loneliness, skin hunger the doctors call it. In a study on love, baby monkeys were given a choice between a wire mother with milk & a wool mother with none. Like them, I would choose to starve & hold the soft body.

It's just so strange having your child's birthday without your child. Like this day should somehow not exist anymore. But here it is, the annual reminder of the day I became her mother.

Be proud!!! "You conquered your demons and wear your scars like wings.

We have to be stronger than the hurt or we miss the whole point.

But the fire made it ugly, like everything it touches - even the memories went up in smoke.

I want someone to know I'm shooting for a star, even if it's a small one.

Cora's eyes flick from the bagstravaganza to me, her eyebrows pushed together with the same look she gets doing the Sunday crossword. Like if she can just focus hard enough, she can find the solution. But for all Cora's efforts, I'm one puzzle she can't fix.

Cora works the lotion into all my cracks and crevices as the familiar medical/old-lady smell of the oily cream fills the room. My beige compression garments slump like snakeskin on my desk. After a year, they seem more me than the purply-pink swirling scars of my actual body.

I used to think of my skin as one continuous unit, but mine is more like Sara's bedspread beneath me-- a morbid quilt stitched together. Some pieces are original, some are scarred over, and some are grafted in from other parts of my body after the doctors played epidermal musical chairs.

Big as a cart horse. Deep fetid marsh rot snot shit filth green. Traced out in scar tissue like embroidered cloth. Wings black and white and silver, heavy and vicious as blades. The Stink of it came choking. Fire and ash. Hot metal. Fear. Joy. Pain. There are dragons in the desert, said the old maps of the empire, and they had laughed and said no, no, not that close to great cities, if there ever were dragons there they are gone like the memory of a dream. Its teeth closed ripping on Gulius's arm, huge, jagged; its eyes were like knives as it twisted away with the arm hanging bloody in its mouth. It spat blood and slime and roared out flame again, reared up beating its wings. Men fell back screaming, armor scorched and molten, melted into burned melted flesh. The smell of roasting meat surrounded them. Better than steak. Gulius was lying somehow still alive, staring at the hole where his right arm had been. The dragons front legs came down smash onto his body. Plume of blood. Gulius disappeared. Little smudge of red on the green. A grating shriek as its claws scrabbled over hot stones. Screaming. Screaming. Beating wings. The stream rose up boiling. Two men were in the stream trying to douse burning flesh and the boiling water was in their faces and they were screaming too. Everything hot and boiling and burning, dry wind and dry earth and dry fire and dry hot scales, the whole great lizard body scorching like a furnace, roaring hot burning killing demon death thing.

My hands read a Braille map hewn from bone, starting with my hollow breasts threaded with blue-vein rivers thick with ice. I count my ribs like rosary beads, muttering incantations, fingers curling under the bony cage. They can almost touch what’s hiding inside. My skin slopes down over the empty belly, then around the inside sharp curve of my hip bones, bowls carved out of stone and painted with fading pink razor scars. I twist in the glass. My vertebrae are wet marbles piled one on top of the other. My winged shoulder blades look ready to sprout feathers. I pick up the knife. The tendons on the back of my hand tense, ropes holding down a tent while the wind blows. Thin scars etch the inside of my wrist, widening to the ribbons in the crook of my elbow where I cut too deep in ninth grade. I win, I won.   I’m lost.     The music from my bedroom shrieks so loud against the mirror it’s making my ears ring. I stare at the ghost-girl on the other side, her corset bones waiting to be laced even tighter so she can fold in on herself over and over until she disappears past zero.

When a wound's that deep, it's the healing that hurts.

We have come to be danced not the pretty dance not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance but the claw our way back into the belly of the sacred, sensual animal dance the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance the holding the precious moment in the palms of our hands and feet dance We have come to be danced not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance but the wring the sadness from our skin dance the blow the chip off our shoulder dance the slap the apology from our posture dance We have come to be danced not the monkey see, monkey do dance one, two dance like you one two three, dance like me dance but the grave robber, tomb stalker tearing scabs & scars open dance the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance WE have come to be danced not the nice invisible, self conscious shuffle but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance the strip us from our casings, return our wings sharpen our claws & tongues dance the shed dead cells and slip into the luminous skin of love dance We have come to be danced not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath & beat dance the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance the mother may I? yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance the Olly Olly Oxen Free Free Free dance the everyone can come to our heaven dance We have come to be danced where the kingdom’s collide in the cathedral of flesh to burn back into the light to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray to root in skin sanctuary We have come to be danced WE HAVE COME

Count your salted wounds then name them like the stars of a bright constellation Count your scars and bruises then give them the wings of forgiveness to fly

Manon dug her legs into Abraxos’s scarred, leathery side, and his Spidersilk-reinforced wings glittered like gold in the light of the fires far below. “Fly, Abraxos,” she breathed. Abraxos sucked in a great breath, tucked his wings in tight, and fell off the side of the post. He liked to do that—just tumble off as though he’d been struck dead. Her wyvern, it seemed, had a wicked sense of humor. The first time he’d done it, she’d roared at him. Now he did it just to show off, as the wyverns of the rest of the Thirteen had to jump up and out and then plunge, their bodies too big to nimbly navigate the narrow drop.

I have horns. Horns! And, honestly, they’re the least of my problems. Corpse bloat, stitched-shut lips, and dark-ringed, milk-blind eyes, glowing in the night. A crest of long, flame orange feathers in place of hair. More feathers on the outside of my forearms and down the back and inside of my thighs. And those wings. I look like the bastard child of a vulture and a bonfire. This is what I look like. Minus some recent additions—the stitches, the ruined eyes, the scars—this is what I’ve always looked like. And somehow I’d just… forgotten.

New sounds rustled through her anti-depressant haze; a gentle reverberation from the heart of the home... another creek... another thunk... rapid clicking like the wings of a broken cricket. Then, raindrops on metal... the escalating blare of a car horn... the scream of wet tires and the clink clink clink of showering glass.

As a booty or a spoil, captured, caught, with snare and toil. Selling pleasure, selling joy, Tantalizing, tortured toy; Tricked and trafficked, mocked and marred, Branded, baffled, scoffed and scarred! Wander, wander whither, why? Ye who pay while all pass by, Casting stones each at his sin As he spurns in you his kin. Fools of fortune, pity ye Your bejewelled poverty ! Hounded like a hare at bay, That no coup de grace will slay, Like a bird of broken wing, Wild, defiant, fluttering. Hither, thither, drearily, On and onward, wearily; Laughing, cursing to defy Stifled sob and surging sigh.

Our regiment was all women…We flew to the front in May 1942… The planes they gave us were Po-2s. Small, slow. They flew only at a low level. Hedge-hopping. Just over the ground! Before the war young people in flying clubs learned to fly in them, but no one could have imagined they would have any military use. The plane was constructed entirely of plywood, covered with aircraft fabric. In fact, with cheesecloth. One direct hit and it caught fire and burned up completely in the air, before reaching the ground. Like a match. The only solid metal part was the M-11 motor. Later on, toward the end of the war, we were issued parachutes, and a machine gun was installed in the pilot’s cabin, but before there had been no weapon, except for four bomb racks under the wings—that’s all. Nowadays they’d call us kamikazes, and maybe we were kamikazes. Yes! We were! But victory was valued more than our lives. “Before I retired, I became ill from the very thought of how I could possibly not work. Why then had I completed a second degree in my fifties? I became a historian. I had been a geologist all my life. But a good geologist is always in the field, and I no longer had the strength for it. A doctor came, took a cardiogram, and asked, “When did you have a heart attack?” “What heart attack?” “Your heart is scarred all over.” I must have acquired those scars during the war. You approach a target, and you’re shaking all over. Your whole body is shaking, because below it’s all gunfire: fighter planes are shooting, antiaircraft guns are shooting…Several girls had to leave the regiment; they couldn’t stand it. We flew mostly during the night. For a while they tried sending us on day missions, but gave it up at once. A rifle shot could bring down a Po-2… We did up to twelve flights a night. (...) You come back and you can’t even get out of the cabin; they used to pull us out. We couldn’t carry the chart case; we dragged it on the ground. And the work our girl armorers did! They had to attach four bombs to the aircraft by hand—that meant eight hundred pounds. They did it all night: one plane takes off, another lands. The body reorganized itself so much during the war that we weren’t women…We didn’t have those women’s things…Periods…You know…And after the war not all of us could have children.

Take your hands off him.' She did. 'Unshackle him.' Lucien's skin drained of colour as Ianthe obeyed me, her face queerly vacant, pliant. The blue stone shackles thumped to the mossy ground. Lucien's shirt was askew, the top button on his pants already undone. The roaring that filled my mind was so loud I could barely hear myself as I said, 'Pick up that rock.' Lucien remained pressed against that tree. And he watched in silence as Ianthe stopped to pick up a grey, rough rock about the size of an apple. 'Put your right hand on that boulder.' She obeyed, though a tremor went down her spine. Her mind thrashed and struggled against me, like a fish snared on a line. I dug my mental talons in deeper, and some inner voice of hers began screaming. 'Smash your hand with the rock as hard as you can until I tell you to stop.' The hand she'd put on him, on so many others. Ianthe brought the stone up. The first impact was a muffled, wet thud. The second was an actual crack. The third drew blood. Her arm rose and fell, her body shuddering with the agony. And I said to her very clearly, 'You will never touch another person against their will. You will never convince yourself that they truly want your advances; that they're playing games. You will never know another's touch unless they initiate, unless it's desired by both sides.' Thwack; crack; thud. 'You will not remember what happened here. You will tell the others that you fell.' Her ring finger had shifted in the wrong direction. 'You are allowed to see a healer to set the bones. But not to erase the scarring. And every time you look at that hand, you are going to remember that touching people against their will has consequences, and if you do it again, everything you are will cease to exist. You will live with that terror every day, and never know where it originates. Only the fear of something chasing you, hunting you, waiting for you the instant you let your guard down.' Silent tears of pain flowed down her face. 'You can stop now.' The bloodied rock tumbled onto the grass. Her hand was little more than cracked bones wrapped in shredded skin. 'Kneel here until someone finds you.' Ianthe fell to her knees, her ruined hand leaking blood onto her pale robes. 'I debated slitting your throat this morning,' I told her. 'I debated it all last night while you slept beside me. I've debated it every single day since I learned you sold out my sisters to Hybern.' I smiled a bit. 'But I think this is a better punishment. And I hope you live a long, long life, Ianthe, and never know a moment's peace.' I stared down at her for a moment longer, tying off the tapestry of words and commands I'd woven into her mind, and turned to Lucien. He'd fixed his pants, his shirt. His wide eyes slid from her to me, then to the bloodied stone. 'The word you're looking for, Lucien,' crooned a deceptively light female voice, 'is daemati.

The third turns in my direction and my heart simply…stops. He’s tall, with windblown black hair and dark brows. The line of his jaw is strong and covered by warm tawny skin and dark stubble, and when he folds his arms across his torso, the muscles in his chest and arms ripple, moving in a way that makes me swallow. And his eyes… His eyes are the shade of gold-flecked onyx. The contrast is startling, jaw-dropping even—everything about him is. His features are so harsh that they look carved, and yet they’re astonishingly perfect, like an artist worked a lifetime sculpting him, and at least a year of that was spent on his mouth. He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen. And living in the war college means I’ve seen a lot of men. Even the diagonal scar that bisects his left eyebrow and marks the top corner of his cheek only makes him hotter. Flaming hot. Scorching hot. Gets-you-into-trouble-and-you-like-it level of hot. Suddenly, I can’t remember exactly why Mira told me not to fuck around outside my year group.

He flexed his large yellow-orange wings and Quinn noticed these were not exactly like the demon’s—they were smaller across, but also slightly longer from end to end, lankier and more proportional to the man’s human body. They were much less scarred and ashy than the creature’s had been, and he moved them more delicately, deliberately folding them close to avoid knocking around Quinn’s remaining battered furniture. He was at least a more polite, more talkative guest than the last monster.

Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep on the runway. The world is in a delay. All the political consultants drinking whiskey keep their heads down, lifting them only to look at the beautiful scarred waitress who wears typewriter keys as a necklace. They jingle when she brings them drinks. Outside the giant plate glass windows the planes are completely covered in snow, it piles up on the wings. I feel like a mountain of cell phone chargers. Each of the various faiths of our various fathers keeps us only partly protected. I don’t want to talk on the phone to an angel. At night before I go to sleep I am already dreaming. Of coffee, of ancient generals, of the faces of statues each of which has the eternal expression of one of my feelings. I examine my feelings without feeling anything. I ride my blue bike on the edge of the desert. I am president of this glass of water.

But Mor replied smoothly, “You still certainly like to hear yourself talk, Eris. Good to know some things don’t change over the centuries.” Eris’s mouth curled into a smile at the words, the careful game of pretending that they had not seen each other in years. “Good to know that after five hundred years, you still dress like a slut.” One moment, Azriel was seated. The next, he’d blasted through Eris’s shield with a flare of blue light and tackled him backward, wood shattering beneath them. “Shit,” Cassian spat, and was instantly there— And met a wall of blue. Azriel had sealed them in, and as his scarred hands wrapped around Eris’s throat, Rhys said, “Enough.” Azriel squeezed, Eris thrashing beneath him. No physical brawling—there had been a rule against that, but Azriel, with whatever power those shadows gave him … “Enough, Azriel,” Rhys ordered. Perhaps those shadows that now slid and eddied around the shadowsinger hid him from the wrath of the binding magic. The others made no move to interfere, as if wondering the same. Azriel dug his knee—and all his weight—into Eris’s gut. He was silent, utterly silent as he ripped the air from Eris’s body.

He set her down gently on the foyer carpet, having carried her in through the front door. Elain peered up at his patient, solemn face. Azriel smiled faintly. “Would you like me to show you the garden?” She seemed so small before him, so fragile compared to the scales of his fighting leathers, the breadth of his shoulders. The wings peeking over them. But Elain did not balk from him, did not shy away as she nodded—just once. Azriel, graceful as any courtier, offered her an arm. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at his blue Siphon or at his scarred skin beneath as she breathed, “Beautiful.” Color bloomed high on Azriel’s golden-brown cheeks, but he inclined his head in thanks and led my sister toward the back doors into the garden, sunlight bathing them.

You look rather thirsty," a voice says from behind me, and I turn to face Benediction de la Lucia--the Devil himself. He is a striking man; his long, orange-red hair is as bright as a tropical sunset, and his skin is like freshly-fallen snow. His large, expressive eyes hold all colors, and I feel myself being drawn into them. "G-good evening," I stammer. "I was just looking for--" "I know whom you seek," he purrs "although I was hoping that you would agree to spend a little time with me, first." He tucks a wad of bills into my vest pocket and drapes his arm around my shoulder. "I would be happy to, Lord de la Lucia," I smile, grasping him around the waist. "Do you Hunger?" His eyes glide up and down the line of my body, and I feel a strong desire to swoon. "Always," he murmurs "and please...call me Beni'." The room is spinning, and reality is fading fast...I press my face against his chest and strive to cling to consciousness. He sweeps me up into his arms and carries me to one of the bedrooms, where he feeds from me...and all of a sudden, he is atop me, his snow-white wings outstretched. I feel as if I will die--the pleasure and pain are so intense. I can feel myself bleeding out and being reborn, over and over upon that silken bed, every nerve of my body alive with his essence. We are almost like one, body and soul...and then he pulls back and looks down into my eyes. "You want something," he leers at me "or is it someone?" He sniffs the air. "I can smell it on your sex, My Darling! Don't be afraid to ask, young one--that's why I came to you! Love falls under my realm, Dearest...the human heart is full of darkness, yes?" I curse at him in Japanese and try to push him off of me, but he holds me fast. "Don't be so rude, Darling! I only want to help you! Matthieu-Michele can't do anything for you--he's simply out of his league! He's only a young God, still finding his footing! I am older than the ages, and I know what love is! I know the agony and the ecstasy and the razor's scar that it leaves upon the heart! I know of the poison and the betrayal and the all-consuming obsession! I have ridden the crest and scrabbled in the desolate valleys! I know what you want...I know whom you love...and I can make it happen for you--for a price." "I don't make deals with the Devil," I hiss at him from between clenched teeth...

Jill Falls for Jack" Really, they fell from bramble-scrawled oak trees, became snow angels without snow. Instead they made wings from the swept scars of lawn grass. After the mower blade cut, they tucked green shards between armpits, against elbows. It was still summer, but hardly, and they took turns jumping off limbs to let the wind escape them, again and again. On purpose they fell. Their throats scratched as they gasped for air, first he, then she. And then he reached over, put his lips on hers and blew breath, mouth to mouth, as if she suffered from drowning, as if her lungs were pails of water instead of dry, hollow. Until she breathed in, and the wind again made her feel like tumbling, like tumbling after.

What are you doing here, anyway?” Cass asked. Luca’s smile vanished. “I thought you’d be happy to see me,” he said. “And your aunt wanted to plan a betrothal ceremony. Didn’t she tell you?” Instantly, Cass’s good mood dissipated. A betrothal ceremony? Once she had undergone the official ritual, there would be no going back on her marriage. She would belong to Luca da Peraga. Like his fur-lined cloak or the feather in his hat, Cass would be just one more pretty thing for Luca to call his own. No more studying. No more adventures. She would become, as Falco said, a caged bird, beating its wings against the bars of its prison. “No, she didn’t tell me,” Cass said hoarsely, trying to push Falco from her mind. His sparkling eyes. The crooked smile. The tiny jagged scar under his right eye. “We can talk about it more tomorrow,” Luca said kindly, perhaps mistaking her dread for nervousness. “I’ll be out running some errands in the morning, but I’ll see you at dinner?” Cass nodded. A pair of servants came for Luca with armfuls of bed linens and towels. Cass fled the library in front of them. She didn’t want to watch Luca settle in to the bedroom next to her. She didn’t want to think about what it meant for the two of them, and for her future.

One was dark-haired and brown-skinned, tall and finely muscled—the Helhound. His jet-black wings shimmered faintly, like a crow’s feathers. But it was the wicked scar snaking down his neck, forking across the column of his throat, that snared the eye. Hunt knew that scar—he’d given it to the Helhound thirty years ago. Some powers, it seemed, even immortality couldn’t guard against. Baxian’s obsidian eyes simmered as they met Hunt’s stare. But Pollux’s cobalt eyes lit with feral delight as he sized up Naomi, then Isaiah, and finally Hunt. Hunt allowed his lightning to flare as he stared down the golden-haired, golden-skinned leader of Sandriel’s triarii. The most brutal, sadistic asshole to have ever walked Midgard’s soil. Motherfucker Number One.

How could I not love you? The man made of crystalline cicada wings that remind me of home?” I ask, taking his hand away from my cheek and pressing my lips to it. He exhales and closes his eyes as he leans into the affection. He unwinds his other hand from my hair and rests them both against the small of my back as if we’re dancing on the ballroom floor once more. “The man so beautiful that even his scars are golden?His tears silver?” I kiss the scar on his cheekbone, tiptoeing as I do. I take a step forward, he follows my lead. “The man so kind that even his skin reminds me of stained glass cathedral windows?” I kiss the jawline of his slightly silver-stained, iridescent skin. He’s pressed against the wooden bedpost like a flower into a diary entry.

What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?” Conflict rages in his eyes, but then he sighs. “The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion’s leaders left behind, and in return, we’re allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents.” He averts his gaze. “I chose the chance of death over the certainty.” The cruelty of the offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hits like a physical blow. I cradle his cheek and guide his face back to mine. “So if any of them betray Navarre…” I lift my brows. “Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.

It's a good reminder: Everyone has scars. Some are just easier to see.

Raihn had shut up. I turned around. He had gone so still. It was rare that he embodied that stillness—vampire stillness, the kind that made the world go silent. He drank me in, staring at my face and moving down. I could feel that stare as if it was his touch—caressing the scars on my throat, the curve of my clavicle. I could feel it pause at my breasts, peaked with my arousal, covered by the tips of my black hair. It slid down my stomach, traced the angry-pink slashes from the trial. Landed at the apex of my thighs. His nostrils flared and eyes went hard, and I wondered if he could sense it, smell it—how much I needed him. When his eyes came back to mine, he looked like a man undone. "Come here," he whispered. Pleaded.