Spine Pain Quotes

Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging up your back and runing its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do-the only thing-is run.

I cannot go to school today" Said little Peggy Ann McKay. "I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry. I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox. And there's one more - that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut, my eyes are blue, It might be the instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke. My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in. My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My toes are cold, my toes are numb, I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There's a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is ... What? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is .............. Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play!

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.

Some catastrophic moments invite clarity, explode in split moments: You smash your hand through a windowpane and then there is blood and shattered glass stained with red all over the place; you fall out a window and break some bones and scrape some skin. Stitches and casts and bandages and antiseptic solve and salve the wounds. But depression is not a sudden disaster. It is more like a cancer: At first its tumorous mass is not even noticeable to the careful eye, and then one day -- wham! -- there is a huge, deadly seven-pound lump lodged in your brain or your stomach or your shoulder blade, and this thing that your own body has produced is actually trying to kill you. Depression is a lot like that: Slowly, over the years, the data will accumulate in your heart and mind, a computer program for total negativity will build into your system, making life feel more and more unbearable. But you won't even notice it coming on, thinking that it is somehow normal, something about getting older, about turning eight or turning twelve or turning fifteen, and then one day you realize that your entire life is just awful, not worth living, a horror and a black blot on the white terrain of human existence. One morning you wake up afraid you are going to live. In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead. The actual dying part, the withering away of my physical body, was a mere formality. My spirit, my emotional being, whatever you want to call all that inner turmoil that has nothing to do with physical existence, were long gone, dead and gone, and only a mass of the most fucking god-awful excruciating pain like a pair of boiling hot tongs clamped tight around my spine and pressing on all my nerves was left in its wake. That's the thing I want to make clear about depression: It's got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal -- unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature's part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space. But for all intents and purposes, the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead. And the scariest part is that if you ask anyone in the throes of depression how he got there, to pin down the turning point, he'll never know. There is a classic moment in The Sun Also Rises when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, 'Gradually and then suddenly.' When someone asks how I love my mind, that is all I can say too

Dorian,' Aelin said, pain lancing down her spine as burnout neared. He turned his head, an eye still on the wall of flickering flames. Such pain, and grief, and rage in those eyes. Yet, somehow, beneath it all - a spark of spirit. Of hope. Aelin extended her hand - a question and an offer and a promise. 'To a better future,' she said. 'You came back,' he said, as if that were an answer. They joined hands. So the world ended. And the next one began.

So all I can do is cry with her. Somehow, it never occurred to me that this was an option: that two people, in the same hug, could both be allowed to fall apart. That maybe it’s neither of our jobs to keep a steel spine. That we can both survive this pain without the other shouldering it.

Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney. Personal failures: kishkes. ... When the clocks are turned back and the dark falls before I'm ready, this, for reasons I can't explain, I feel in my wrists. And when I wake up and my fingers are stiff , almost certainly I was dreaming of my childhood. ... Yesterday I saw a man kicking a dog and I felt it behind my eyes. I don't know what to call this, a place before tears. The pain of forgetting: spine. The pain of remembering: spine. All the times I have suddenly realized that my parents are dead, even now, it still surprises me, to exist in the world while that which made me has ceased to exist: my knees. ... To everything a season, to every time I've woken only to make the mistake of believing for a moment that someone was sleeping beside me: a hemorrhoid. Loneliness: there is no organ that can take it all.

At last the cold crept up my spine; at last it filled me from foot to head; at last I grew so chill and desolate that all thought and pain and awareness came to a standstill. I wasn't miserable anymore: I wasn't anything at all. I was a nothing-- a random configuration of molecules. If my heart still beat I didn't know it. I was aware of one thing only; next to the gaping fact called Death, all I knew was nothing, all I did meant nothing, all I felt conveyed nothing. This was no passing thought. It was a gnawing, palpable emptiness more real than the cold.

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will. If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard. [From 'Women's Rights Are Human Rights' Speech Beijing, China: 5 September 1995]

I could not bear the deep freeze settling around my bones at the thought that yet another attempt to get out of my life alive would end in disappointment. Time became palpable and viscous. Every minute, every second, every nanosecond, wrapped around my spine so that my nerves tightened and ached. I faded into abstraction. A self-generated narcosis created a painful blank where my mind used to be.

You see, that's the thing with you detrus," Chase began in a contemplative tone. "Your bodies are abominations. If I severed your arms--" Lothaire yawned loudly. "--you'd merely regenerate from the injury. You might experience pain, but you wouldn't suffer the horror of permanent loss, not like a human." Lothaire grew increasingly bored by this. "When I get free, I believe I'll show you your spine. I'll hand it to you so casually, politely even, as if expecting you to remark upon it.

Solar Eclipse Each morning I wake invisible. I make a needle from a porcupine quill, sew feet to legs, lift spine onto my thighs. I put on my rib and collarbone. I pin an ear to my head, hear the waxwing's yellow cry. I open my mouth for purple berries, stick on periwinkle eyes. I almost know what it is to be seen. My throat enlarges from anger. I make a hand to hold my pain. My heart a hole the size of the sun's eclipse. I push through the dark circle's tattered edge of light. All day I struggle with one hair after another until the moon moves from the face of the sun and there is a strange light as though from a kerosene lamp in a cabin. I pun on a dress, a shawl over my shoulders. My threads knotted and scissors gleaming. Now I know I am seen. I have a shadow. I extend my arms, dance and chant in the sun's new light. I put a hat and coat on my shadow, another larger dress. I put on more shawls and blouses and underskirts until even the shadow has substance

And even if Amina didn't yet know what it was to love like that, to burn until your spine has no choice but to try to wind itself around an empty shirt, she understood for sure that the people who said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all were a bunch of dicks.

I write with my spine, create through my heart and defiant mind. Happy or not happy, it’s real, it’s living like blood, pen and paper. Hearts that wake up racing, wanting. Trading fear in for the hurt, the hard, the challenge, the change, the pain, the stuff that makes you grow bigger, stronger, better. Granting you the crazy, the genius, the ability, the power to change the world.

Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.

Beautiful in the way pain was beautiful, because it tugged at the chest and made something visceral come alive in the stomach and caused blood to simmer in the veins. Enchanting in the way she imagined dark magic was, because it twisted the air around it and warped the mind and overpowered the senses. Haunting in the way only very few living things could be, because it sent a shiver down the spine and cloaked itself in the darkness and fed on the energy around them.

She seemed to fold into herself, like a pleated wing. Her pain antagonized me. I wanted to open her up, crisp her edges, ram a stick down that hunched and curving spine, force her to stand erect and spit the misery out on the streets. But she held it in where it could lap up into her eyes.

Abandoned. The word alone sends shudders down a sensitive spine, troubling the thoughts of pained souls as their hurt swells in ripples. It is a sentence of undesired solitude often pronounced on the innocent, the trusting—administered without warning or satisfactory cause. One day the moon is yours, or so you believe. The next, his countenance transforms from Jekyll to Hyde with no intention of ever turning back, and you are left trampled upon in a deserted street, concealed by dirty fog that squelches all illumination or any hope for future rays of light. It is the worst of mysteries why a beast considered noble would forsake his duty, exhibiting a heart of stone. And all who once looked on him, now turn down their eyes and suffer, beguiled. Some poisons have no antidote, but are slow, silent, torturous ends that curl up the broken body swept into a cold, dark corner. There she is left to drown in her tears—a dying heart. Abandoned.

Here dwells a snake, one thousand miles long Coiled, one thousand miles deep Eyes like candy, it has eyes like candy Hard and blue, but soft as kittens feet Out of sight or in the element of light It could be a devil, it could be an angel With spiders inside a vision from hell Its spine is a vertical scream Slow as concrete, blurred as a dream Fueled by inertia, depth, radius, and velocity, Its soul--a twisted wreckage of despair and pain And the spiders inside are just praying for rain Killing time killing time And praying for rain One thousand miles deep

Honestly, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. It's like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking - lit - seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash. There is something at the back of my eyes- a pressure building, building, building - hot like the flames of seven candles, which no amount of breath can extinguish. I imagine drinking glasses of water. One, two, three four, five, six, seven. I dive into the clearest pool. I drown myself in the coarse, dry sand. I swallow handfuls of crushed white salt, but the flames burn still - brighter, hotter, deeper. Sweat runs in delicate patterns down my back, over my crooked spine and jutting hips. I scratch at the wounds these last weeks have left, but I can't break free of them. The flies gather and vultures circle overhead. The fire eats away my flesh. The fire spreads. The fire runs through my veins. The fire courses beneath my muscles - my tendons - the marrow of my bones. I sit rocking on the street corner. No, I can't keep doing this. I just can't.

You take all of our pain, you are the spine. You are the blood soaked rag that holds closed the wounds in our soul.

A chiropractor is a doctor who performs adjustments on the spine," Rickey told the class before bending Gary backward and "adjusting" him, ripping off the false arm and spraying red hair dye all over the classroom. Gary howled in "pain" and collapsed dramatically on the threadbare school carpet, his legs flailing a bit before hitting the floor with a terrible, final-sounding thunk. That was the first time they were sent to the principal's office together. They had to apologize to their teacher and explain to their classmates that doctor visits were unlikely to result in surprise dismemberments.

Wanna know what a bullet feels like, Warren? A real one? It’s not like in the comics…I think you need to. Feel it…It’s not going to make a neat little hole. First - it’ll obliterate your internal organs. Your lung will collapse, feels like drowning…When it finally hits your spine, it’ll blow your central nervous system-…I’m talking. The pain will be unbearable, but you won’t be able to move… A bullet usually travels faster than this, of course. But the dying? It seems like it takes forever. Something, isn’t it? One tiny piece of metal destroys everything. It ripped her insides out… It took her light away. From me. From the world… And now the one person who should be here is gone - and a waste like you gets to live. A tiny piece of metal. Can you feel it now?

She gritted her teeth as his needle pierced along her spine. “I’m glad you’re here—that I’ll see Endovier again for the first time with you here.” To face that part of her past, that suffering and torment, if she couldn’t yet look too closely at the last several months. His tools, the numbing pain, halted. Then his lips brushed the top of her spine, right above the start of the new tattoo. The same tattoo he’d had Gavriel and Fenrys inking on his own back these past few days, whenever they stopped for the night. “I’m glad to be here, too, Fireheart.” For however much longer the gods would allow it.

She slapped him so fast and so hard,his head actually kicked back on his spine.His first instinct was to bare his fangs and bite her,to punish her,to tantalize himself-because there was no better spice to pleasure than a little pain.Or a lot of it.He righted his head and lowered his lids."That felt good.Do you want to do it again?

Ask me for money, Peter.” I grabbed his wrists and pushed him against the wall. He looked everywhere but at me, no attempt to free himself. He was definitely stronger than I, but right that second I didn’t care if he was being patronizing. If it forced him to answer me, then patronizing I’d take. “No,” he murmured. “Ask me for money, goddamn you.” I punctuated it with a slam of his wrists, hard enough to jar, but not painful—I hoped. The next time my shirt wouldn’t be there to cushion it. I was that pissed. “I have!” He spat back, easily extricating his hands and pushing me away. I grabbed his arm, turning him around. “For Cai. For sex. Not for you. You’d rather go fuck a bunch of strangers—” “I don’t fuck anyone but Darryl anymore,” he denied. “It’s just a show for a bunch of voyeurs. No one gets hurt.” “I get hurt!” “I don’t have any other way, Austin.” “You have me. Ask me,” I said, hating the pleading sound in my voice. “No.” “Jesus Christ, why the fuck not?” “Because I don’t want you to be a fucking trick!” The shout was so loud I felt the vibrations along my spine.

I have a needle being stuck into my spine, can anyone please define "a little pain"?

It rasped her, though, to have stirring about in her this brutal monster! to hear twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest, the soul; never to be content quite, or quite secure, for at any moment the brute would be stirring, this hatred, which, especially since her illness, had power to make her feel scraped, hurt in her spine; gave her physical pain, and made all pleasure in beauty; in friendship, in being well, in being loved and making her home delightful rock, quiver and bend as if indeed there were a monster grubbing at the roots, as if the whole panoply of content were nothing but self love! this hatred!

There is a moment when all hope disappears, all pride is gone, all expectation, all faith, all desire. I own that moment. It belongs to me. That's when I hear the sound, the sound of a mind breaking. It's not a loud crack like when bones shatter or a spine fractures or a skull collapses. And it's not something soft and wet like a heart breaking. It's a sound that makes you wonder how much pain a person can endure; a sound that shatters memories and lets the past leak into the present; a sound so high that only the hounds of hell can hear it. Can you hear it? Someone is curled up in a tiny ball crying softly into an endless night.

I shouldn’t fucking want you the way I do. I shouldn’t be thinking about you . . .” He swallows. “But I am.” He presses his body against mine, causing a shiver to run up my spine. “Tell me to go away,” he demands.

There’s a kind of focusing effect that happens when you’re very ill. I saw it with my granddad, when he was slipping away. You stop caring about the big stuff. Your world shrinks down to very small concerns: the way your dressing gown cord presses uncomfortably against your ribs, the pain in your spine, the feel of a hand in yours. It’s that narrowing that enables you to cope, I suppose. The wider world stops mattering. And as you grow more and more ill, your world shrinks further, until the only thing that matters is just to keep on breathing.

Adam rejoined Blue on the other side of the vehicle. He took pains to stare at neither her breasts nor her lips. Adam and Blue were no longer together – insofar as they had ever been together in the first place – but being broken up and aware that it was good for both of them had not diminished the aesthetic appeal of either set of body parts. Her hair had got wilder since he first met her, less contained by all of her clips, and her mouth had got messier since he met her, more desirous of forbidden kisses, and her stance had got harder, her spine sharpened by grief and peril.

The past became a long, razor-sharp skewer that stabbed right through his heart. Silent silver pain shot through him, transforming his spine to a pillar of ice. The pain remained, unabated. He held his breath, shut his eyes tight, enduring the agony.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend

pain that would extend down his spine into one leg or the other, like a wooden stake set aflame and thrust into him:

High-repetition kettlebell swings are known to help significantly with back tightness and pain. Why? Because kettlebell swings with light weights force your core muscles to stabilize your spine while simultaneously providing a stimulus for the back to become stronger under load.

A HOW-TO ON DISAPPEARING No one understands the way we break. Not jagged. Not knife sliding between ribs. Not the spine, cracking. That would be too easy. That would be being able to know that you're broken. That would be X-rays showing the gaps, the fissures. Clean breaks are easier to heal. We do not break cleanly. We break without breaking. Not a crack, but a fog. We dissipate. Body here one moment and not here the next. Hands working one moment and a dead weight the next. We watch ourselves turn colourless. Watch ourselves become invisible / invincible. This way, at least the pain is our own. That's what I wanted all along, I guess.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend.” —Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

You once told me why you chose 'Day' as your street name,' she says firmly. 'Every morning, everything is possible again. Right?' A river of tingles run up my spine. I want to take her face in my hands again, kiss her cheeks and study her dark, sad eyes and tell her I'll be okay. But that would just be another lie. Half of my heart is breaking at the pain in her face; the other half, I realize quiltily, is swelling with happiness to know that she still cares. There's love in her tragic words, in the folds of that thin metal ring. Isn't there? Finally I take a deep breath. 'Sometimes, the sun sets earlier. Days don't last forever, you know. But I'll fight as hard as I can. I can promise you that.

He was... magnificent. Beautiful in the way pain was beautiful, because it tugged at the chest and made something visceral come alive in the stomach and caused blood to simmer in the veins. Enchanting in the way she imagined dark magic was, because it twisted the air around it and warped the mind and overpowered the senses. Haunting in the way only very few living things could be, because it sent a shiver down the spine and cloaked itself in the darkness and fed on the energy around them.

Most of the structural changes in your spine are natural occurrences.” “The brain doesn’t want to face up to the repressed anger, so it is running away from it.” “By laughing at or ignoring the pain, you are teaching the brain to send new messages to the muscles.” “We’re going to help you take the Sword of Damocles into your hands instead of having it hang over your head.

A hard pain it Munro's spine as it lurched into an awkward curve, arching his back off the surface where he lay. Muscles contracted, jerking and releasing, jerking and releasing. The calm voices grew insistent and frenzied, but in a controlled, orchestrated way.

Sick" "I cannot go to school today," Said little Peggy Ann McKay. "I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox And there's one more--that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut--my eyes are blue-- It might be instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke-- My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in, My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My nose is cold, my toes are numb. I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There is a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is. . .Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play!

Twirling the breeze like it's cotton candy, I'm not the one they marry- Every thirsty Thursday and drowned Sunday, I collect them all and carry The gypsy heart is too romanticized; Whispers that scream down your spine Never the Hellfire pain that's advertised, only dancing with the wine

Suppose I stopped taking aspirin and phenylbutazone? What about the pain? The bones in my spine and practically every joint in my body felt as though I had been run over by a truck. I knew that pain could be affected by attitudes. Most people become panicky about almost any pain. On all sides they have been so bombarded with advertisements about pain that they take this or that analgesic at the slightest sign of an ache. We are largely illiterate about pain and so are seldom able to deal with it rationally. Pain is part of the body's magic. It is the way the body transmits a sign to the body that something is wrong.

Her legs were heavy. A grunt followed each step she took. Each step she took sent a painful sensation up her spine. Each step she took caused her knees to wobble. Yet she walked.

If a situation is bad, it’s bad. Pretending otherwise does not help. The

Getting caught up in a “good cause” (The cause might be excellent, but the driving force behind it could be suspect if examined carefully.)

emotional insult is processed in exactly the same way in the brain as a physical insult.

Don’t let anyone or anything, anywhere, anytime, or anyplace take away my ability to enjoy my day.

In the mid-1980s, the medical world wrestled with how to use the new opiates that pharmaceutical companies were developing to treat pain. David Procter was an early and aggressive adopter. He prescribed opiates for neck, leg, and lower back pain, arthritis, and lower lumbar spine pain. He combined them with benzodiazepines—anxiety relievers, of which Valium and Xanax, Procter’s favorite, are the best known. In Portsmouth, people had anxiety and they had pain. Appalachia had a long history of using benzodiazepines—dating to the release of Valium in the early 1960s. Little old ladies used it. In this part of the country, anything that relieved pain was welcome. But opiates and benzos together also led quickly to addiction.

I darted like a minnow through passers-by, in a most ungraceful fashion, constantly giving way to generals. officers of the Horse Guards and the Hussars, and fine ladies; at those moments I felt a spasmodic pain in my heart and hot flushes down my spine at the thought of the wretched inadequacy of my costume and the mean vulgarity of my small figure darting about.

Night again. We are deadened by the strain—a deadly tension that scrapes along one’s spine like a gapped knife. Our legs refuse to move, our hands tremble, our bodies are a thin skin stretched painfully over repressed madness, over an almost irresistible, bursting roar. We have neither flesh nor muscles any longer, we dare not look at one another for fear of some miscalculable thing. So we shut our teeth—it will end—it will end—perhaps we will come through.

Kuslich SD, Ulstrom CL, Michael CJ. The tissue origin of low back pain and sciatica: a report of pain response to tissue stimulation during operations on the lumbar spine using local anesthesia. Orthop Clin North Am. 1991;22(2):181

I still don't see how it would make me feel any better to think of the pain in my hip and spine as anything other than my most loyal and valuable companion, the continuous nonvoice in my ear that says, You got out alive and you still get to go.

You are a bright light, Elli.’ His own breath hitches, a sound that I cannot quite grasp. His eyes are darkening, his lips tightening. His hands grasp me tighter and he moves closer, his mouth inches from mine, I can almost taste the sweetness and saltiness of his scent, the rich coffee beans and sugar, the vague spearmint. I say nothing, I’m not even sure I’m breathing. ‘You shouldn’t have to see such pain, such blackness. You are too pure.’ His lips do not collide with mine, his skin does not brush against me, only his voice sends a shiver down every notch in my spine, trailing goose bumps over my skin. He tilts his head to the side, his lips gently brushing against my ear. And that is all. I’m not good enough for him. I’m not. That’s why… that’s why… ‘Too pure…

I don't remember the song she sang – I never really liked her songs – but standing in the empty concert hall, listening to her sing without backing music, with no support of any kind, I found that the sheer beauty of the voice, it's monumental dose of soul, the pain implicit within it, bypassed all my conscious opinions, my critical intelligence or sense of the sentimental, or whatever it is that people are referring to when they talk about their own "good taste," going instead straight into my spine, where it convulsed a muscle and undid me.

I still stared at Daemon, completely aware that everyone else except him was watching me. Closely. But why wouldn’t he look at me? A razor-sharp panic clawed at my insides. No. This couldn’t be happening. No way.
 My body was moving before I even knew what I was doing. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dee shake her head and one of the Luxen males step forward, but I was propelled by an inherent need to prove that my worst fears were not coming true. After all, he’d healed me, but then I thought of what Dee had said, of how Dee had behaved with me. What if Daemon was like her? Turned into something so foreign and cold? He would’ve healed me just to make sure he was okay. I still didn’t stop.
 Please, I thought over and over again. Please. Please. Please. On shaky legs, I crossed the long room, and even though Daemon hadn’t seemed to even acknowledge my existence, I walked right up to him, my hands trembling as I placed them on his chest. “Daemon?” I whispered, voice thick. His head whipped around, and he was suddenly staring down at me. Our gazes collided once more, and for a second I saw something so raw, so painful in those beautiful eyes. And then his large hands wrapped around my upper arms. The contact seared through the shirt I wore, branding my skin, and I thought—I expected—that he would pull me against him, that he would embrace me, and even though nothing would be all right, it would be better. Daemon’s hands spasmed around my arms, and I sucked in an unsteady breath. His eyes flashed an intense green as he physically lifted me away from him, setting me back down a good foot back. I stared at him, something deep in my chest cracking. “Daemon?” He said nothing as he let go, one finger at a time, it seemed, and his hands slid off my arms. He stepped back, returning his attention to the man behind the desk. “So . . . awkward,” murmured the redhead, smirking. I was rooted to the spot in which I stood, the sting of rejection burning through my skin, shredding my insides like I was nothing more than papier-mâché. “I think someone was expecting more of a reunion,” the Luxen male behind the desk said, his voice ringing with amusement. “What do you think, Daemon?” One shoulder rose in a negligent shrug. “I don’t think anything.” My mouth opened, but there were no words. His voice, his tone, wasn’t like his sister’s, but like it had been when we first met. He used to speak to me with barely leashed annoyance, where a thin veil of tolerance dripped from every word. The rift in my chest deepened.
For the hundredth time since the Luxen arrived, Sergeant Dasher’s warning came back to me. What side would Daemon and his family stand on? A shudder worked its way down my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself, unable to truly process what had just happened. “And you?" the man asked. When no one answered, he tried again. “Katy?” I was forced to look at him, and I wanted to shrink back from his stare. “What?” I was beyond caring that my voice broke on that one word. The man smiled as he walked around the desk. My gaze flickered over to Daemon as he shifted, drawing the attention of the beautiful redhead. “Were you expecting a more personal greeting?” he asked. “Perhaps something more intimate?” I had no idea how to answer. I felt like I’d fallen into the rabbit hole, and warnings were firing off left and right. Something primal inside me recognized that I was surrounded by predators. Completely.

Parental love is a matchless thing; if it weren't for that, most of us wouldn't have a pot to piss in, affectionately speaking. But even at its most irreplacable, it's still pretty cheap. Any ape loves their children; spiders lie still while theirs crawl around inside them, happy to let them eat their guts. The only reason anybody unrelated is ever nice to anyone else, meanwhile, is as a sort of pre-emptive emotional strike - to prevent themselves from being treated as badly, potentially, as they might have treated other people. Which makes love only the lie two brains on spines tell each other, the lie that says: "You exist, because I love you. You exist, because you can see yourself in my eyes." So we blunder from hope to hope, hollowed and searching. All of us equally incomplete. And after all these years, still the sting comes, the liquid pressure in the chest and nose, the migraine-forerunner frown. Phantom pain. The ghost without the murder. But what the fuck? That's all it is, ever. You want to be loved. You tell other people you love them, in order to trick them into loving you back. And after a while, it's true. You feel the pull, the ache.

Nathan kept trying to reassure him. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. Not to you. You can forget it, if you’d rather.” Matt listened to Nathan’s heartbeat, fast and light like a deer flashing through sunshine and shadow. “Listen, Nathan…” Nathan was silent, but Matt could feel the immediate tension down his spine. “I loved Rachel with all my heart. You’re right, nothing changes that. But—I never wanted her the way I want you.” Nathan slid out from under him, rolled over. His face was different, grave but sort of lit from within in a way that gave Matt a funny pain in his chest.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain . . . Or so says the legend.

Then something explodes behind her eyelids into a radial green fan, dazzling her with pain. Her neck aches, her abdomen. The pain moves lower. It feels as if an umbrella were opening below her navel. Menstrual cramps, she thinks. Seconds later, as with a soldering iron, an acute and narrowly focused heat climbs her spine.

Asmoday slides a finger down Keely’s spine, exposed from the backless nightgown. “I did not do this.” Keely shivers at his unexpected touch. His fingers are like ice and feel good against the painful gashes. “No, you didn’t. This is courtesy of our brother.” “I am not a fan of his art, though he did have a beautiful canvas.

It rasped her, though, to have stirring about her this brutal monster! to hear twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest, the soul; never to be content quite, or quite secure, for at any moment the brute would be stirring, this hatred, which, especially since her illness had power to make her feel scraped, hurt in her spine; gave her physical pain, and made all pleasure in beauty, in friendship, in being well, in being loved and making her home a delightful rock, quiver, and bend as if indeed there were a monster grubbing at the roots, as if the whole panoply of content were nothing but self love! this hatred!

Jane Russell! My physical therapist had never heard of her. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” I said. “Not in my experience,” she replied. Bina’s younger; perhaps that’s it. All this was earlier today; before I could argue with her, she laced one of my legs over the other, capsized me onto my right side. The pain left me breathless. “Your hamstrings need this,” she assured me. “You bitch,” I gasped. She pressed my knee to the floor. “You’re not paying me to go easy on you.” I winced. “Can I pay you to leave?” Bina visits once a week to help me hate life, as I like to say, and to provide updates on her sexual adventures, which are about as exciting as my own. Only in Bina’s case it’s because she’s picky. “Half the guys on these apps are using five-year-old photos,” she’ll complain, her waterfall of hair poured over one shoulder, “and the other half are married. And the other half are single for a reason.” That’s three halves, but you don’t debate math with someone who’s rotating your spine.

It is important to warm and caress every portion of the curved surface, into the groove and up over the base of the spine. Pause around the open lips of the vagina to see if she is wet and, if so, she is ready for the first strike. Spanking is sexual, sensual, erotic. It has absolutely nothing to do with causing pain. It is about ultimate pleasure.

What gave the morphine molecule its immense power, he said, was that it evolved somehow to fit, key in lock, into the receptors that all mammals, especially humans, have in their brains and spines. The so-called mu-opioid receptors—designed to create pleasure sensations when they receive endorphins the body naturally produces—were especially welcoming to the morphine molecule. The receptor combines with endorphins to give us those glowing feelings at, say, the sight of an infant or the feel of a furry puppy. The morphine molecule overwhelms the receptor, creating a far more intense euphoria than anything we come by internally. It also produces drowsiness, constipation, and an end to physical pain. Aspirin had a limit to the amount of pain it could calm. But the more morphine you took, Coop said, the more pain was dulled.

The sword pierced the general’s neck before he registered the movement. “Just a child!” His mind screamed as the blade bit deeper. “Just a child!” The blade chinked against his spine, a sound he refused to accept, a sound he had heard too often not to recognise. “Just a child!” His sight faltered, disappeared, all life vanishing in one sharp spurt of pain. “Just a child!” as Raziel damned his soul to hell.

The sensation of being inside of her, their bodies connected, sent a chill down Corrado's spine that rivaled only the thrill he got from hearing her whimper and moan. He did that. He caused that. His hands—hands that roamed her flushed skin, hands that cupped her warm cheeks as he kissed her deeply—didn't just cause pain. Those hands didn't just brutalize. They were capable of pleasure, too, pleasure reserved for her.

Now the vivacious mother of his youth, who well into middle age was being complimented on her youthful vigor, was an old lady, her spine twisted and bent, a hurt and puzzled expression embedded in the creases of her face. Now, when she did not realize people were watching her, tears would rise in her eyes, eyes bearing that look both long accustomed to living with pain and startled to have been in so much pain so long.

When I heard a sharp scream, both shrill and short, my head automatically turned in the direction of the sound. I found Kresh standing at the wooden podium. He had opened one of the books piled upon it. For some odd reason, he was madly tearing out fistfuls of pages. It took a moment to comprehend that the book was screaming in response to his violent actions, as if an inanimate object were actually suffering pain. Kresh ripped the spine off, destroying the book and silencing the cries of anguish. He then threw the mangled carcass on the floor.

Sounds have always had the ability to make me feel things; audible chewing elicits anger, loud noises can bring on sudden anxiety, and high-pitched sounds resonate in my spine with something akin to physical pain. It’s not all bad, a satisfying key-change in a song brings on all the sensations of cresting on a rollercoaster, but stripped of the terror. It’s lovely. But a lot of noises all at once, even if they are exclusively pleasant sounds, will always feel like an assault, so the relentless cacophony of high school was constantly unbearably overwhelming

In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense. Sometimes he would pause, remove a volume from the shelves, and hold it for a moment in his large hands, which tingled at the still unfamiliar feel of spine and board and unresisting page. Then he would leaf through the book, reading a paragraph here and there, his stiff fingers careful as they turned the pages, as if in their clumsiness they might tear and destroy what they took such pains to uncover.

It rasped her, though, to have stirring about in her this brutal monster! to hear twigs cracking and feel hooves planted down in the depths of that leaf-encumbered forest, the soul; never to be content quite, or quite secure, for at any moment the brute would be stirring, this hatred, which, especially since her illness, had power to make her feel scraped, hurt in her spine; gave her physical pain, and made all pleasure in beauty, in friendship, in being well, in being loved and making her home delightful rock, quiver, and bend as if indeed there were a monster grubbing at the roots, as if the whole panoply of content were nothing but self love! this hatred!

Chase grunts at that, shoving himself up and away. For a moment he looks down at me, flushed and open mouthed. “Suck me.” It’s a demand. “I want to feel your tongue on my cock.” He isn’t gentle. Once I take him in my mouth he twists his fingers in my hair, the hold burning as I tilt my face to see the drop of his head, his eyes closed, his mouth parted to an O. “Fuck.” He shudders, the word hardly a shaping of his heavy breath. “Like that.” He feels so good in my mouth. Hot and hard, too much for me to take into my throat without gagging a little over his length. That makes him grunt, the hard planes of his belly tensing. I can feel his twitching indecision in the movements of his fingers through my hair, torn between the need to hold me close and the need to be inside another part of me. He doesn’t stay indecisive for long. “You want me to fuck you?” His voice is ragged. Yes, yes. I try to tell him with the sweep of my tongue and the hollow of my cheeks, the enthusiastic bob of my head. When Chase grabs me he’s rough. His hands hold tight at my shoulders as he shoves me over, face down on the bed. One fist tugs my hip up as the other braces low over my spine. “Wait,” is a rasped order. I can feel the mattress move as he leans to the bedside drawer, and then there’s the ripping sound of a foil packet torn on his teeth. There’s no warning after that. Only his cock, buried inside of me in one savage thrust. I cry out his name, and everything splinters with too much and yes and the good-ache pain of being opened by him. “Brooke.” It’s grunted at my ear as Chase begins a slow, solid pound into me, each thrust shoving to full sink. It hurts a little. He’s too big. It’s too quick. But god, it’s amazing. “Your pussy feels so good wrapped around my cock. So fucking good.” His fingers find my clit, and it’s all I can do not to cry out with how good it feels. His hips slam against my raised ass as he pounds into me, all that muscle riding me as expertly as he rode the mountains today. “Come.” He bites it at my ear, grinding his cock into me, holding the deepest penetration all the way into my aching core. “Come for me.” He’s starting to pound me again, and where my face is smashed against the pillow I whimper out the too-much-good of it, each slam of his body into mine forcing the breath from my lungs and spiking pleasure along my spine. “Please—please—please—” “Beg me,” Chase growls. “Say you want me. Say you need me inside of you.” “Please. Make me come. Chase. Please. Fuck me.” It’s so much I’m almost sobbing with it. Chase pounds on, relentless, until as I begin to spasm with my orgasm he grunts out his own. My hips pinned in his fingers. His body slammed into mine. Both of us, breaking apart together.

He thought again about the poison. He remembered that one of the animal handlers had been bitten by a compy in a cage. The handler had said the poison was like a narcotic—peaceful, dreamy. No pain. You just wanted to go to sleep. The hell with that, he thought. Hammond picked up a rock, aimed carefully, and threw it, striking one compy flat in the chest. The little animal shrieked in alarm as it was knocked backward, and rolled over its tail. The other animals immediately backed away. Better. Hammond turned away, and started to climb the hill once more. Holding branches in both hands, he hopped on his left leg, feeling the ache in his thigh. He had not gone more than ten feet when one of the compys jumped onto his back. He flung his arms wildly, knocking the animal away, but lost his balance and slid back down the hillside. As he came to a stop, a second compy sprang forward, and took a tiny nip from his hand. He looked with horror, seeing the blood flow over his fingers. He turned and began to scramble up the hillside again. Another compy jumped onto his shoulder, and he felt a brief pain as it bit the back of his neck. He shrieked and smacked the animal away. He turned to face the animals, breathing hard, and they stood all around him, hopping up and down and cocking their heads, watching him. From the bite on his neck, he felt warmth flow through his shoulders, down his spine. Lying on his back on the hillside, he began to feel strangely relaxed, detached from himself. But he realized that nothing was wrong. No error had been made. Malcolm was quite incorrect in his analysis. Hammond lay very still, as still as a child in its crib, and he felt wonderfully peaceful. When the next compy came up and bit his ankle, he made only a halfhearted effort to kick it away. The little animals edged closer. Soon they were chittering all around him, like excited birds. He raised his head as another compy jumped onto his chest, the animal surprisingly light and delicate. Hammond felt only a slight pain, very slight, as the compy bent to chew his neck.

Mild depression is a gradual and sometimes permanent thing that undermines people the way rust weakens iron. It is too much grief at too slight a cause, pain that takes over from the other emotions and crowds them out. Such depression takes up bodily occupancy in the eyelids and in the muscles that keep the spine erect. It hurts your heart and lungs, making the contraction of involuntary muscles harder than it needs to be. Like physical pain that becomes chronic, it is miserable not so much because it is intolerable in the moment as because it is intolerable to have known it in the moments gone and to look forward only to knowing it in the moments to come. The present tense of mild depression envisages no alleviation because it feels like knowledge.

I will not mention the name (and what bits of it I happen to give here appear in decorous disguise) of that man, that Franco-Hungarian writer... I would rather not dwell upon him at all, but I cannot help it— he is surging up from under my pen. Today one does not hear much about him; and this is good, for it proves that I was right in resisting his evil spell, right in experiencing a creepy chill down my spine whenever this or that new book of his touched my hand. The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates. Lean and arrogant, with some poisonous pun ever ready to fork out and quiver at you, and with a strange look of expectancy in his dull brown veiled eyes, this false wag had, I daresay, an irresistible effect on small rodents. Having mastered the art of verbal invention to perfection, he particularly prided himself on being a weaver of words, a title he valued higher than that of a writer; personally, I never could understand what was the good of thinking up books, of penning things that had not really happened in some way or other; and I remember once saying to him as I braved the mockery of his encouraging nods that, were I a writer, I should allow only my heart to have imagination, and for the rest rely upon memory, that long-drawn sunset shadow of one’s personal truth. I had known his books before I knew him; a faint disgust was already replacing the aesthetic pleasure which I had suffered his first novel to give me. At the beginning of his career, it had been possible perhaps to distinguish some human landscape, some old garden, some dream- familiar disposition of trees through the stained glass of his prodigious prose... but with every new book the tints grew still more dense, the gules and purpure still more ominous; and today one can no longer see anything at all through that blazoned, ghastly rich glass, and it seems that were one to break it, nothing but a perfectly black void would face one’s shivering soul. But how dangerous he was in his prime, what venom he squirted, with what whips he lashed when provoked! The tornado of his passing satire left a barren waste where felled oaks lay in a row, and the dust still twisted, and the unfortunate author of some adverse review, howling with pain, spun like a top in the dust.

We’ve told you before—rollwhen you land a fancy jump,” Wilford squinted in the sunlight as he yelled. “Use your shoulder to take the brunt of your fall and move with it, or you’re going to twist an ankle or break a wrist one of these days!” Tari—impressively—managed to sound like an angry bear as she translated it into Elvish. Gwendafyn nodded as she stood and gave her sword a test twirl, then yipped when her opponent wrapped a meaty hand around her left ankle and pulled it out from under her. “Stay aware of your surroundings,” Thad instructed as he narrowed his eyes. “No opponent is going to stop and let you catch your breath!” Gwendafyn kicked like a jackrabbit, yanking her leg free, then rolled away from the soldier. “For the love of Lady Tari’s favorite lemon bars,” Grygg grumbled. “What part of ‘fight dirty’ isn’t translating correctly?” “Don’t hold back, Princess,” Wilford advised. “We know you’ve got the edge—you’ve broken Grygg’s nose three times. That’s a new record. Phelps, here, could use a little bone re-arrangement, too.” “Shut up, Wilford!” Gwendafyn’s opponent—Phelps, apparently—growled as he staggered to his feet. Gwendafyn crisply nodded when Tari finished translating, then promptly turned and flung her wooden practice sword at Phelps with deadly accuracy. The soldier swore and had to throw himself to the ground to avoid it. Gwendafyn closed the distance between them with the blink of an eye, extended her elbow, and rammed the soldier in the spine with the hardest bone of her elbow. All of Phelps’ air left him in a painful-sounding exhale, and for a moment, he went limp. “Ouch,” Grygg winced in sympathy. “That had to hurt.

Hold on tight then. I hope you're not afraid of the dark.” He thrust forward, slamming himself inside me, and I screamed. Not from the pain. There wasn't any. Only a stretching, and a fullness, and an awesome wave of energy that fired up my spine in a series of bursts that felt like small explosions. It was so much, all at once, that I had to scream. As if he were experiencing something very similar, Fisher threw his head back, the muscles in his neck straining, his jaw clenched tight, roaring through his teeth. 'Fuuuuck!” Just one stroke. He'd entered me once, and I was done for. I was a ball of sensation, humming with energy. In the darkness, Fisher slowly lowered his head, his lips parted, hair mussed, and the dazed look of surprise on his face sent a rush of adrenalin powering through me. Gods and Martyrs. I would never forget seeing him like this. If I did manage to make my way back home, the image of him like this, seated inside me, skin slick with sweat, chest hitching, would sustain me until the day I died. Fisher. Kingfisher. Lord of Cahlish. I hated him, I did. But you couldn't hate something without caring about it just a little, too. “Witch,” he accused. “You do have magic.” He was so fucking big; his hard length twitched inside me, and my body answered in kind, tightening around him. His fingers gouged into my skin, digging deeper into my hips. With a mantle of black smoke swirling around him like a dark wind, he moved. Slowly, at first. The tendons in his neck stood proud as he pulled back and eased out of me just an inch. The smallest of movements drew him home. Again, he shifted, rolling his hips, working his cock a little deeper each time he thrust back into me. The pace he set was torturous.

The last encounter was one Ian enjoyed, because Elizabeth was with him after they’d had their second-and last permissible-dance. Viscount Mondevale had approached them with Valerie hanging on his arm, and the rest of their group fanned around them. The sight of the young woman who’d caused them both so much pain evoked almost as much ire in Ian as the sight of Mondevale watching Elizabeth like a lovelorn swain. “Mondevale,” Ian had said curtly, feeling the tension in Elizabeth’s fingers when she looked at Valerie, “I applaud your taste. I’m certain Miss Jamison will make you a fine wife, if you ever get up the spine to ask her. If you do, however, take my advice, and hire her a tutor, because she can’t write and she can’t spell.” Transferring his blistering gaze to the gaping young woman, Ian clipped, “’Greenhouse’ has a ‘u’ in it. Shall I spell ‘malice’ for you as well?” “Ian,” Elizabeth chided gently as they walked away. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” She looked up at him and smiled, and Ian grinned back at her. Suddenly he felt completely in harmony with the world. The feeling was so lasting that he managed to endure the remaining three weeks-with all the requisite social and courtship rituals and betrothal formalities-with equanimity while he mentally marked off each day before he could make her his and join his starving body with hers. With a polite smile on his face Ian appeared at teas and mentally composed letters to his secretary; he sat through the opera and slowly undressed her in his mind; he endured eleven Venetian breakfasts where he mentally designed an entirely new kind of mast for his fleet of ships; he escorted her to eighteen balls and politely refrained from acting our his recurring fantasy of dismembering the fops who clustered around her, eyeing her lush curves and mouthing platitudes to her. It was the longest three weeks of his life. It was the shortest three weeks of hers.

I could make you beg,” Madi said casually, sliding his hand inside Az’s pants. He teased over the flared head and rubbed his thumb along Az’s slit, gathering the fluid there and working it just over the crown of Az’s cock until Az bucked desperately into his grip. Az rested his head on Madi’s shoulder so he could speak directly into his ear. “Is that what you need, motek? My submission?” He couldn’t stop the words falling from his lips. Madi didn’t speak, but his hand constricted around Az’s throbbing hard-on. “Does the thought of my begging for your cock turn you on? Is that what you need to cease this ridiculous ground rule?” Madi’s other hand trailed upward, twisting Az’s nipple until he hissed at the pleasure-pain that sent shocks along his spine. “Is it not enough I let you fuck me when nobody else can or that I surrender my flesh to your blade? Do you need the words now, too? If I beg, will you fuck me right here? Hmm? What if I call your bluff?

Now algae bloomed as never before, causing snail populations to explode. The snails hosted tiny parasitic worms that harbored schistosomiasis, a horrible disease that leaves its victims chronically prostrate with abdominal pain, high fever, fatigue, and diarrhea. Schistosomiasis had been unknown in the region before Ford came along; after Fordlandia, it was endemic. Malaria, yellow fever, elephantiasis, and hookworm were rife as well. Agonizing discomfort could come from almost anywhere. The river teemed with a little fish, the candiru, or toothpick fish, which would swim into any available human orifice (most notoriously the penis), then extend prickly, backward-facing spines, making it impossible to dislodge. On land, maggots from the botfly Dermatobia hominis burrowed into the skin and hatched eggs; victims knew of an infestation when they could see wriggling just under their skin or when sores erupted and newborn maggots spilled out. Beyond the camp boundaries, vipers and jaguars

Or perhaps it was nothing but happiness, Therese thought, a complete happiness that must be rare enough, so rare that very few people ever knew it. But if it was merely happiness, then it had gone beyond the ordinary bounds and become something else, become a kind of excessive pressure, so that the weight of a coffee cup in her hand, the speed of a cat crossing the garden below, the silent crash of two clouds seemed almost more than she could bear. And just as she had not understood a month ago the phenomenon of sudden happiness, she did not understand her state now, which seemed an aftermath. It was more often painful than pleasant, and consequently she was afraid she had some grave and unique flaw. She was as afraid sometimes as if she were walking about with a broken spine. If she ever had an impulse to tell Carol, the words dissolved before she began, in fear and in her usual mistrust of her own reactions, the anxiety that her reactions were like no one else’s, and that therefore not even Carol could understand them.

Unfortunately, sitting rests the parts of the body that don’t need much of it while working the parts that desperately do. Specifically, it disengages the lower extremities while utilizing the spine. (This is in sharp contrast to squatting, which disengages the spine while utilizing the lower extremities.) Because sitting positions the spine vertically, it provides no rest or relief from the gravitational forces that compress it. Without a periodic therapeutic reprieve through the day, the relentless load overwhelms the entire structure, joints and muscles alike. To maintain an erect seated posture, some muscle groups in the back have to continually contract. Since this requires a great deal of energy, the muscles quickly become fatigued. (That is why slumping is more comfortable: It takes less energy to maintain.) When the muscles tire, you rely on the backrest more and your muscles less. The less you rely on your muscles, the weaker and more dysfunctional they become. The weaker and more dysfunctional they become, the more you rely on the backrest. The more you rely on the backrest, the more you tend to slump. The more you slump, the more pronounced the debilitating C-shaped curvature becomes. This weakens the muscles in your back even further, which causes them to overload the joints they serve. Sitting in chairs affects even the areas seemingly at rest (particularly the hips and knees). Because sitting keeps the joints static for long periods, the muscles that serve them become fixed in a short, tight position. When at last you do get up and move, the muscles impose more stress on these joints, thereby increasing their susceptibility to wear and tear. The prolonged stasis also prevents the joints from being lubricated with nourishing synovial fluid. Once depleted, the hips and knees, like the spine, deteriorate and erode. Is it any wonder that the areas most traumatized by sitting, namely, the lower back, hips, and knees, are also the most arthritic and disabled areas of the body in the world today? The real mystery is why so few people have made the connection between prolonged sitting and the epidemic of chronic pain. In fact, they need only look to their own bodies for an abundance of evidence.

Ouch.” The yelp came out by accident as Trent went back over the bumps of her spine. Harper winced. Trent was doing his best to move the needle location around, she could feel that, but it was really starting to hurt. She heard Trent put down his equipment and slide the stool around in front of her. “This is the worst it’s going to be, Harp. You’re being so incredibly brave. I’ve had grown men cry at this point.” He paused for a moment before kissing her gently on the temple. “We have two options. I can stop in a minute and we can pick it up next time, or I can keep going for another twenty minutes and it will be done. The final appointments, then, will be short and sweet. Not to mention a whole lot less painful.” Harper took in a deep breath and blew it out harshly. Determined not to cry, she bit down on her lip hard. It stopped the pending deluge, but the tears still threatened. “Oh darlin’.” Trent kissed her softly. “I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat if I could. I know it hurts where I’m working.” Harper nodded. He understood. “Can you make it fifteen?” Trent kissed the side of her eye, where a single tear was making a break for freedom. “I’ll do it in ten.

They were all there. On the ceiling. Pulling him up. He screamed, spittle and vomit running into his beard. Hands closed around him, digging into his skin. He resisted, trying to pry the fingers loose from his neck. He felt something give, a tension slackening. As he yanked with the power of terror and adrenaline, his hands flew outwards, a clump of mottled fingers coming away with him. He felt a sharp tug as his arms fell to his sides, his body screaming at him that something bad was happening. Another pull as the most intense pain he had ever felt exploded down his back and neck. He started to convulse as they pulled him up. Something spilled out of his mouth. Hands swarmed around his back and head. With one last tug, he heard a ripping noise. Blood fell to the floor, spraying out across the foyer. Something else tore open with a slurp, heavy suction holding tight as it came loose. He had the momentary feeling of cold air rushing inside him, then watched as his body spilled away from him, crashing to the floor below. As they bit down into his skull, he watched his spine twitching underneath his chin. A noise like nuts being broken open, something mashed into his brain, and then he was gone.

What do you think? he asked. Go slowly, so that you do not bite your tail by accident. He agreed with her, then, feeling impish, asked, And have you ever done that? Bitten your tail, I mean? She remained silently aloof, but he caught a brief flash of sensations: a medley of images--trees, grass, sunshine, the mountains of the Spine--as well as the cloying scent of red orchids and a sudden painful, pinching sensation, as if a door had slammed shut on her tail. Eragon chuckled quietly to himself, then concentrated on composing the spells he thought he would need to heal the girl. It took quite a while, almost a half hour. He and Saphira spent most of that time going over the arcane sentences again and again, examining and debating every word and phrase--and even his pronunciation--in an attempt to ensure that the spells would do what he intended and nothing more. In the midst of their silent conversation, Gertrude shifted in her seat and said, “She looks the same as ever. The work goes badly, doesn’t it? There is no need to hide the truth from me, Eragon; I have dealt with far worse in my day.” Eragon raised his eyebrows and, in a mild voice, said, “The work has not yet begun.” And Gertrude sank back, subdued.

As he reached the bathroom door, Kiara’s bedroom door opened. Before he could think to avert his eyes, she saw them. Shit … Kiara’s mouth dropped as she finally saw what Nykyrian really looked like. Holy crippin’ flips. With his white hair down and flowing around his broad shoulders, he was gorgeous. The eyes staring at her were nothing like she’d imagined. They were clear and the lightest, prettiest shade of green she’d ever seen, with just a hint of a brown band around the outer edge of the iris. His eyes were human and they were beautiful. Her throat tightened in happiness. Those eyes gave her the first true glimpse of his soul. In them, she saw all the mistrust, anger, and bitterness. It was like seeing him naked. Biting her lip, she shifted her gaze to take in his entire face. There, she had no surprise. He was every bit as handsome as she’d suspected. He blinked and looked away, seemingly embarrassed. “I’m sorry about what I said last night,” he whispered, meeting her gaze for a moment to show her his sincerity before he looked away again. She bit her lip at the sudden thrill that skittered up her spine. This was the one person she was sure didn’t utter an apology often. “Syn told me last night. I’m sorry, too for what I said. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.” “Don’t worry about it. It didn’t even register on my pain scale.” He entered the bathroom and shut the door.

PRESCRIPTION 5 Low Back and Trunk   This prescription can be used to treat these symptoms and restrictions: Abdominal pain Compromised breathing Hip extension range of motion Hip pain Low back pain Sciatica Spinal rotation, flexion and extension range of motion   Overview Methods: Contract and relax Pressure wave Smash and floss Tools: Small ball Large ball Small bouncy ball or under-inflated soccer/volleyball Total time:  14 minutes   This prescription is great for treating low back pain and supporting the hardworking muscles of your trunk. We’ve established that poor spinal mechanics and sitting can cause adaptive stiffness and irritation in the discs, ligaments, and muscles around your spine and trunk. And when that happens, low back pain is often the result. Although there are other contributing factors to consider, like previous injuries, arthritis, obesity, and stress, we would argue that one of the leading causes of low back pain and trunk-related problems stems from poor posture, prolonged sitting, and a lack of basic self-maintenance. Having spent the majority of this book outlining a protocol for preventing and resolving the issue from a mechanical standpoint, let’s turn our attention to the maintenance side of things. This prescription targets the muscles that are responsible for keeping your spine braced, as well as the muscles that may get stiff when you move poorly or sit for too long.

I would never say it- never let her hear that, even if she killed me. And if it was to be my downfall, so be it. If it would be the weakness that would break me, I would embrace it with all my heart. If this was- For though each of my strikes lands a powerful blow, When I kill, I do it slow... That's what these three months had been- a slow, horrible death. What I felt for Tamlin was the cause of this. There was no cure- not pain, or absence, or happiness. But scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat. She could torture me all she liked, but it would never destroy what I felt for him. It would never make Tamlin want her- never ease the sting of his rejection. The world became dark at the borders of my vision, taking the edge off the pain. But I bless all those who are brave enough to dare. For so long, I had run from it. But opening myself to him, to my sisters- that had been a test of bravery as harrowing as any of my trials. 'Say it, you vile beast!' Amarantha hissed. She might have lied her way out of our bargain, but she'd sworn differently with the riddle- instantaneous freedom, regardless of her will. Blood filled my mouth, warm as it dribbled out between my lips. I gazed at Tamlin's masked face one last time. 'Love,' I breathed, the word crumbling into a blackness with no end. A pause in Amarantha's magic. 'The answer to the riddle....' I got out, choking on my own blood, 'is... love.' Tamlin's eyes went wide before something forever cracked in my spine.

I hope Lily told you how happy I was by the offer to marry your commander." "She mentioned it," Ranulf grimaced. "Who knows? Maybe Rolande and I will meet and decide to stay together, forgoing the annulment." Ranulf rocked back on his feet, picking up the basin, and stood up, causing water to slosh on to the floor from the abrupt movement. She sounded so damn happy. He plopped the water bowl back on its table. And why shouldn't she be? "You will like my commander. He is as handsome as Lillabet is beautiful." Pain flashed in Bronwyn's eyes, turning them dark, almost black. If Ranulf's aim had been to hurt,he had struck true, resulting in a desire to inflict similar anguish. "As long as he doesn't lie to me and make me out the fool, I will be content." "I suspect he won't if you don't lie to him first." Bronwyn pushed herself out of the chair as a frisson of anger shot up her spine. "Maybe I won't if he doesn't order me away from my home without the courage to look me in the eye when he does so." "I never pretended to be someone else." "In that you are correct, my lord.You made it very clear from the beginning that you were a hateful man," she seethed. "Didn't seem to bother you when you used your female wiles to entice me to your bed," Ranulf hissed back. Bronwyn marched over to the door and swung it wide open. "I wonder just how my sister will deal with your barbarism. She is sweet,beautiful, and innocent,but she also knows nothing about running a castle.So preprare yourself,my lord.In a few months you will have a rundown estate and no commander either,for after I use my feminine wiles on him, I doubt we will be staying here at Hunswick.

I AM PUSHING a rusty wheelbarrow in a town where the air smells of blood and burnt flesh. The breeze brings the faint cries of those whose last breaths are leaving their mangled bodies. I walk past them. Their arms and legs are missing; their intestines spill out through the bullet holes in their stomachs; brain matter comes out of their noses and ears. The flies are so excited and intoxicated that they fall on the pools of blood and die. The eyes of the nearly dead are redder than the blood that comes out of them, and it seems that their bones will tear through the skin of their taut faces at any minute. I turn my face to the ground to look at my feet. My tattered crapes are soaked with blood, which seems to be running down my army shorts. I feel no physical pain, so I am not sure whether I’ve been wounded. I can feel the warmth of my AK-47’s barrel on my back; I don’t remember when I last fired it. It feels as if needles have been hammered into my brain, and it is hard to be sure whether it is day or night. The wheelbarrow in front of me contains a dead body wrapped in white bedsheets. I do not know why I am taking this particular body to the cemetery. When I arrive at the cemetery, I struggle to lift it from the wheelbarrow; it feels as if the body is resisting. I carry it in my arms, looking for a suitable place to lay it to rest. My body begins to ache and I can’t lift a foot without feeling a rush of pain from my toes to my spine. I collapse on the ground and hold the body in my arms. Blood spots begin to emerge on the white bedsheets covering it. Setting the body on the ground, I start to unwrap it, beginning at the feet. All the way up to the neck, there are bullet holes. One bullet has crushed the Adam’s apple and sent the remains of it to the back of the throat. I lift the cloth from the body’s face. I am looking at my own.   I

and realized it was smarter to disappear. Even Royal took a turn. He told me about a life consumed with vanity, with material things, with ambition. He told me about the only daughter of a powerful man—exactly what kind of power this man wielded, Royal hadn’t entirely understood—and how Royal had planned to marry her and become heir to the dynasty. How the beautiful daughter pretended to love him to please her father, and then how she had watched when her lover from a rival criminal syndicate had Royal beaten to death, how she’d laughed aloud the whole time. He told me about the revenge he’d gotten. Royal was the least careful with his words. He told me about losing his family, and how none of this was worth what he’d lost. Edythe had whispered Eleanor’s name; he’d growled once and left. I think it must have been while Royal or Eleanor was talking that Archie watched Joss’s video from the dance studio. When Royal was gone, Archie took his spot. At first I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, because only Edythe was speaking out loud, but eventually I caught up. Archie was searching right there on his laptop, trying to narrow down the options of where he’d been kept in his human life. I was glad he didn’t seem to mention anything else about the tape—the focus was all on his past. I was trying to remember how to use my voice so that I could stop him if he tried to say anything about the rest of it. I hoped Archie was smart enough to have destroyed the tape before Edythe could watch. The stories helped me think of other things, prepare myself, while the fire burned, but I was only able to pay partial attention. My mind was cataloguing the fire, experiencing it in new ways. It was amazing how each inch of my skin, each millimeter, was so distinct. It was like I could feel all my cells burning individually. I could feel the difference between the pain in the walls of my lungs, and the way the fire felt in the soles of my feet, inside my eyeballs, and down my spine. All the different agonies clearly separated.

Warm hands held her firm as he settled between her legs. His warm, wet tongue drew lazy circles around her sensitive flesh, so gently at first, she hovered between pleasure and pain, and then harder, faster, until the ache inside her blossomed into edgy need. He slid one thick finger into her wet heat, and then another, a sensual intrusion that stole her breath. And then his lips closed around her aching nub. She cried out, throwing back her head, hands fisting his hair, pleasure cresting and flooding through her veins, trickling out to her fingers and toes. With a low growl, he pushed up and sheathed himself with a condom he pulled from his pocket. On instinct, she rolled her hips, wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him close. Liam grabbed the edge of her headboard with one strong arm and plunged inside her. She gasped at the exquisite sensation and tightened her legs around him. Need pulsed beneath her skin. "Move, Liam. Please. I won't break." Her body took over, hands gripping his thick biceps, hips rocking, taking him deeper. A strangled groan escaped his lips and he gripped her hip so hard she knew his fingers would leave bruises. Braced against her headboard, he pulled out and pushed in deep and hard, shoulders straining as he gave in to her demands, filling a need she didn't know had existed, taking her outside of herself, beyond control. The bed squeaked, swayed. The headboard hammered against the wall in time to the rhythm of his thrusts. Need coiled inside her, tighter and tighter, until finally she peaked. Her spine arched, her orgasm sweeping through her body in a tidal wave of pleasure, filling her with heat. Liam growled her name, corded throat tightening, muscles going rigid as he followed her into oblivion. The sound of wood splintering startled her, made her heart jump. Liam dropped down, covering her with his body as the headboard split in two and crashed down on top of them. "Oh my God." She panted beneath him. "We broke the bed. Are you okay?" Liam heaved the headboard up so she could slip out from underneath him. When she was safely away, he lifted it onto the floor and gave a satisfied growl. "Now, that was good sex.

Mikhail didn’t flinch away from the blade. His black eyes snapped open, blazing with power. Slovensky fell backward, scrambling away on all fours to crouch against the far wall. Fumbling in his coat, he jerked out the gun and held it pointed at Mikhail. The ground rolled almost gently, seemed to swell so that the concrete floor bulged, then cracked. Slovensky grabbed for the wall behind him to steady himself and lost the gun in the process. Above his head a rock fell from the wall, bounced dangerously close, and rolled to a halt beside him. A second rock, and a third, fell, so that Slovensky had to cover his head as the rocks rained down in a roaring shower. Slovensky’s cry of fear was high and thin. He made himself even smaller, peering through his fingers at the Carpathian. Mikhail had not moved to protect himself. He lay exactly as Slovensky had positioned him, those dark eyes, two black holes, windows to hell, staring at him. Swearing, Slovensky tried to lunge for the gun. The floor bucked and heaved under him, sending the gun skittering out of reach. A second wall swayed precariously, and rocks cascaded down, striking the man about the head and shoulders, driving him to the floor. He watched a curious, frightening pattern form. Not one rock touched the priest’s body. Not one came close to Mikhail. The Carpathian simply watched him with those damn eyes and that faint mocking smile as the rocks buried Slovensky’s legs, then fell on his back. There was an ominous crack, and Slovensky screamed under the heavy load on his spine. “Damn you to hell,” Slovensky snarled. “My brother will track you down.” Mikhail said nothing, simply watching the havoc Gregori created. Mikhail would have killed James Slovensky outright, without the drama Gregori had such a flair for, but he was tired, his body in a precarious state. He had no wish to drain his energy further. Raven would be in the vampire’s hands for the time it took Gregori to heal him. He couldn’t allow himself to think of what Andre might do to her. For the first time in centuries of living, Mikhail was forced to rely on another being. Gregori. The dark one. A royal pain in the neck. I read your thoughts, my friend. Mikhail stirred, pain shafting through him. More rocks fell on Slovensky in retaliation, covering him like a blanket, beginning to form a macabre grave. As you were meant to. Gregori moved into the room with his familiar silent glide, grace and power clinging to him as he strode through the wreckage of the wall. “This is becoming a bad habit.” “Oh, shut up,” Mikhail said without rancor.

You!’ the first guard yelled. ‘Hands on your head, don’t move.’ Wing slowly put his hands on his head, showing no hint of emotion. ‘What the hell?’ the other guard said. ‘He’s just a kid.’ He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and slowly moved behind Wing and grasped one of his wrists. In one fluid motion, Wing grabbed the guard’s own wrist with his free hand and twisted hard. There was a sickening crunch, the guard howling in pain as Wing stepped backwards, too close for the man to bring his gun to bear. He pulled the guard’s wounded arm further over his own shoulder, dragging the man closer, and jerked his head backwards, his skull connecting with the man’s nose with a crunch. Wing rotated around the guard, pressing the wounded arm up into the small of the man’s back and ducking behind him, giving the other guard no clean shot without hitting his associate. He pushed hard, sending the stunned guard staggering towards his partner, and delivered a sharp kick to the base of his spine. The wounded guard’s momentum sent him careering into the other man, yowling with pain and confusion. Wing took two short steps and in a blur of movement pulled the handcuffs from the wounded man’s belt and snapped them closed around both his broken wrist and the wrist of the unwounded guard’s gun hand. Wing pressed his fingers into the pressure point behind the wounded guard’s ear and he collapsed, instantly unconscious, pulling the other guard down with him and pinning his gun to the ground. The conscious guard snatched for the gun with his free hand, but Wing dropped on to him, his knee pressing into his throat hard enough to choke him but without crushing his windpipe. Wing delivered a sharp knuckle jab to the guard’s shoulder and his free arm was instantly disabled too. Wing could hear the sound of at least half a dozen more guards racing up the stairs from below. He knew there would be more than he could handle. He reached down and took a smoke grenade from the webbing on the pinned guard’s chest and pulled the pin with his teeth, tossing it through the doorway into the stairwell. There were cries of confusion from just below as the confined space filled with impenetrable clouds of white smoke. Wing pulled a flashbang stun grenade from the other side of the pinned guard’s webbing and waited a couple of seconds before tossing it into the stairwell too. He closed his eyes, the flash of the grenade clear even through his eyelids. ‘Who the hell are you?’ the guard pinned beneath Wing gasped. ‘Just a kid,’ Wing said with a slight smile and punched him unconscious.

Without thinking, she delivered a stinging slap, all her hurt and disappointment behind the impact. The imprint of her hand on his cheek shocked her. And though she immediately regretted her childish action, pride forbade her to own up to it. "Mind your manners, next time, Sinclair!" Across the yard, Luter Hicks halted and burst into guffaws. "Guess she told you, lapdog! Hey, honey," he called to Willow, "if he ain't satisfying you, how 'bout lettin' me warm your bed tonight?" An angry growl rolled out of Rider's throat. He pulled Willow up on her tiptoes, mashing her breasts against his hard chest. His fingers plowed through her thick tresses, knocking her bonnet off and scattering her hair pins. Then clasping her chin between his thumb and fingers, he tipped her head back and took fierce possession of her mouth. When he finally released her lips, he set her down a little harder than necessary. "I'll kill the first man who even blinks at you," he ground out loud enough for Hicks to hear. Then in a low, no-nonsense voice,meant for her ears alone, he ordered, "Kiss me and make it look good!" Willow glanced over at Hick's eager face and cringed. Her pride be damned! Sinclair was by far the lesser evil. She swept her arms around his neck. "Whatever you say...lover," she hissed in his ear. Standing on tiptoe again, she slowly brought his head down and pasted her lips to his. But he would have none of her stiff-lipped kiss and increased the pressure on her mouth until she opened to his brazen tongue. As the kiss deepened, he spread one big hand at the base of her spine and molded her stomach against his hard, hot need. Willow's blood sang, her anger instantly gone in the heat of the moment. "Mr. Sinclair!" Miriam interrupted in a berating tone. "You degrade this young lady with your public display. Unhand her at once!" Without his supporting arms, Willow's weak knees barely held her upright. She stumbled backwards, thoroughly stunned by her backfiring emotions. A loud crash snapped her to her senses when Luther threw his plate against the house and stomped off to the bunkouse. Rider collected himself and stooped to pick up Willow's discarded bonnet. Carefully brushing the dust off, he handed it to her without a word. Willow took her hat, gave him a perfunctory nod, and ground her heel into his toe as she pivoted to enter the house. Unaware of the young man's pained expression, Miriam followed on the girl's heels. "Talk about circuses!" she exclaimed, closing the door behind them. "It was just an act for Hick's benefit," Willow defended. Feeling the need to escape Miriam's all-too-knowing glance,she headed down the hall to her room. A heavy boot kicked at the door. Miriam opened it and Rider limped in. "Where do you want these?" he growled testily from behind a tower of packages. "Put them on the settee for now, thank you," Miriam said. "I'd have you carry them back to Willow's room but it isn't a healthy place for you right now." Rider only grunted,dumped the bundles, and returned to the wagon for another armload.

His grip tightened and he closed the distance between us, his mouth catching mine in a kiss that made my aching heart throb with the most painful kind of hope. I gripped his shirt in my fists and dragged him closer as I kissed him like the sky might cave in if I didn’t, even though it was more likely that it would if I did. Thunder crashed like an explosion overhead, freezing cold rain pelted down on us and lightning slammed into the ground behind us. But I didn’t care. I would gladly take the rage of the heavens in payment for this moment in his arms. Darius pulled me closer, growling hungrily as his tongue pushed into my mouth and he kissed me savagely, filthily, desperately. I pushed up onto my tiptoes, my body pressing flush to his as I wound my arms round his neck and my heart pounded to a brutal beat like it wanted to force its way out ofmy chest and meet with his. Lightning struck the ground so close that a crackle of electricity danced up my spine. I flinched, but my grip on Darius only tightened. I dropped the barriers on my magic and Darius’s power flooded through me on a tide of ecstasy as we merged our essences together. We were meant to be together like this, it was painted beneath my skin and through my veins, even my magic ached for him and yearned for the caress of his power. Thunder boomed and I growled in defiance, lifting my hand to cast a shield of solid air magic around us, cutting off the storm completely. Darius’s magic flowed alongside mine into the shield, the strength of our will blocking out the will of the stars. The earth rocked savagely beneath our feet and we fell. Darius kept ahold of me as he hit the ground on his back and I tumbled aside for a moment, but I wasn’t going to let them drive us apart. I shoved myself to my knees, crawling over his legs as he pushed up on his elbows and kissed me again. His fingers slid through my wet hair and his stubble grazed my skin as he kissed me so hard it was bruising, punishing, branding and yet it wasn’t enough. My heart was aching, tears pricking the backs of my eyes as I fought to keep hold of him while the storm hammered against our magic, determined to tear us apart again. I poured magic from my body to hold the shield as rain slammed against it so hard that the air rattled around us. Darius dragged me against him and I could feel how much he wanted me in every hard line and ridge of his body. We were both drenched, covered in mud and utterly incapable of giving one shit about it. Lightning slammed into the shield and I gasped as it almost buckled, breaking our kiss as I looked up at the black sky above us. More lightning split the clouds apart, striking the ground all around us again and again, making the earth rock even more violently. As a second bolt hit our shield, I almost lost control of it and I could feel my power waning as I threw everything I had into maintaining it. We only had seconds before it was going to collapse and I reached out to catch Darius’s jaw in my grip, looking into his dark eyes with a pang of longing. “I’m sorry I did this to us,” I breathed. I might not have been sure everything between us was fixed yet, but I was beginning to believe it could be and I was starting to think I’d made the wrong choice when I’d been offered it. “It wasn’t you,” he replied, pain flickering though his gaze. “It was both of us,” I disagreed, tears mixing with the rain on my cheeks. (Tory)

That was when it dawned on her--Dom wanted to unearth her secrets. Nancy’s secrets. Just as Jane had feared, he really had deduced that she hid some. A shiver ran down her spine, and she jerked her gaze from him, fighting to hide her consternation. “Merely the same reason I gave you before. Nancy could be in trouble. And it’s your duty as her brother-in-law to keep her safe.” “From what?” he demanded. “From whom? Is there more to this than you’re saying?” Ooh, the fact that he was so determined to unveil the truth about Nancy while hiding his former collusion with her scraped Jane raw. “I could ask the same of you,” she said primly. “You’re obviously holding something back. You have some reason for your determination to believe ill of Nancy. I wonder what that might be.” Two can play your game, Almighty Dom. Hah! He was silent so long that she ventured a glance at him to find him looking rather discomfited. Good! It was about time. “I am merely keeping an open mind about your cousin, which is more than I can say for you,” Dom finally answered. “She isn’t the woman you think she is.” “Because she wouldn’t give in to your advances twelve years ago, you mean?” She would make him admit the truth about that night if it was the last thing she did! “Perhaps that’s why you’re determined to blacken her character. You’re angry that she resisted you and married your brother instead.” “That’s a lie!” When several people on the street turned to look in his direction, Dom lowered his voice. “It wasn’t like that.” She stifled a smile of satisfaction. At last she was getting a reaction from him that was something other than levelheaded logic. “Wasn’t it? If you’d convinced Nancy to marry you, you might not have had to go off to be a Bow Street runner. You could have had an easier life, a better life in high society than you could have had with me if you’d married me. Without being able to access my fortune, I could only have dragged you down.” “You don’t really believe that I wanted to marry her for her money,” he gritted out. “It’s either that or assume that you fell madly in love with her in the few weeks we were apart.” They were nearly to the inn now, so she added a plaintive note to her voice. “Or perhaps it was her you wanted all along. You knew my uncle would never accept a second son as a husband for his rich heiress of a daughter, so you courted me to get close to her. Nancy was always so beautiful, so--” “Enough!” Without warning, he dragged her into one of the many alleyways that crisscrossed York. This one was deeply shadowed, the houses leaning into each other overhead, and as he pulled her around to face him, the brilliance of his eyes shone starkly in the dim light. “I never cared one whit about Nancy.” She tamped down her triumph--he hadn’t admitted the whole truth yet. “It certainly didn’t look that way to me. It looked like you had already forgotten me, forgotten what we meant to each--” “The hell I had.” He shoved his face close to hers. “I never forgot you for one day, one hour, one moment. It was you--always you. Everything I did was for you, damn it. No one else.” The passionate profession threw her off course. Dom had never been the sort to say such sweet things. But the fervent look in his eyes roused memories of how he used to look at her. And his hands gripping her arms, his body angling in closer, were so painfully familiar... “I don’t…believe you,” she lied, her blood running wild through her veins. His gleaming gaze impaled her. “Then believe this.” And suddenly his mouth was on hers.