Waist Pain Quotes

You love your country," she said. "I can't let you give all that up." He caught a glimmer of pain and hope in her eyes, and before he knew what he was doing , he'd closed the distance between them, one hand on her waist and the other on her shoulder. "I'd be the greatest fool in the world to let you go alone.

Jessica, you are a pain in the arse, do you know that? If I were not so immensely fond of you, I should throw you out the window." She wrapped her arms about his waist and laid her head against his chest. "Not merely 'fond,' but 'immensely fond.' Oh Dain, I do believe I shall swoon." "Not now," he said crossly. "I haven't time to pick you up.

She sucked in a shuddering breath, and he pulled back far enough for them to share breath. Her fingers shook as she brushed them against his mouth, and his control nearly shredded apart right there. 'What are you waiting for?' he said, the words near guttural. 'Bastard,' she murmured, and kissed him. Her mouth was soft and warm, and he bit back a groan. His body went still—his entire world went still—at that whisper of a kiss, the answer to a question he’d asked for centuries. He realized he was staring only when she withdrew slightly. His fingers tightened at her waist. 'Again,' he breathed. She slid out of his grip. 'If we live through tomorrow, you’ll get the rest.' He didn’t know whether to laugh or roar. 'Are you trying to bribe me into surviving?' She smiled at last. And damn if it didn’t kill him, the quiet joy in her face. They had walked out of darkness and pain and despair together. They were still walking out of it. So that smile … It struck him stupid every time he saw it and realized it was for him.

I blushed when he stepped behind me, encircling my waist with his arms. His lips brushed against my ear. “I believe the answer that will not get me in trouble with you is: the happiest day of my life. Or something along those lines. Definitely not the end of my carefree days or when I get a ball and chain. Hmmm, I’m just realizing that I’m going to have to buy you birthday and anniversary presents at the same time. What a pain.

I waited for him to say something more, but he was quiet. "Was there something you wanted?" I asked. He didn't answer right away, but I could feel him struggling, so I waited. "If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?" It was my turn to hesitate. "I don't know everything," I hedged. "You would know this. When we were walking... me and Jeb... he was telling me some things. Things he thought, but I don't know if he's right." Melanie was suddenly very in my head. Jamie's whisper was hard to hear, quieter than my breathing. "Uncle Jeb thinks that Melanie might still be alive. Inside there with you, I mean." Melanie sighed. I said nothing to either of them. "I didn't know that could happen. Does that happen?" His voice broke and I could hear that he was fighting tears. He was not a boy to cry, and here I'd grieved him this deeply twice in one day. A pain pierced through the general region of my chest. "Does it, Wanda?" "Why won't you answer me?" Jamie was really crying now but trying to muffle the sound. I crawled off the bed, squeezing into the hard space between the mattress and the mat, and threw my arm over his shaking chest. I leaned my head against his hair and felt his tears, warm on my neck. "Is Melanie still alive, Wanda? Please?" He was probably a tool. The old man could have sent him just for this, Jeb was smart enough to see how easily Jamie broke through my defenses. Jamie's body shook beside me. Melanie cried. She battered ineffectually at my control. But I couldn't blame this on Melanie if it turned out to be a huge mistake. I knew who was speaking now. "She promised she would come back, didn't she?" I murmured. "Would Melanie break a promise to you?" Jamie slid his arms around my waist and clung to me for a long time. After a few minutes, he whispered. "Love you, Mel." "She loves you, too. She's so happy that you're here and safe." He was silent long enough for the tears on my skin to dry, leaving a fine, salty dust behind.

It hurts to look at the clouds, but it also helps, like most things that cause pain. So I need to run, and as my lungs burn and my back rebels with that stabbing knife feeling and my legs muscles harden and the half inch of loose skin around my waist jiggles, I feel as though my penance for the day is being done and that maybe God will be pleased enough to lend me some help, which I think is why He has been showing me interesting clouds for the past week.

Hold on to me!” Tedros yelled, hacking briars with his training sword.Dazed, Agatha clung to his chest as he withstood thorn lashes with moans of pain. Soon he had the upper hand and pulled Agatha from the Woods towards the spiked gates, which glowed in recognition and pulled apart, cleaving a narrow path for the two Evers. As the gates speared shut behind them,Agatha looked up at limping Tedros, crisscrossed with bloody scratches, blue shirt shredded away. “Had a feeling Sophie was getting in through the Woods,” he panted, hauling her up into slashed arms before she could protest. “So Professor Dovey gave me permission to take some fairies and stakeout the outer gates. Should have known you’d be here trying to catch her yourself.” Agatha gaped at him dumbly. “Stupid idea for a princess to take on witches alone,” Tedros said, dripping sweat on her pink dress. “Where is she?” Agatha croaked. “Is she safe?” “Not a good idea for princesses to worry about witches either,” Tedros said, hands gripping her waist. Her stomach exploded with butterflies. “Put me down,” she sputtered— “More bad ideas from the princess.” “Put me down!”Tedros obeyed and Agatha pulled away. “I’m not a princess!” she snapped, fixing her collar. “If you say so,” the prince said, eyes drifting downward.Agatha followed them to her gashed legs, waterfalls of brilliant blood. She saw blood blurring— Tedros smiled. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”She fainted in his arms. “Definitely a princess,” he said.

He shifted his weight, throwing his good leg off the bed as if he were going to try to stand. “What are you doing?” I demanded through the tears. “Lie down, you idiot, you’ll hurt yourself!” I jumped to my feet and pushed his good shoulder down with two hands. He surrendered, leaning back with a gasp of pain, but he grabbed me around my waist and pulled me down on the bed, against his good side. I curled up there, trying to stifle the silly sobs against his hot skin.

Have you wondered what our babies would have looked like?" Jen asked absently as she frowned inwardly trying to picture the future she might have had with her wolf. "Baby this isn't really the time to discuss our babies. Let's focus on who is carrying you so that I can get you back so that we can make babies." Jen groaned and felt the arms around her tighten which brought a gasp from her. Decebel must have sensed her pain as she felt his worry. "I'm okay, just hurts." Jen actually felt a smile spread across her face, "So you want to make babies with me?" This time when Decebel laughed she swore she could feel his hands run down her sides to her waist. "Only you would want to discuss making babies at a time like this." "Well you have to admit that it's a better topic than my nearly being killed and now being kidnapped. Seriously Dec, I'd much rather think about us making babies.

You're good at this,' she murmured. 'Do you often travel with girls who've been flayed?' That earned her a soft laugh. 'No.' Then quietly, as he ran a cloth along her lower back, just below the dip in her waist. 'Would you be jealous if I did?' I'm not a jealous person was what Evangeline intended to say, but instead the words 'of course' came out. Jacks laughed, louder this time. Embarrassment surged through her. 'That's not what I meant to say.' 'It's all right. I'd probably kill another man if I found him with you like this.' Jacks' hands pressed harder as they went to her shoulders and, one by one, ripped off the sleeves of her dress so that what remained of the gown completely fell away. She made a sound somewhere between a squeal and a gasp. 'What that really necessary?' 'No, but everyone should have their clothes ripped off at some point.' She imagined Jacks was mostly trying to distract her from all the pain, yet she blushed all the way from her cheeks to her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw him smile. And for a second, nothing hurt.

We’ll find that place, then,” he said quietly. “What?” Her brows narrowed. “I’ll go with you.” And though he hadn’t asked, they both knew those words held a question. He tried not to think of what she’d said last night—of the shame she’d felt holding him when he was a son of Adarlan and she was a daughter of Terrasen. “What about being Captain of the Guard?” “Perhaps my duties aren’t what I expected them to be.” The king kept things from him; there were so many secrets, and perhaps he was little more than a puppet, part of the illusion that he was starting to see through … “You love your country,” she said. “I can’t let you give all that up.” He caught the glimmer of pain and hope in her eyes, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d closed the distance between them, one hand on her waist and the other on her shoulder. “I would be the greatest fool in the world to let you go alone.

To stop Maria before she ruined everything, he grabbed her about the waist, hauled her against him, and sealed his mouth to hers. At first she seemed too stunned to do anything. When after a moment, he felt her trying to draw back from him, he caught her behind the neck with an iron grip. "Oh," Gran said in a stiff voice. "Beg pardon." Dimly he heard the door close and footsteps retreating, but before he could let Maria go, a searing pain shot through his groin, making him see stars. Blast her, the woman had kneed him in the ballocks! As he doubled over, fighting to keep from passing out, she snapped, "That was for making me look like a whore, too!

I'm mad because girls as young as eight years old are being shamed about their bodies. Fifth graders go on diets and admire Instagram pics of celebs in waist trainers. Some of the people I'm closest to have struggled with eating disorders. I'm mad at an industry that suggests that painfully thin is the only acceptable way to be. Please don't get on me for skinny shaming. If that's how you are shaped, God bless, but we gotta mix it up, because it's upsetting and confusing to women with other body types.

Cam’s grin was wicked as his hand coasted up my waist to cup my breast. He squeezed it, setting off a weird mixture of painful tenderness and a bolt of lust to my sex. “My eyes!” Cole yelled. Cam and I jerked apart, and I twisted my head to see my brother standing in the doorway in his pyjamas, his hair falling in wet locks across his forehead. His forearm covered his eyes. “I’m fucking blind,” he growled and turned around, bumping into the wall before remembering to drop his arm. After that he stomped out of the flat, the door slamming in his wake. Horrified, I looked up into Cam’s face, my eyes wide. “I think I should let him get away with using the ‘f’ word on this occasion.” Cam snorted, laughter sputtering as he dropped his head to my chest, his whole body shaking with amusement. I felt an irrepressible giggle escape me despite my mortification for myself and Cole. “It’s not funny. We’ve scarred him. I better check on him.” Cam shook his head, his eyes bright with mirth. “You’re the last person he wants to see right now … I’m sure he’s barricaded himself in his room and is doing anything he can to burn the image of me dry-humping his sister out of his mind.

Her mouth was cut, her left eye already beginning to swell. There was raw color along her cheekbone. He managed to take a full, almost easy breath. "You're going to have a hell of a bruise." "I've had them before." The medication was seeping in, turning pain into a mist. She only smiled when he stripped her to the waist and began checking for other injuries. "You've got great hands. I love when you touch me. Nobody ever touched me like that. Did I tell you?" "No." And he doubted she'd remember she was telling him now. He'd make sure to remind her. "And you're so pretty. So pretty," she repeated, lifting a bleeding hand to his face. "I keep wondering what you're doing here." He took her hand, wrapped a cloth gently around it. "I've asked myself the same question." She grinned foolishly, let herself float. Need to file my report, she thought hazily. Soon. "You don't really think we're going to make anything out of this, do you? Roarke and the cop?" "I guess we'll have to find out.

One by one, the silence by the bed drew their attention. Even the king was quiet. Exhausted, relieved, he lay boneless and silent. The skin was dragged thin across his cheekbones. His sweaty hair stuck to his face, and his eyes were closed. His hand, clutching the fabric of his tunic, had relaxed and slipped down to his side, revealing what the careful bunching of the cloth had concealed. The tunic had been split by a knife stroke from one side to the other. As the edges of the fabric separated, those by the bed realized how much blood had been soaking, unseen, into the waist of the king’s trousers. The wound wasn’t a simple nick in the king’s side. It began near the navel and slid all the way across his belly. If the wall of the gut had been opened, the king would be dead of infection within days. He should have said something, why hadn’t he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they’d ignored it. If he’d been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, and Eddisian soldiers on the move. He’d meant to deceive them, and he’d succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

I wanted him to disrespect me. Every inch of me. His hands tightened on my waist almost painfully, as if he struggled to keep them there. He nuzzled the back of my head, but his voice was suddenly as cold as ice. “You like it when men disrespect you?

Pigeon?” “Yeah?” A few moments passed, and then he sighed. “Nothing.” Travis hesitated. “I can’t shake this feeling,” he said under his breath. “What do you mean? Like a bad feeling?” I said, suddenly nervous. He turned to me with concern in his eyes, “I have this crazy feeling that once we get home, I’m going to wake up. Like none of this was real.” I slid my arms around his waist, running my hands up the lean muscles of his back. “Is that what you’re worried about?” He looked down to his wrist, and then glanced to the thick silver band on his left finger. “I just can’t shake the feeling that the bubble’s going to burst, and I’m going to be lying in my bed alone, wishing you were there with me.” “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Trav! I’ve dumped someone for you—twice—I’ve picked up and went to Vegas with you—twice—I’ve literally gone through hell and back, married you and branded myself with your name. I’m running out of ideas to prove to you that I’m yours.” A small smile graced his lips. “I love it when you say that.” “That I’m yours?” I asked. I leaned up on the balls of my feet, pressing my lips against his. “I. Am. Yours. Mrs. Travis Maddox, forever and always.” His small smile faded as he looked at the boarding gate and then down to me. “I’m gonna fuck it up, Pigeon. You’re gonna get sick of my shit.” I laughed. “I’m sick of your shit, now. I still married you.” “I thought once we got married, that I’d feel a little more reassured about losing you. But I feel like if I get on that plane….” “Travis? I love you. Let’s go home.” His eyebrows pulled in. “You won’t leave me, right? Even when I’m a pain in the ass?” “I vowed in front of God…and Elvis…that I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” His frown lightened a bit. “This is forever?” One corner of my mouth turned up. “Would it make you feel better if we made a wager?” “What kind of husband would I be if I bet against my own marriage?” I smiled. “The stupid kind. Didn’t you listen to your dad when he told you not to bet against me?” He raised an eyebrow. “So you’re that sure, huh? You’d bet on it?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and smiled against his lips. “I’d bet my first born. That’s how sure I am.” And then the peace returned. “You can’t be that sure,” he said, the anxiousness absent from his voice. I raised an eyebrow, and my mouth pulled to one side. “Wanna bet?

You have the lovers, they are nameless, their histories only for each other, and you have the room, the bed, and the windows. Pretend it is a ritual. Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows, let them live in that house for a generation or two. No one dares disturb them. Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door, they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song: nothing is heard, not even breathing. You know they are not dead, you can feel the presence of their intense love. Your children grow up, they leave you, they have become soldiers and riders. Your mate dies after a life of service. Who knows you? Who remembers you? But in your house a ritual is in progress: It is not finished: it needs more people. One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber. The room has become a dense garden, full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known. The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight, in the midst of the garden it stands alone. In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently, perform the act of love. Their eyes are closed, as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them. Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises. Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled. When he puts his mouth against her shoulder she is uncertain whether her shoulder has given or received the kiss. All her flesh is like a mouth. He carries his fingers along her waist and feels his own waist caressed. She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her. She kisses the hand besider her mouth. It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters, there are so many more kisses. You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness, you carefully peel away the sheets from the slow-moving bodies. Your eyes filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers, As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent because now you believe it is the first human voice heard in that room. The garments you let fall grow into vines. You climb into bed and recover the flesh. You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut. You create an embrace and fall into it. There is only one moment of pain or doubt as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body, but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.

Come here, he said. Rebeca obeyed. She stopped beside the hammock in an icy sweat, feeling knots forming in her intestines, while Jose Arcadio stroked her ankle with the tips of his fingers, then her calves, then her thighs, murmuring: Oh, little sister, little sister. She had to make a supernatural effort not to die when a startlingly regulated cyclonic power lifted her up by the waist and despoiled her of her intimacy with 3 slashes of its claws and quartered her like a little bird. She managed to thank God for having been born before she lost herself in the inconcievable pleasure of that unbearable pain...

You deserve someone else who—” “I deserve you,” I snap at him. Pain in my chest radiates everywhere, clawing down my skin, but I’m holding onto his waist now, not letting go. “When will you start believing that?” He shakes his head, eyes bloodshot. “I don’t know.” He removes one of his hands from my body to push away the longer strands of hair that’ve fallen in his eyes. “Maybe I never will, and then what?” “Then I’ll keep reminding you,” I say, confident about this future.

He grabs me around the waist, easily lifting me off the floor and through the door to his room. He puts me down, but his arms are still around me. They're warm, and I'm surrounded by the smell of fresh-cut grass, the creek. My eyes travel from his blue shirt to his face, and his expression changes. "Jordan, I-" He leans down and cuts me off with a kiss. Soft, warm lips press over mine gently. I only hesitate for half a second before reaching up and weaving my fingers into his hair. I open my mouth, and the flavor of mint grows stronger as our tongues slide together. A burst of energy fills my chest, and suddenly, I'm kissing him again, faster, like I can't get enough. He's keeping pace, and for the first time in months, the painful sadness is gone.

The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; Which done, she rose, and from her form Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, And laid her soiled gloves by, untied Her hat and let the damp hair fall, And, last, she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, Murmuring how she loved me — she Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor, To set its struggling passion free From pride, and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me forever. But passion sometimes would prevail, Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain A sudden thought of one so pale For love of her, and all in vain: So, she was come through wind and rain. Be sure I looked up at her eyes Happy and proud; at last l knew Porphyria worshiped me: surprise Made my heart swell, and still it grew While I debated what to do. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good: I found A thing to do, and all her hair In one long yellow string l wound Three times her little throat around, And strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain. As a shut bud that holds a bee, I warily oped her lids: again Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. And l untightened next the tress About her neck; her cheek once more Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: I propped her head up as before, Only, this time my shoulder bore Her head, which droops upon it still: The smiling rosy little head, So glad it has its utmost will, That all it scorned at once is fled, And I, its love, am gained instead! Porphyria's love: she guessed not how Her darling one wish would be heard. And thus we sit together now, And all night long we have not stirred, And yet God has not said aword!

This time she is the one who leans forward. She is on her knees in front of him, grasping his shirt collar, pulling him close to her. He is clearly as startled by this as she herself is, but he allows himself to be drawn in. Their mouths meet, she moves even closer still until she is sitting on his lap takes his hands from her waist and puts them on her breasts, does everything but devour him, desperate to see if she can have something beyond her bondage with the razor. Pictures of the accident start writhing beneath her closed lids, competing for attention with the image she holds of his face. A tidal wave of emotion threatens to engulf her. She is suddenly back in the basement with the bookcases. "I can't." Willow pushes him away. "I can't" Willow claps her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to drown out the dreadful sounds of the accident. She jumps up, wheels away from him, fumbles in her pocket for the razor that she always keeps there. But just as she's preparing to slice, to save herself, to end the nightmare visions, Guy's hand clamps down on hers He pulls her down on the floor again roughly. "No." He's shaking his head. "Not here. Not now. Not with me around." "I have to." Willow is gasping. "Just let me do it!" "All right then, you can cut yourself, but not like this, not like some concerned animal. You have to do it in front of me." Willow doesn't flinch as she presses the blade into her flesh. She stares at Guy, aware that although she is fully clothed, she is completely bare before him. It hurts. It hurts badly, and within seconds the pain is swirling through her like an opiate, completely crowding out everything else. "Oh my god. Oh my god!" Now Guy is the one who is clapping a hand over his mouth. "Stop it! I can't watch!" He grabs the razor and flings it around the room, grabs her arm and stares at the blood, grabs her and crushes her close. Willow is so close that once again she's sitting in his lap. She's so close that they might as well be sharing the same breath. "You won't let yourself feel anything but pain?" He holds her more tightly than she would have thought possible. She watches with half closed lids as he wipes the blood on her arm with his shirttail. Now that she's numbed herself, she'd like nothing more than to stay there with him, like this, forever. She just stays there like that, for as long as she possibly can.

her nipples were hard enough to cut through concrete. Her waist didn’t carry as many curves

Dear Kai, The sun is probably streaming in through the big barn windows now, which means you're awake. And if you're awake, it means you're wondering where I went. I haven't run away from you, I promise. But I knew that today of all days, they'd need me in the house. Tatiana may be the head of our household now, but she's not the one our staff will look to in my mother's absence. And there is so much to do to prepare for the funeral. Also, I have to go tell my grandfather what has happened to his daughter. I don't want him to hear of her death from anyone but me. Thank you for last night. I wish I could say I don't know why you re the one I ran to,- you, Kai, not Tatiana or my father or even my grandfather. But I know why. And I have a confession to make. After you let me cry, after you let me sob and shout and choke on all that pain-after you did all that, and didn't say a word-I didn't fall asleep like you thought. Not right away. I lay there, wadded up into a ball, and you curved your body behind mine. You were barely touching me-your thigh against the edge of my hip, your arm draped lightly across my waist, your fingers entwined with mine. How many times have our hands touched, when we were passing each other tools or helping each other in and out of machines? Hundreds of times. Thousands. But last night was different. You cradled my hand in yours, palms up, our fingers curled in like a pair of fallen leaves. Fallen, maybe, but not dead. My hand never felt so alive. Every place you touched me sparked with energy. I couldn't sleep. Not like that. And so I bent my head, just the slightest bit, until my mouth reached our hands. I smelled the oil you never quite get off your fingers. I breathed in the scent of your skin. And then, as if that was all I was doing, just breathing, I let my bottom lip brush against your knuckle. Time stopped, I was sure you'd see through my ruse and pull away. I was sure you'd know that I was not asleep, that I was not just breathing. But you didn't move, so I did it again. And again. And in the third time, I let my top lip join my bottom. I kissed your hand, Kai. I didn't do it to thank you for letting me cry. For letting me sleep in your arms. I thought you should know. Yours, Elliot Dear Elliot, I know. When will I see you again? Yours, Kai

Leaving the sick fuck to burn, I make my way next door to Lee. “Miss me?” I ask, pulling out my matchbook and lighting one up. “Pleasepleaseplease, I’ll do anything! Please don’t do this!” “Anything?” “Yes! Whatever you want!” I bend at the waist, and pin him with a devilish look. “You know what I want, Lee? I want you to feel the same pain I feel every day. I want you to fucking suffer. Can you do that for me?

I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed strength almost exhausted.

He took up another long strip of towel in his right hand. He had to lean in to loop it behind her. He was so close now. His mind took in the shell of her ear, the hair tucked behind it, that rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Alive, alive, alive. It isn’t easy for me either. He looped the bandage around again. The barest touches. Unavoidable. Shoulder, clavicle, once her knee. The water rose around him. He secured the knot. Step back. He did not step back. He stood there, hearing his own breath, hers, the rhythm of them alone in this room. The sickness was there, the need to run, the need for something else too. Kaz thought he knew the language of pain intimately, but this ache was new. It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms. It isn’t easy for me either. After all she’d endured, he was the weak one. But she would never know what it was like for him to see Nina pull her close, watch Jesper loop his arm through hers, what it was to stand in doorways and against walls and know he could never draw nearer. But I’m here now, he thought wildly. He had carried her, fought beside her, spent whole nights next to her, both of them on their bellies, peering through a long glass, watching some warehouse or merch’s mansion. This was nothing like that. He was sick and frightened, his body slick with sweat, but he was here. He watched that pulse, the evidence of her heart, matching his own beat for anxious beat. He saw the damp curve of her neck, the gleam of her brown skin. He wanted to … He wanted. Before he even knew what he intended, he lowered his head. She drew in a sharp breath. His lips hovered just above the warm juncture between her shoulder and the column of her neck. He waited. Tell me to stop. Push me away. She exhaled. “Go on,” she repeated. Finish the story. The barest movement and his lips brushed her skin—warm, smooth, beaded with moisture. Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine—the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.

Each step brought her closer to the body on the table. She didn’t know where to look first. At the fingers that went the wrong way, at the burns and careful, deep slices in his flesh, at the face, the face she still knew, even when so many things had been done to destroy it beyond recognition. The world swayed beneath her feet, but she kept upright as she finished the walk to the table and looked down at the naked, mutilated body she had— She had— Farran had taken his time. And though that face was in ruins, it betrayed none of the pain he must have felt, none of the despair. This was some dream, or she had gone to Hell after all, because she couldn’t exist in the world where this had been done to him, where she’d paced like an idiot all night while he suffered, while Farran tortured him, while he ripped out his eyes and— Celaena vomited on the floor. Footsteps, then Arobynn’s hands were on her shoulder, on her waist, pulling her away. He was dead. Sam was dead.

Luce didn’t wait for Daniel to lean forward and kiss her. Instead, she pressed her lips to his, relishing his moan of surprised pleasure, wanting to cleanse him of any pain he’d ever felt at losing her. Kissing Daniel was somewhere between exhilaratingly new and unmistakably familiar, like a childhood memory that felt dreamlike until photographic evidence was found in an old box in the attic. Luce felt as if a hangar full of monumental photographs had been discovered, and all those buried moments had been released from their captivity into the recesses of her soul. She was kissing him now, but strangely she was kissing him then. She could almost touch the history of their love, taste its essence on her tongue. Her lips traced Daniel’s just now, but also in another kiss they’d shared, an older kiss, a kiss like this one, with her mouth just there and his arms around her waist like that. He slipped his tongue against her teeth, and that recalled a handful of other kisses, too, every one of them intoxicating. When he passed his hand across her back, she felt a hundred shivers like this one. And when her eyes fluttered open and shut, the sight of him through her tangled lashed seemed a thousand kisses deep.

Now put your hands on the countertop, and bend over. I’m going to shove you so full of cock you won’t even remember how to spell your name for a week,” he said in his deep voice. “Oh my. Ok,” I said as I did what he asked. As I grabbed the edges of the countertop, I felt his foot kicking the insides of my shoes, spreading my legs farther apart. “You long legged, sexy little bitch. I have to get your pussy down here where I can get to it,” he said, as he slapped the right side of my butt, hard. The slap startled me, and the sting felt like fire. As soon as he stopped kicking my shoes and spreading my legs apart, I felt the head of his cock slide past my lips. His hands grabbed my waist, and he slid all the way inside of me. As soon as I felt his balls against my clit, I began to contract and felt as if I was going to cum. His cock slid out, and then back in again. He found a rhythm and began to fuck me slowly, his hips slapping lightly against my butt as he slid all the way into my wet pussy. As his hips slapped my ass, I could feel his balls against my clit. I couldn’t take it anymore. If he kept up this pace, I would explode. “Fuck me Erik, fuck me. Fuck me harder. Fuck me,” I said loudly. “Fuck me, Erik. Oh God. Fuck me.” “Fuck me.” “Harder.” I begged. “Who owns you, baby girl? Who fucking owns you?” he almost screamed. “Oh God, you do. You own me. You.” “Don’t forget it, do you hear me?” he said in a loud, stern tone. “Yes, I am yours. You own me,” I responded...I loved this. In and out he forced himself, each time it felt as I was being stretched open for the first time. Not a tremendous pain, but each stroke felt like it was the first, the entry stroke. It was a new feeling to me, and it was more than I could take. I was going to explode. “Please…Faster. Fuck me. Give me that cock. Give me that big fat….Oh my God. Give it to me.

Frankie wants me dirty. Real. And I want her. Any way I can fucking have her. She belongs to me. Frankie Helburn is mine. She isn’t under my skin. She’s fucking torched it. My flesh burns for her. She’s the flame and the balm, both painful and soothing. I want more of her. All of her. She owns me. Body. Soul. Bloody hands, along with whatever the fuck is left of my heart. It’s hers. All of it. I’m not just obsessed or consumed by Frankie Helburn. I lift her into my arms. Her legs wrap around my waist and our lips crash together. She’s part of me.

At the age of fifty-five you will get a saggy roll just above your waist even if you are painfully thin. This saggy roll just above your waist will be especially visible from the back and will force you to reevaluate half the clothes in your closet, especially the white shirts.

Peter lifted his head. Hook's hair was tangled around his face like a lion's mane and his eyes were painfully clear, all teasing and mirth gone from his mouth. He took Peter's chin in his hand, his fingers calloused but gentle, and kissed him. Everything in the world grew quiet and Peter's body grew loud. The caress of Hook's fingertips under his chin made his pulse catch, his throat flushing, shoulders tightening. He could only seem to breathe in, breathe Hook in deeper. Hook's lips were dry, and he tasted like salt and sweet wine. He smelled like gunpowder and the sea and he was everywhere, shifting closer across the leaves, his other arm snaking around Peter's waist, the iron claw pressed flat between his shoulder blades. Peter dug his fingers into fistfuls of earth, trying to ground himself as Hook pulled them together, tipping Peter's head back with the gentle thrust of his kiss, a momentum that threatened to tilt them both to the ground. Peter was impossibly hot, hot to his fingertips and toes and his skin was crawling with the need to be touched, the shock of that need. Sweat caught at the back of his shirt. His skin was stark canvas begging for ink, and Hook's touch was going to stain him forever. It was too much, too sudden. Peter recoiled, yanking a knife from his boot and holding it between them. He didn't mean it as a threat, just a way to make distance where none had been.

And if there is any phase of human enjoyment, any part of life, any occupation, avocation, divertisement, pleasure or pain where the fat man has the better of it in any regard, I failed to discover it in the twenty years during which I looked like the rear end of a hack and had all the bodily characteristics of a bale of hay.

I don’t know what you want to call it, what we are to each other now,” I said. “But I wanted you to know that your friendship has...quite literally altered me.” For a few long seconds, he just stared at me. There were new things to discover in his face still, even after so long spent in close company. Faint shadows under his cheekbones. The scar that ran through his eyebrow. “You don’t know what to call it?” he said, when he finally spoke again. His armor hit the ground with a clatter, and he reached for me. Wrapped an arm around my waist. Pulled me against him. Whispered against my mouth: “Sivbarat. Zethetet.” One Shotet word, one Thuvhesit. Sivbarat referred to a person’s dearest friend, someone so close that to lose them would be like losing a limb. And the Thuvhesit word, I had never heard before. We didn’t quite know how to fit together, lips too wet, teeth where they didn’t belong. But that was all right; we tried again, and this time it was like the spark that came from friction, a jolt of energy through my body. He clutched at my sides, pulled my shirt into his fists. His hands were deft from handling carving knives and powders, and he smelled like it, too, like herbs and potions and vapor. I pressed into him, feeling the rough stairwell wall against my hands, and his quick, hot breaths against my neck. I had wondered, I had wondered what it was like to go through life without feeling pain, but this was not the absence of pain I had always craved, it was the opposite, it was pure sensation. Soft, warm, aching, heavy, everything, everything. I heard, echoing through the safe house, a kind of commotion. But before I let myself pull away so we could see what it was, I asked him quietly, “What does it mean, ‘zethetet’?” He looked away, like he was embarrassed. I caught sight of that creeping blush around the collar of his shirt. “Beloved,” he said softly. He kissed me again, then picked up his armor and led the way toward the renegades. I couldn’t stop smiling.

I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over. The door was locked. “I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!” Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights. “Dad!” I said, throwing my arms around his waist. He let me keep them there, but all I got in return was a light pat on the back. “You’re safe,” he told me, in his usual soft, rumbling voice. “Dad—there’s something wrong with her,” I was babbling. The tears were burning my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to be bad! You have to fix her, okay? She’s…she’s…” “I know, I believe you.” At that, he carefully peeled my arms off his uniform and guided me down, so we were sitting on the step, facing Mom’s maroon sedan. He was fumbling in his pockets for something, listening to me as I told him everything that had happened since I walked into the kitchen. He pulled out a small pad of paper from his pocket. “Daddy,” I tried again, but he cut me off, putting down an arm between us. I understood—no touching. I had seen him do something like this before, on Take Your Child to Work Day at the station. The way he spoke, the way he wouldn’t let me touch him—I had watched him treat another kid this way, only that one had a black eye and a broken nose. That kid had been a stranger. Any hope I had felt bubbling up inside me burst into a thousand tiny pieces. “Did your parents tell you that you’d been bad?” he asked when he could get a word in. “Did you leave your house because you were afraid they would hurt you?” I pushed myself up off the ground. This is my house! I wanted to scream. You are my parents! My throat felt like it had closed up on itself. “You can talk to me,” he said, very gently. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I just need your name, and then we can go down to the station and make some calls—” I don’t know what part of what he was saying finally broke me, but before I could stop myself I had launched my fists against him, hitting him over and over, like that would drive some sense back into him. “I am your kid!” I screamed. “I’m Ruby!” “You’ve got to calm down, Ruby,” he told me, catching my wrists. “It’ll be okay. I’ll call ahead to the station, and then we’ll go.” “No!” I shrieked. “No!” He pulled me off him again and stood, making his way to the door. My nails caught the back of his hand, and I heard him grunt in pain. He didn’t turn back around as he shut the door. I stood alone in the garage, less than ten feet away from my blue bike. From the tent that we had used to camp in dozens of times, from the sled I’d almost broken my arm on. All around the garage and house were pieces of me, but Mom and Dad—they couldn’t put them together. They didn’t see the completed puzzle standing in front of them. But eventually they must have seen the pictures of me in the living room, or gone up to my mess of the room. “—that’s not my child!” I could hear my mom yelling through the walls. She was talking to Grams, she had to be. Grams would set her straight. “I have no child! She’s not mine—I already called them, don’t—stop it! I’m not crazy!

The exhaustion apparent in his slumped shoulders made her heart twist. He looked so tired she wanted to rub his back and stroke his hair, as a mother would for a child. This was natural compassion, she decided, and walked toward him to give him what comfort she could. He finally heard her and lifted his head from his arms. Locks of sandy hair fell over his forehead and he looked up at her with deep indigo eyes. Even in the dim light, she could see pain etched across his features. What horrors stalked his dreams? What could she do to help him sleep peacefully? For a long moment they gazed at one another and then Huiann rested her hand on his shoulder. At the same time, Alan leaned into her body. They came together like two halves of an eggshell carefully broken. He slid a hand around her waist and pulled her closer. His face pressed against her breast. His arms wrapped around her. She held him, cradling his head, rubbing his back. His body was so warm in her embrace. Her heart beat steadily and her stomach flipped in slow, lazy somersaults. The moment she’d sensed coming for so long was here. What would happen next? For a long time, they remained locked in perfect union, contented, safe, no longer alone. As she caressed his hair, soft as she’d imagined, he tilted his face to look up at her. His eyes glittered in the lamplight. He wanted more and Huiann realized she did too.

Levering himself over Evie’s prone body, Sebastian risked a glance upward at the second-floor balcony. Bullard was gone. With a grunt of pain, Sebastian rolled to his side and searched his wife for injuries, terrified that the bullet might have struck her as well. “Evie…sweetheart…are you hurt?” “Why did you push me like that?” she asked in a muffled voice. “No, I’m not hurt. What was that noise?” His shaking hand brushed over her face, pushing back a tumble of hair that had fallen across her eyes. Bemused, Evie wriggled out from beneath him and sat up. Sebastian remained on his side, panting for breath, while he felt a hot slide of blood over his chest and waist. People were crowding to flee the building, threatening to trample the couple on the floor. Suddenly a man came to crouch over them, having fought his way through the rushing horde. He used his body as a bulwark to keep them from being overrun. Blinking, Sebastian realized that it was Westcliff. Dizzily Sebastian reached up to clutch at his coat. “He aimed for Evie,” Sebastian said hoarsely. His lips had gone numb, and he licked at them before continuing. “Keep her safe…keep her…

A rough sigh broke the harsh silence, Rhyan wrapped his arms around my waist, his face falling into the crook of my shoulder. We stayed there enjoying each other’s embrace, letting three years of separation shed like an old skin, peeling off the pain and anxiety it had caused us. After a few minutes he pulled back leaning our foreheads together, the same way we had since those long days in juvie.

She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way," explained Bingo. "I thought we would meet her and bow, and you could see her, you know, and then we would walk on." "Of course," I said, "that's enough excitement for anyone, and undoubtedly a corking reward for tramping three miles out of one's way over ploughed fields with tight boots, but don't we do anything else? Don't we tack on to the girl and buzz along with her?" "Good Lord!" said Bingo, honestly amazed. "You don't suppose I've got nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I'm wrong!" It was like that song of Harry Lauder's where he's waiting for the girl and says, "This is her-r-r. No, it's a rabbut." Young Bingo made me stand there in the teeth of a nor'-east half-gale for ten minutes, keeping me on my toes with a series of false alarms, and I was just thinking of suggesting that we should lay off and give the rest of the proceedings a miss, when round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there hove in sight a small boy, and he shook like a jelly. Finally, like a star whose entrance has been worked up by the personnel of the ensemble, a girl appeared, and his emotion was painful to witness. His face got so red that, what with his white collar and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue, he looked more like a French flag than anything else. He sagged from the waist upwards, as if he had been filleted. He was just raising his fingers limply to his cap when he suddenly saw that the girl wasn't alone. A chappie in clerical costume was also among those present, and the sight of him didn't seem to do Bingo a bit of good. His face got redder and his nose bluer, and it wasn't till they had nearly passed that he managed to get hold of his cap. The girl bowed, the curate said, "Ah, Little. Rough weather," the dog barked, and then they toddled on and the entertainment was over.

The passionate fury in every line of her body made Cullen go still. The sudden vision of Rachel locked beneath him, her legs wrapped around his waist, that wild gaze linked passionately with his as he pushed himself inside her, flooded his loins with a throbbing, painful heat. A groan rolled through him, and he broke out in a sweat. Sweet hell He wanted her. Here. Now. And God help them both, but she wanted him, too.

Now her hair is like the nights of disunion and separation and her face like the days of union and delectation; She hath a nose like the edge of the burnished blade and cheeks like purple wine or anemones blood-red: her lips as coral and carnelian shine and the water of her mouth is sweeter than old wine; its taste would quench Hell's fiery pain. Her tongue is moved by wit of high degree and ready repartee: her breast is a seduction to all that see it (glory be to Him who fashioned it and finished it!); and joined thereto are two upper arms smooth and rounded; She hath breasts like two globes of ivory, from whose brightness the moons borrow light, and a stomach with little waves as it were a figured cloth of the finest Egyptian linen made by the Copts, with creases like folded scrolls, ending in a waist slender past all power of imagination; based upon back parts like a hillock of blown sand, that force her to sit when she would fief stand, and awaken her, when she fain would sleep, And those back parts are upborne by thighs smooth and round and by a calf like a column of pearl, and all this reposeth upon two feet, narrow, slender and pointed like spear-blades, the handiwork of the Protector and Requiter, I wonder how, of their littleness, they can sustain what is above them.

Well then. Let us begin with essentials. Are you free to marry me?” He exhaled slowly, in a pointed effort not to hold his breath. “Of course. When I come of age, that is.” “Tell me your birthday.” She smiled. “The first of February.” “It will be our wedding day.” He traced the shape of the birthmark on her hip. “Very convenient for me, for your birthday and our anniversary to coincide. I’ll be more likely to remember both.” “I wish you would stop touching me there.” “Do you? Why?” “Because it is ugly. I hate it.” He tilted his head, surprised. “I quite adore it. It reminds me that you are imperfectly perfect and entirely mine.” He slid down her body and bent to kiss the mark to prove the point. “There’s a little thrill in knowing no one else has seen it.” “No other man, you mean.” He kissed her there again, this time tracing the shape with his tongue. She squirmed and laughed. “When I was a child, I would scrub at it in the bath. My nursemaid used to tell me, God gives children birthmarks so they won’t get lost.” Her mouth curled in a bittersweet smile. “Yet here I am, adrift on the ocean on the other side of the world. Don’t they call that irony?” “I believe they call it Providence.” He tightened his hands over her waist. “You’re here, and I’ve found you. And I take pains not to lose what’s mine.” He kissed her hip again, then slid his mouth toward her center as he settled between her thighs. “Gray,” she protested through a sigh of pleasure. “It’s late. We must rise.” “I assure you, I’ve risen.” “I’ve work to do.” She writhed in his grip. “The men will be wanting their breakfast.” “They’ll wait until the captain has finished his.” “Gray!” She gave a gasp of shock, then one of pleasure. “What a scoundrel you are.” He came to his knees and lifted her hips, sinking into her with a low groan. “Sweet,” he breathed as she began to move with him, “you would not have me any other way.

I would trust you with my life. I'm betting that something evil would appear pleasing but feel foul." Gregori's glittering silver eyes settled on his face, a glimmer of warmth in them, a hint of humor. "You are already trusting me with your life." Savannah leaned into Gregori. "I'm so proud of you. You're getting this humor thing down." She looked across the table at Gary, laughter dancing in her enormous blue eyes. "He has a little trouble with the concept of humor." Gary found himself laughing with her. "I can believe that." "Watch it,kid. There is no need to be disrespectful. Do not make the mistake of believing you can get away with it the way this one does." Gregori tugged at Savannah's long ebony hair. It hung to her waist, a fall of blue-black silk that moved with a life of its own, that tempted, invited men to touch it. "So,what are you going to do about me?" Gary ventured painfully. Savannah resisted the urge to touch him sympathetically. She was naturally demonstrative, naturally affectionate. When someone was upset, she needed to make things better.Gregori inhibited her normal tendency to comfort. I cannot change what I am, ma petite,he whispered softly in her mind, a slow,soothing black-velvet drawl. His voice wrapped her up and touched her with tenderness. I can only promise to keep you safe and to try to make you as happy as I can to make up for my deficiencies. I didn't say you had deficiencies, she returned softly, her voice a caress, fingers trailing over the back of his neck, down the muscles of his back. Need slammed into him, low and wicked. His skin crawled with fire. His silver eyes slid slowly, possessively over her, touching her body with tongues of flame. Touching. Caressing. His urgent need exploded in him like a volcano. In his head a dull roar began. Abruptly he wished Gary gone. The cafe gone. The world gone.He wasn't altogether certain he could wait until he was home with her. The riverbank as suddenly looking very inviting.

What I wrote was dark and unsettling at times, but that’s how my life had been. The only brightness and warmth I could remember was being in Napa. My memories of the beautiful connection Jamie and I had shared started coming back to me, coursing through my veins like a rushing river. I would daydream about his lips on my neck, so tender and warm, and his strong hands on my waist, making me feel safe. The story was about the pain we sometimes have to endure before the universe rewards us with real love. Through

For some reason the most important thing to me was actually seeing the baby come out of you yourself and making sure it was yours. I thought if you had to have all that pain anyway you might just as well stay awake. I had always imagined myself hitching up on to my elbows on the delivery table after it was all over—dead white, of course, with no makeup and from the awful ordeal, but smiling and radiant, with my hair down to my waist, and reaching out for my first little squirmy child and saying its name, whatever it was.

When my body changed so rapidly that I felt almost a stranger in it, I found an inexplicable satisfaction in exploring the limits of my laces. At the end of the day, though, I was grateful to put them away. Until I witnessed the King killing that girl. When the time came that night to unlace my stays…I simply declined. Every week or two, when it stops hurting, I set the bots to pull my laces a bit tighter. Now I have nearly the smallest waist in court, despite my height. The other ladies think it’s because I’m vain. In truth, it oddly anchors me. Maybe it’s the pain in my ribs that reminds me I’m alive.

Dahlia’s breath hissed out of her throat. Slowing the boat, she swung back toward him, glaring. “What is so damned fascinating about breasts? If I show them to you will you stop?” Her hands went to the buttons of the shirt as if she might really rip the material open. There was color in her face and her breath came too fast. “I one heard that men thought about sex every three minutes but you must be setting some sort of record.” “It isn’t just any breasts, Dahlia.” He reached for the canteen of water. His hand was shaking. Actually shaking. Just the thought of her opening her shirt sent his body into a painful, hard, unrelenting ache. “Well I have them, okay? Just like any other woman. They’re there. I can’t do much about it.” Nicolas took a long pull of water and nearly choked as she angrily unbuttoned the shirt and allowed the edges to gape open all the way to her waist. Her breasts were fuller than he’d first thought, jutting forward to tempt him more. She was beautiful. Her skin was amazing. He swallowed hard. “I don’t think that was a good idea.” Dahlia realized instantly she’d made a terrible mistake. His black eyes went from ice cold to a raging fever. His hand gripped the canteen until small dents appeared.

Muscles contract somewhere above the roof of my mouth, pumping venom into her bloodstream. Kelly cries out, a gasp of pain that turns suddenly to moans of euphoria as the carotids rush the narcotic serum directly to her brain. Her knees buckle, and I reach down to steady her — one arm over her breasts, the other around her waist as I hold her tightly to myself. Then the blood begins to flow, seeping out of the wounds I have made, and I put my lips to her skin and drink. There are no words adequate to describe it. My mind explodes with a wash of light and color, swirling and dancing before my eyes. Then the Sharing truly begins, and I can see inside her: images of her memories, her thoughts, her hopes and dreams, the way she remembers her past and how she imagines her future. Her joys; her grief; that which she loves and that she despises, what stirs her fire and chills her bones. And through it all, I feel the touch of her presence, and I know that she sees the same things inside of me. Blood is more than matter, more than plasma and hemoglobin. Blood is life, the river on which the spirit flows. And as Kelly's blood flows into me, it carries her life with it, until my soul entwines with hers. She has given a part of herself to me, and from this day forth we are bound to each other.

Consider it a Solstice and birthday present in one.' He gestured to the house, the gardens, the grounds that flowed to the river's edge. With a perfect view of the Rainbow at night, thanks to the land's curve. 'It's yours. Ours. I purchased it on Solstice Eve. Workers are coming in two days to begin clearing the rubble and knock down the rest of the house.' I blinked again, long and slow. 'You bought me an estate?' 'Technically, it will be our estate, but the house is yours. Build it to your heart's content. Everything you want, everything you need- build it.' The cost alone, the sheer size of this gift had to astronomical. 'Rhys.' He paced a few steps, running his hands through his blue-black hair, his wings tucked in tight. 'We have no space at the town house. You and I can barely fit everything in the bedroom. And no one wants to be at the House of Wind.' He again gestured to the magnificent estate around us. 'So build a house for us, Feyre. Dream as wildly as you want. It's yours.' I didn't have words for it. What cascaded through me. 'It- the cost-' 'Don't worry about the cost.' 'But...' I gaped at the sleeping, tangled land, the ruined house. Pictured what I might want there. My knees wobbled. 'Rhys- it's too much.' His face became deadly serious. 'Not for you. Never for you.' He slid his arms around my waist, kissing my temple. 'Build a house with a painting studio.' He kissed my other temple. 'Build a house with an office for you, and one for me. Build a house with a bathtub big enough for two- and for wings.' Another kiss, this time to my cheek. 'Build a house with a garden for Elain, a training ring for the Illyrian babies, a library for Amren, and an enormous dressing room for Mor.' I choked on a laugh at that. But Rhys silenced it with a kiss to my mouth, lingering and sweet. 'Build a house with a nursery, Feyre.' My heart tightened to the point of pain, and I kissed him back. Kissed him again and again, the property wide and clear around us. 'I will,' I promised.

Simple markers can show us “check engine” alerts. A most basic and accessible way to see if you have a reasonable level of metabolic health is by checking five markers that are almost always tested and tracked at your annual checkup: blood sugar, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure, and waist circumference. When these markers fall into an optimal range, in the absence of medication—see Chapter 4 for exact specifications—you can deduce that your cellular energy production is doing OK. Typically, you will feel vibrant, healthy, and pain-free. These feelings, too, should tell you that your body has Good Energy, the foundation of general good health.

Elspeth reached up a tentative hand to comfort him, palming the cheek that wasn’t covered with woad. He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her closer. Her lips parted. His tongue swept in. Her belly clenched, and a warm glow settled between her legs. He left her lips and began kissing her chin, her cheeks, her neck. “Ach! Ye’re sweet, lass.” Pity dissipated like morning mist. Instead, little wisps of pleasure followed his mouth’s path. The stubble of his beard grazed the tops of her breasts, and her nipples tightened almost painfully. She sucked her breath over her teeth to keep from crying out in pleasure and surprise when his palm covered her breast, the pressure sweet even through the stiff boning of her pink silk bodice.

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness, it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still. If you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a straight waist-coat–– your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you have me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.

We are not doing it for Jagen. We are doing it for our kind.” “We?” Rayna snaps. “What Gift do you have, Grom? Oh, that’s right. You and Nalia get to stay safely behind while me and Galen and Emma drown an entire island.” Oh, heck no. “Um, I’m not killing anyone,” I say, raising my hand. “Not humans, not Syrena.” “It’s a good thing your Gift isn’t deadly then, isn’t it?” Rayna sneers. “I have an idea. You can give the humans their last meal. That would be special, wouldn’t it?” “How would you like to go without eating for a while?” I shoot back. I could use my Gift to send the fish away from her, or I could just bust all her teeth out. Maturity seems to be evaporating into the air. I wonder if her Gift includes pushing all my buttons in rapid-point-five seconds. But then, I know her animosity is really toward Grom, not me. All I’m doing is feeding her anxiety. Galen tucks a tendril of my hair behind my ear. It’s enough to distract me and he knows it. I give him a sour look for interfering, but he grins. “You don’t have to kill anyone, angelfish. In fact, we need your help to save them.” He seems to be telling me something with his eyes, but I’m not picking up on it. I’d love to blame it on the pain meds. “Doesn’t that kind of miss the point?” Rayna says. “Of course not,” Galen says. “Our objective is to rescue our kind, not kill the humans. We can do that without destroying them.” Everyone is all ears, but Galen is not ready to divulge his plan just yet. He stands. “Highness, tell the Archives we will meet with them to discuss our terms.” “Terms?” Grom says. “This isn’t negotiable, Galen. They need us. It’s our duty as Royals.” Galen shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s entirely negotiable. And we’re not Royals anymore, not until I hear it from their lips.” He turns to Antonis. “And tell them that in view of recent events, the council must come here, on land. There is no reason for us to doubt that this is a trap to recapture us.” Antonis chuckles. I get the feeling that this is all an amusing game to him. But then, old people have earned the right to be amused by everything. And I’m pretty sure he’s the oldest person I know. “Young Prince Galen, I am at your service.” With that, my grandfather leaves. I turn away as he begins to finagle the shorts from his skinny waist on his way down the beach.

What are ye doing, lass?” His voice was so soft and close in the darkness, it made her shiver. She forgot all about the hard floor. “I always imagined that once I got married, I’d finally know what it was like to spend the night in a man’s arms. Will you hold me, so I can feel what that’s like? I won’t ask for more than that. Just hold me.” He rolled to face her and touched her cheek. “Ah, lass,” he sighed. “How can I deny you when you ask so sweetly? If ’tis holding ye want, holding you shall get. But the floor is no place for you and your bairn. Up in the bed with you.” “It’s no place for a married man, either,” she said, smiling at her small victory. He sighed again, a sound heavy with sentiment she could only guess at. She climbed under the blankets and held them up for him, but he was taking his sweet time. “Are you coming?” “Aye, lass. Just donning my plaid.” She bit back a huff of frustration. She determined to enjoy what little affection he would give her and didn’t want to push her luck by asking for more. Her hormones would have to learn patience; this was going to be a painfully slow seduction. When Darcy slipped into bed, bare-chested, but wrapped in layers of wool from the waist down, she cuddled into his open arms. All her frustration drained away as he gathered her in and the heat of his chest turned her into a melty puddle of contentment. She nestled her nose into the tuft of hair between his mounded pectorals and inhaled his scent of saddle leather and faint, masculine musk. Beneath her closed eyelids, her eyes rolled back in her head with bliss.

Two days before our wedding, we were making out in a dark, hazy movie theater. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life. Until Marlboro Man’s whiskers scratched my sensitive face, and I winced in pain. When we returned to my parents’ house, Marlboro Man walked me to the door, his arm tightly around my waist. “You’d better get some sleep,” he said. My stomach jumped inside my body. “I know,” I said, stopping and holding him close. “I can’t believe it’s almost here.” “I’m glad you didn’t move to Chicago,” Marlboro Man whispered, chuckling the soft chuckle that started all this trouble in the first place. I remember being in that same spot, in that same position, the night Marlboro Man had asked me not to go. To stay and give us a chance. I still couldn’t believe we were here.

In this dream, as he recounted it in Dreams from My Father, Barack rode a bus across a landscape of “deep fields and grass and hills that bucked against an orange sky” until he reached a jail cell and found “father before me, with only a cloth wrapped around his waist.” The father, slender, with hairless arms, saw his son and said, “Look at you, so tall—and so thin, gray hairs, even,” and Obama approached him and hugged him and wept as Barack Hussein Obama Sr. said the words Barack Hussein Obama II would never hear in real life: “Barack, I always wanted to tell you how much I loved you.” Genevieve remembered the morning he awoke from that dream: “I remember him being just so overwhelmed, and I so badly wanted to fix him, help him fix that pain. He woke up from that dream and started talking about it. I think he was haunted.” She

Livia, I’m here to say it’s okay. It’s okay if you want to leave, live a normal life, have a husband with a great job and beautiful children with your gray eyes.” His breath caught a little as he finished. Livia, just a gut feeling, but let him come to you…Listen to him. Livia stayed silent instead of rushing in with words. “I’m asking permission to watch you from a distance, just to make sure you’re safe,” Blake continued. “You won’t even know I’m there. I promise.” Blake removed his hands from her face. “Are you done?” Livia wanted to make sure. Blake stepped back and nodded as if they’d just completed a painful business transaction, like buying a coffin. Livia shook her head and launched herself at him. He caught her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She held his face like he’d just held hers. His green eyes were unsure, but a tiny spark danced within them. “Blake Hartt, I choose you. I deserve you. I want you.” Livia proved it by kissing his cold lips until they were warm. Blake laughed and pulled away to look at her with tears and rain in his eyes. “Really? Really. Really!” Livia nodded. “Absolutely.” Blake kissed Livia this time. He started out gently and then became more serious. He carried her over to the station’s brick wall and pressed her back against it. He put her feet on the ground as he grabbed a fistful of her soaking wet hair. Livia reached under his T-shirt to feel his stomach and then his chest. Blake moaned and pushed her harder against the building. But again he pulled back to look at her. “Me? I want you to be sure,” he said. “You,” Livia whispered. “Me.” His eyes were full of intent. “Always you.” Livia gave him her biggest, heartfelt smile. “Five hundred.” Blake touched her face as if she might be a mirage and smiled back only when she didn’t disappear.

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace. Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops. One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward. It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . . I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place. The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best. It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt. But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing. Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.

Hey, Buddy,” he said to me. I got a close-up view of his strange, light blue eyes and golden skin as he threw his arms around me and kept walking right over me. I had to throw my arms around him, too, to keep from thudding flat on my back on the dock. “Oh, pardon me!” he said, pulling me out from under him and setting me on my feet again. “I didn’t even see you there.” “That’s quite all right,” I managed in the same fake-formal tone. His warm hands still held my waist. This was the first time a boy had ever touched my bare tummy. My happy skin sent shocked messages to my brain that went something like, He’s touching me! Are you getting this? He’s touching me! Eeeeeeee! My brain got it, all right, and put the rest of my body on high alert. My heart thumped painfully, just like in my dream. But as I looked into his eyes, I saw he was already gone, glancing up the stairs to the marina. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d been flirting with me. I knew better. He treated all girls this way. He slid out of my grasp. He may have had to shake one hand violently to extricate it from my friendly vise-like grip. “See you later, Junior,” he threw over his shoulder at me as he climbed the steps to the marina.

The footsteps behind her stopped. A warm brush of fingertips traveled up her arms as a firm chest pressed against her back. Daniel. She could sense his glow without even turning. She closed her eyes. His arms wrapped around her waist and his soft lips swept across her neck, stopping just below her ear. "I found you," he whispered. She turned slowly in his arms. The sight of him took her breath away. He was still her Daniel, of course, but his skin was the color of rich hot chocolate,and his wavy black hair was cropped very short. He wore only a short linen loincloth,leather sandals, and a silver choker around his neck. His deep-set violet eyes swept over her, happy. He and Layla were deeply in love. She rested her cheek on his chest and counted the beats of his heart. Would this be the last time she did this,the last time he held her against his heart? She was about to do the right thing-the good thing for Daniel. But still it pained her to think about it. She loved him! If this journey had taught her anything, it was how much she truly loved Daniel Grigori. It hardly seemed fair that she was forced to make this decision. Yet here she was. In ancient Egypt. With Daniel. For the very last time. She was about to set him free.

You choose this moment to act like the Abnegation?” His voice fills the room and makes fear prickle in my chest. His anger seems too sudden. Too strange. “All that time you spent insisting that you were too selfish for them, and now, when your life is on the line, you’ve got to be a hero? What’s wrong with you?” “What’s wrong with you? People died. They walked right off the edge of a building! And I can stop it from happening again!” “You’re too important to just…die.” He shakes his head. He won’t even look at me--his eyes keep shifting across my face, to the wall behind me or the ceiling above me, to everything but me. I am too stunned to be angry. “I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?” He lowers his head into his hand, covering his eyes. His fingers are trembling. Then he crosses the room in two long strides and touches his lips to mine. Their gentle pressure erases the past few months, and I am the girl who sat on the rocks next to the chasm, with river spray on her ankles, and kissed him for the first time. I am the girl who grabbed his hand in the hallway just because I wanted to. I pull back, my hand on his chest to keep him away. The problem is, I am also the girl who shot Will and lied about it, and chose between Hector and Marlene, and now a thousand other things besides. And I can’t erase those things. “You would be fine.” I don’t look at him. I stare at his T-shirt between my fingers and the black ink curling around his neck, but I don’t look at his face. “Not at first. But you would move on, and do what you have to.” He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against him. “That’s a lie,” he says, before he kisses me again. This is wrong. It’s wrong to forget who I have become, and to let him kiss me when I know what I’m about to do. But I want to. Oh, I want to. I stand on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around him. I press one hand between his shoulder blades and curl the other one around the back of his neck. I can feel his breaths against my palm, his body expanding and contracting, and I know he’s strong, steady, unstoppable. All things I need to be, but I am not, I am not. He walks backward, pulling me with him so I stumble. I stumble right out of my shoes. He sits on the edge of the bed and I stand in front of him, and we’re finally eye to eye. He touches my face, covering my cheeks with his hands, sliding his fingertips down my neck, fitting his fingers to the slight curve of my hips. I can’t stop. I fit my mouth to his, and he tastes like water and smells like fresh air. I drag my hand from his neck to the small of his back, and put it under his shirt. He kisses me harder. I knew he was strong; I didn’t know how strong until I felt it myself, the muscles in his back tightening beneath my fingers. Stop, I tell myself. Suddenly it’s as if we’re in a hurry, his fingertips brushing my side under my shirt, my hands clutching at him, struggling closer but there is no closer. I have never longed for someone this way, or this much. He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes, his eyelids lowered. “Promise me,” he whispers, “that you won’t go. For me. Do this one thing for me.” Could I do that? Could I stay here, fix things with him, let someone else die in my place? Looking up at him, I believe for a moment that I could. And then I see Will. The crease between his eyebrows. The empty, simulation-bound eyes. The slumped body. Do this one thing for me. Tobias’s dark eyes plead with me. But if I don’t go to Erudite, who will? Tobias? It’s the kind of thing he would do. I feel a stab of pain in my chest as I lie to him. “Okay.” “Promise,” he says, frowning. The pain becomes an ache, spreads everywhere--all mixed together, guilt and terror and longing. “I promise.

When he ground against her through the bunched-up material of her gown, she cried out into his mouth and drew her knees up on either side of his hips to lift herself into the caress. She was almost mad with need, and didn't protest when she felt him tug her gown over her hips and push it down her legs. When one hand clasped her behind and held her in place as he ground against her again, she wrapped her legs around him and groaned. The Wolf squeezed the cheek of her bottom almost painfully in response, and slid his hand between them to drag the hem of her shift up to her waist. When his hand then slid between her legs to touch her unimpeded by cloth, Claray froze in shock. Her legs instinctively tried to close, but his hips held them open and then his fingers began to move. Continuing to kiss her, he rubbed and circled the center of her pleasure, driving the sudden anxiety out of her and replacing it with an excitement and need like none she'd ever known. Soon Claray found her heels digging into the river's sandy bottom, lifting her hips into the caress in a mindless search for something she didn't understand but knew was almost in reach. Her entire body grew taut and began a fine trembling, and she simply couldn't manage to return his kisses anymore. Instead, she simply kept her mouth open, accepting his kiss as her attention focused on what she sensed was coming.

Something prickled along the back of his neck. He looked up to see Sophie standing on the back porch without so much as a shawl over her day dress, her expression puzzled. He stopped shoveling and crossed the drifted garden to stand a few steps below her. “I didn’t think Higgins and Merriweather would get much done, as cold as it is and as old as they are.” “You’ve shoveled half the garden out, Vim. Come in and eat something before you leave us.” He let the shovel fall to the side and wrapped his arms around her waist. Because she was standing higher than he, this put his face right at the level of her breasts. Oblivious to appearances and common sense, he laid his head on her chest. “You will catch your death, Sophie Windham.” She wrapped her arms around him for one glorious moment, the scent of spices and flowers enveloping him as she did. She offered spring and sunshine with her embrace, and Vim felt an ache in his chest so painful he wondered if it was the pangs of inchoate tears. “Come inside.” Sophie dropped her arms and took him by the hand. “You haven’t eaten yet today, and shoveling is hard work.” She was patronizing him. He allowed it, unable to ask her the mundane questions that might put aside the reality of his impending departure. Did Kit eat his breakfast? Will you do more baking today? Do you need more coal for your fireplace? Is there anything I can do to delay this parting? “Drink

The group is a concept of uncommunicable shared suffering, a concept that ultimately rejects the agency of words. For shared suffering, more than anything else, is the ultimate opponent of verbal expression. Not even the mightiest Weltschmerz in the heart of the solitary writer, billowing upwards to the starry heavens like some great circus tent, can create a community of shared suffering. For though verbal expression may convey pleasure or grief, it cannot convey shared pain; though pleasure may be readily fired by ideas, only bodies, placed under the same circumstances, can experience a common suffering. Only through the group, I realised—through sharing the suffering of the group—could the body reach that height of existence that the individual alone could never attain. And for the body to reach that level at which the divine might be glimpsed, a dissolution of the individuality was necessary. The tragic quality of the group was also necessary—the quality that constantly raised the group out of the abandon and torpor into which it was prone to lapse, leading it on to ever-mounting shared suffering and so to death, which was the ultimate suffering. The group must be open to death, which meant, of course, that it must be a community of warriors… . In the dim light of early morning I was running, one of a group. A cotton towel with the symbol of a red sun on it was tied about my forehead, and I was stripped to the waist in the freezing air. Through the common suffering, the shared cries of encouragement, the shared pace, and the chorus of voices, I felt the slow emergence, like the sweat that gradually beaded my skin, of that “tragic” quality that is the affirmation of identity. It was a flame of the flesh, flickering up faintly beneath the biting breeze—a flame, one might almost say, of nobility. The sense of surrendering one’s body to a cause gave new life to the muscles. We were united in seeking death and glory; it was not merely my personal quest. The pounding of the heart communicated itself to the group; we shared the same swift pulse. Self-awareness by now was as remote as the distant rumour of the town. I belonged to them, they belonged to me; the two formed an unmistakable “us.” To belong—what more intense form of existence could there be? Our small circle of oneness was a means to a vision of that vast, dimly gleaming circle of oneness. And—all the while foreseeing that this imitation of tragedy was, in the same way as my own narrow happiness, condemned to vanish with the wind, to resolve itself into nothing more than muscles that simply existed—I had a vision where something that, if I were alone, would have resolved back into muscles and words, was held fast by the power of the group and led me away to a far land, whence there would be no return. It was, perhaps, the beginning of my placing reliance on others, a reliance that was mutual; and each of us, by committing himself to this immeasurable power, belonged to the whole.

Akos sprinted to my side, bent over me, and wrapped an arm around my waist. Together we ran toward the rope. He grabbed it with one hand, and it jerked up, fast. Too fast for Vas to grab. Everyone around us was roaring. He shouted into my ear, “I’m going to need you to hold on by yourself!” I cursed at him. I tried not to look down at the crowded seats below us, the frenzy we had left behind, the distant ground, but it was hard not to. I focused instead on Akos’s armor. I wrapped my arms around his chest and clamped my hands around the collar of it. When he released me, I gritted my teeth--I was too weak to hold on like this, too weak to support my own weight. Akos reached up with the hand he had been using to hold me, and his fingers approached the force field that blanketed the amphitheater. It lit up brighter when his fingers touched it, then flickered, and went out. The rope jerked up, hard, making me whimper as I almost lost my grip, but then we were inside the transport vessel. We were inside, and it was deadly quiet. “You made Vas feel pain,” I said, breathless. I touched his face, ran a fingertip down his nose, over his upper lip. He wasn’t as bruised as he had been the last time I saw him, cowering on the floor at my touch. “I did,” he replied. “Eijeh was in the amphitheater, he was right there. You could have grabbed him. Why didn’t you--” His mouth--still under my fingers--twitched into a smile. “Because I came for you, you idiot.” I laughed and fell against him, not strong enough to stand anymore.

Tub full, she stood back to regard the mound of ice. Already the heat of her home fought to melt it. A rap came again at the entrance, more like an impatient pounding, and she cursed. The clock showed her only a few minutes away from her torture. I need whoever it is to go away. She ran to the door and slid open the peek-a-boo slot. Familiar turquoise eyes peered back. “Little witch, little witch, let me come in,” he chanted in a gruff voice. A smile curled her lips. “Not by the wart on my chinny chin chin,” she replied. “And before you try huffing and puffing, Nefertiti herself spelled this door. So forget blowing it down.” “So open it then. I’ve got a lead I think on escapee number three.” A glance at the clock showed one minute left. “Um, I’m kind of in the middle of something. Can you come back in like half an hour?” “Why not just let me in and I’ll wait while you do your thing? I promise not to watch, unless you like an audience.” “I can’t. Please. Just go away. I promise I’ll let you in when you come back.” His eyes narrowed. “Open this door, Ysabel.” “No. Now go away. I’ll talk to you in half an hour.” She slammed the slot shut and only allowed herself a moment to lean against the door which shuddered as he hit it with a fist. She didn’t have time to deal with his frustration. The tickle in her toes started and she ran to the bathroom, dropping her robe as she moved. The fire erupted, and standing on the lava tile in her bathroom, she concentrated on breathing against the spiraling pain and flames. I mustn’t scream. Remy might still be there, listening. Why that mattered, she couldn’t have said, but it did help her focus for a short moment. But the punishment would not allow her respite. Flames licked up her frame, demolishing her thin underpants and she couldn’t help but scream as the agony tore through her body. Make it stop. Make it stop. Wishing, praying, pleading didn’t stop the torture. As the inferno consumed her, her ears roared with the snap of the fire and a glance in her mirror horrified her, for there she stood – a living pyre of fire. She closed her eyes against the brilliant heat, but that just seemed to amplify the pain. Her knees buckled, but she didn’t fall. Something clasped her and she moaned as she sensed more than saw Remy’s arms wrap around her waist. It had to be him. Who else was crazy enough to break down her door and interrupt? Forcing open her eyes, eyes that wanted to water but couldn’t as the heat dried up all moisture, she saw the flames, not picky about their choice her own nightmare, she knew enough to try and push him away with hands that glowed inferno bright. He wouldn’t budge, and he didn’t scream – just held her as the curse ran its course. Without being told, once the flames disappeared, he placed her in the ice bath, the shocking cold a welcome relief. Gasping from the pain, she couldn’t speak but remained aware of how he stroked her hair back from her face and how his arm rested around her shoulders, cradling her. “Oh, my poor little witch,” he murmured. “No wonder you’ve been hiding.” Teeth chattering as the cold penetrated her feverish limbs, she tried to reply. “Wh-what c-c-can I say? I’m h-h-hot.” -Remy & Ysabel

Then she bent her head over at the waist and tossed her head around to separate the curls. The elevator stopped and she heard the door open. She straightened up to find some big guy in a ball cap and sunglasses right in her face, charging into the elevator before she could even get out of it. He had both hands full of carry-out bags—Mexican food, judging from the smell. She looked at them, her mouth watering. Yep. Enrique’s. The best in town. He whirled around to punch the door-close button. “Hey,” she said. “I’m getting off here.” Some girl outside in the lobby yelled, “We know it’s you, Chase. You shouldn’t lie to us.” Startled, Elle looked at the guy’s face and saw, just before he reached for her, that it really was Chase Lomax in ragged shorts and flip-flops. He grabbed her up off her feet and bent his head. Found her mouth with his. “Wait for us,” another girl yelled. The sound of running feet echoed off the marble floor, slid to a stop. “Oh, no!” Kissing her, without so much as a “Hi, there, Elle.” Burning her up. She tried to struggle but he had both her arms pinned to her sides. And suddenly she wanted to stay right where she was forever because the shock was wearing off and she was starting to feel. A lot more than she ever had before. The door slid closed. The girls began banging on it. “We know your room number, Chase, honey,” they yelled. “See you there.” Loud giggles. “We’ll show you a real good time.” The elevator moved up, the voices faded away. But Chase kept on kissing her. She had to make him stop it. Right now. Who did he think he was, anyway? Somebody who could send lightning right through her whole body, that’s who. Lightning so strong it shook her to her toes. He had to stop this now. But she couldn’t move any part of her body. Except her lips. And her tongue . . . When he finally let her go she pulled back and away, fighting to get a handle on her breathing. “What’s the matter?” he demanded. Her blood rushed through her so fast it made her dizzy. “You’re asking me? It’s more like, what’s the matter with you? How’d you get the idea you could get away with kissing me like that without even bothering to say hello?” She touched her lips. They were still on fire. “You have got a helluva nerve, Chase Lomax.” He grinned at her as he took off his shades. He hung them in the neck of his huge, baggy T-shirt that had a bucking bull and rider with Git’R’Done written above it. He wore ragged denim shorts and flip-flops, for God’s sake. Chase Lomax was known for always being starched and ironed, custom-booted and hatted. “I asked if you’re all right because you were bent over double shaking your head when the doors opened,” he said. “Like you were in pain or something.” “I was drying my hair.” He stared, then burst out laughing. “Oh, well, then.” His laugh was contagious but she wouldn’t let herself join in. He could not get away with this scot-free. He’d shaken her up pretty good. “Oh. I see. You thought I needed help, so you just grabbed me and kissed me senseless. Is that how you treat somebody you think’s in pain?” He grinned that slow, charming grin of his again. “It made you feel better. Didn’t it?” He held her gaze and wouldn’t let it go. She must be a sight. She could feel heat in her cheeks, so her face must be red. Plus she was gasping, trying to slow her breathing. And her heart-beat. “You nearly scared me to death to try to get rid of those girls. And it was all wasted. They’re coming to your room.” Something flashed deep in his brown eyes. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings. I don’t think it was wasted,” he drawled. “I liked that kiss.

Having lost his mother, father, brother, an grandfather, the friends and foes of his youth, his beloved teacher Bernard Kornblum, his city, his history—his home—the usual charge leveled against comic books, that they offered merely an escape from reality, seemed to Joe actually to be a powerful argument on their behalf. He had escaped, in his life, from ropes, chains, boxes, bags and crates, from countries and regimes, from the arms of a woman who loved him, from crashed airplanes and an opiate addiction and from an entire frozen continent intent on causing his death. The escape from reality was, he felt—especially right after the war—a worthy challenge. He would remember for the rest of his life a peaceful half hour spent reading a copy of 'Betty and Veronica' that he had found in a service-station rest room: lying down with it under a fir tree, in a sun-slanting forest outside of Medford, Oregon, wholly absorbed into that primary-colored world of bad gags, heavy ink lines, Shakespearean farce, and the deep, almost Oriental mistery of the two big-toothed wasp-waisted goddess-girls, light and dark, entangled forever in the enmity of their friendship. The pain of his loss—though he would never have spoken of it in those terms—was always with him in those days, a cold smooth ball lodged in his chest, just behind his sternum. For that half hour spent in the dappled shade of the Douglas firs, reading Betty and Veronica, the icy ball had melted away without him even noticing. That was magic—not the apparent magic of a silk-hatted card-palmer, or the bold, brute trickery of the escape artist, but the genuine magic of art. It was a mark of how fucked-up and broken was the world—the reality—that had swallowed his home and his family that such a feat of escape, by no means easy to pull off, should remain so universally despised.

Goaded on by climbing lust, he laid her on her back again and maneuvered himself gently atop her, taking care not to crush her with his weight. He slid his arm around her, cradled her lovely head in his hands, and gazed at her for a heartbeat. "I'm going to take you now." "Mm, yes, Rohan, please." She writhed beneath him. He lowered his head and consumed her mouth with kisses as he entered her. Inch by inch, pressing in, he gave her what they so desperately yearned for. She welcomed him, though he could feel her feverish uncertainty. He moved slowly, throbbing inside her. He was only about halfway in, pleasuring her with small motions, caressing her tight inner walls. Her breasts heaved against his chest as she grew accustomed to his incursion, warily accepting it; he sensed the moment she had need of more. He gave it to her, riding in more deeply, resolute in his taking. She licked her lips, opening to him, but still he held himself back. He moved slowly until her head thrashed back and forth on his pillow and her body squirmed beneath him in quivering frustration. He drove in harder, quickened his pace. She arched, clawing at his trembling hips, a whispered curse torn wildly from her. He could bear no more self-denial. As she lay trembling beneath him, he braced himself on his hands above her, gazed fiercely into her eyes, and thrust again, taking her completely. This time he drove in to the hilt, and a small cry of pain escaped her; he instantly regretted it. But when he started to pull back, she clung to him, her arms around his sweat-dampened waist. He swallowed hard, for a quick glance down at the juncture of their joined bodies had revealed a scarlet streak of her blood. Dear God. He had not expected the rush of emotion he now felt as it truly struck him that he had just deflowered her. She was the most beautiful, most astonishing creature he had ever met. And she had willingly given him her virginity.

I feel him guiding me to the wall, and I’m not struggling, my arms paralyzed by shock. One finger still grips the heavy key ring. Standing this close to me, his tomato-sauce breath on my forehead, Moshe’s body feels unexpectedly large and solid. His grip on my wrists is tight and painful, and my forearms feel brittle, like twigs. Me, who can lift an air-conditioning unit up a whole flight of stairs. I giggle nervously. I scan his face to see if this is just a silly game he is playing, this bad boy who got kicked out of yeshiva and wants to scare me in the cellar. But his face isn’t relaxed into his usual pose of disinterested amusement. His jaw is tense, his eyes narrowed. I lift my knee up to kick him, but he fixes my legs against the wall with his own thick thighs, crushing me with his weight. One hand lifts my wrists up over my head and the other reaches for the zipper to my housedress. He yanks it down in one quick motion, and I bend over reflexively to hide myself, screaming this time. “Stop! Please stop! What are you doing—? This is crazy—” Moshe puts his hand over my mouth and I taste the salt of his sweat. I can feel him pushing me to the floor, one hand on my shoulder, the other hand on my waist. I remember the key ring and use it now, slamming the keys into Moshe’s pelvis, shoving blindly against him. The sharp edge of a key finds purchase in the soft flab of his abdomen and I dig and twist, my wrist the only part of me with a little freedom of movement, and I use it all, even as I hear him mutter epithets in my ear. His body squirms above me, moving away slightly as he searches for the weapon in my hand. I grunt quietly as I shove the key quickly and deeply into his pelvis, and now he jumps off me, hands clasped to him, groaning. I pull my zipper back up as I make my escape, weaving through the piles of junk, bounding loudly up the creaky wooden stairs and into the bright light of the parlor floor. I’ve forgotten the wine.

She flailed in spinning darkness. Up and down blurred and warped, and she was drowning- Spindly hands slammed into her chest, one wrapping around her throat as her back hit something soft and silty. The bottom. No, she wouldn't end like this, helpless as she'd been that day against the Cauldron- Lips and teeth collided with her mouth, and she screamed as the kelpie kissed her. His black tongue shoved into her mouth, tasting of foul meat. For a heartbeat, she wasn't beneath the water, but against a woodpile in the human lands, Tomas's hard mouth crashing into hers, his hands pawing at her- Nesta struggled to pull her head away, to free her mouth, but air filled her lungs. As if the kelpie had breathed into her. As if he wanted her alive a little longer, to prolong her pain. The kelpie withdrew, and Nesta had enough sense to shut her aching, brutalised mouth, to trap in that breath he had given her. To not question how such a thing was even possible. The kelpie's hands ripped at her body, tearing away every weapon with unerring aim, as if he did not need to see in this darkness, as if those large black eyes could pick up any trickle of light like some deep-sea creature. Her entire body went stiff and unmoving, each brutal touch entitled and furious and delighting in her fear. When he had disarmed her, her lungs were burning again, and she felt that thin male body pushing her into the bottom once more as he shoved his mouth to hers. She gagged, but opened for him, letting him fill her mouth with another life-giving breath that had nothing to do with kindness. His tongue wriggled like a worm against hers, and his spindly, too-large hands ran down her breasts, her waist, and when she gagged again, fighting against her sob, his laugh puffed through her lips. He pulled away, rows of teeth ripping at her mouth as he did, and she shook when he lingered, stroking at her hair. His little prize- that was what the touch said. How he would make her suffer and beg before the end. She had escaped the monsters of the human realm only to find the same ones above the wall. Had escaped from Tomas only to wind up here, raging as she had then.

The thick ropes of his control began to unravel. When she curled both arms around his neck, it seemed natural to place his around her waist and pick her up. She wrapped her legs around his hips, bringing herself in direct contact with his hard-on. It was paradise. It was pure torture. He swore. She broke the kiss and smiled at him. “So you find me annoying, but you still want me,” she whispered. “I don’t find you annoying.” He pushed against her crotch. “I don’t find you annoying, either.” He read the passion in her eyes and knew she was more than willing to take things to the next level. He glanced around, searching for a soft, private spot, only to realize they were out in the open and likely to be discovered any second. It wasn’t romantic, it wasn’t smart, and he didn’t have a condom with him. Phoebe deserved a whole lot better. “I want you,” he told her. She tightened her legs around him. “Me, too.” Color stained her cheeks. “I’ve never said that to a man before.” Zane realized he hadn’t told a woman, either. He’d shown her, but he’d never actually spoken the words. Phoebe was changing him in all kinds of ways. He wanted her with a desperation he’d never felt before. And yet… “We can’t,” he said gently, ignoring the hardness and the pain in his groin. “You deserve better than something hot and fast up against a tree.” She swallowed. “I’m not so sure about that.” “I am.” “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. Had she been anyone else, he would have said the hell with it and taken what she offered. But she was Phoebe. From behind them came the sound of a car horn honking, and then another. They couldn’t see anything through the trees, but they heard laughter drifting toward them as at least a couple of off-road vehicles drove slowly past. “Sounds like we have company,” he said. “We’re close to Stryker land. Guess they decided to say hi. You go on ahead. I need a few minutes.” When he pointed at the front of his jeans, she blushed. “Oh. I see your problem. Well, you could walk right behind me and no one would notice.” He chuckled. “I’ll wait it out. Go on.” “Okay.” She headed toward camp. Zane watched her go, taking in the sway of her hips and the wave she gave him right before she disappeared.

As the year went on, I felt I was handling my grief and depression better, but the pressures kept piling up. You don’t really ever feel “comfortable” being a widow. You endure, maybe get through it, but you don’t ever truly own it. And still, a part of me didn’t want to get beyond it. My pain was proof of my love. One night I went over to a friend’s house and just started bawling. I had been going through photos of Chris when he was in his twenties and thirties. I’m going to be an old woman somewhere, and he’s going to be young. So many other emotions ran through me every day. People suggested that I might find someone else. “No,” I’d tell them. “No one will ever take his place.” School forms would ask about the kids’ family situation. Were their parents married, divorced? I’m not a single mother. I’m raising the kids with my husband! Even if he’s not here. I always think about what he would want to do. One night, alone in my bedroom, I picked up the laundry basket off the treadmill. I suddenly felt as if Chris was there with me, somehow hovering two feet off the ground. He grinned. “I’m working on something for you,” he said. And I knew he meant he was trying to hook me up with a man. I jerked back. Had I really heard that? Was he really there? The room was empty, but I had the strongest feeling that he was there. I could feel his grin. I became furious. “How dare you!” I screamed in my head. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you! What’s wrong with you?” I walked out of the room. I blocked him out for a while, partly because of that incident, partly because of how overwhelming the emotions were. Finally I realized I didn’t want to do that. And one night toward the end of the year, I said aloud, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to block you out.” The room was empty, but I sensed he might be with me. “I am so sorry!” I repeated. Then I started bawling. I felt as if he came over and put his arm around my waist. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. His voice, in a whisper, but one I felt rather than heard: I didn’t want to hurt you. I cried and cried. I felt a million things--sorry, crazy, insane. I finally glanced up and looked in the mirror. I was alone. “I’m not losing it,” I told myself. “What little I have left, I’m not losing it.” I slumped off to bed, exhausted.

I lift the lid of the chest. Inside, the air is musty and stale, held hostage for years in its three-foot-by-four-foot tomb. I lean in to survey the contents cautiously, then pull out a stack of old photos tied with twine. On top is a photo of a couple on their wedding day. She's a young bride, wearing one of those 1950's netted veils. He looks older, distinguished- sort of like Cary Grant or Gregory Peck in the old black-and-white movies I used to watch with my grandmother. I set the stack down and turn back to the chest, where I find a notebook, filled with handwritten recipes. The page for Cinnamon Rolls is labeled "Dex's Favorite." 'Dex.' I wonder if he's the man in the photo. There are two ticket stubs from 1959, one to a Frank Sinatra concert, another to the movie 'An Affair to Remember.' A single shriveled rosebud rests on a white handkerchief. A corsage? When I lift it into my hand, it disintegrates; the petals crinkle into tiny pieces that fall onto the living room carpet. At the bottom of the chest is what looks like a wedding dress. It's yellowed and moth-eaten, but I imagine it was once stark white and beautiful. As I lift it, I can hear the lace swishing as if to say, "Ahh." Whoever wore it was very petite. The waist circumference is tiny. A pair of long white gloves falls to the floor. They must have been tucked inside the dress. I refold the finery and set the ensemble back inside. Whose things are these? And why have they been left here? I thumb through the recipe book. All cookies, cakes, desserts. She must have loved to bake. I tuck the book back inside the chest, along with the photographs after I've retied the twine, which is when I notice a book tucked into the corner. It's an old paperback copy of Ernest Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises.' I've read a little of Hemingway over the years- 'A Moveable Feast' and some of his later work- but not this one. I flip through the book and notice that one page is dog-eared. I open to it and see a line that has been underscored. "You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another." I look out to the lake, letting the words sink in. 'Is that what I'm trying to do? Get away from myself?' I stare at the line in the book again and wonder if it resonated with the woman who underlined it so many years ago. Did she have her own secret pain? 'Was she trying to escape it just like me?

At the sound of the heavy knob turning, he cursed under his breath. She was coming in, damn it! To stop Maria before she ruined everything, he grabbed her about the waist, hauled her against him, and sealed his mouth to hers. At first she seemed too stunned to do anything. When after a moment, he felt her trying to draw back from him, he caught her behind the neck in an iron grip. “Oh,” Gran said in a stiff voice. “Beg pardon.” Dimly he heard the door close and footsteps retreating, but before he could let Maria go, a searing pain shot through his groin, making him see stars. Blast her, the woman had kneed him in the ballocks! As he doubled over, fighting to keep from passing out, she snapped, “That was for making me look like a whore, too!” When she turned for the door, he choked out, “Wait!” “Why should I?” she said, heading inexorably forward. “You’ve done nothing but insult and humiliate me before your family.” Still reeling, he presented his only ace in the hole, “If you return to town,” he called after her, “what will you do about your Nathan?” That halted her, thank God. He forced himself to straighten, though the room spun a little. “You still need my help, you know.” Slowly, she faced him. “So far you haven’t demonstrated any genuine intent to offer help,” she said icily. “But I will.” He gulped down air, struggling for mastery over his pain. “Tomorrow we’ll return to town and hire a runner. I know one who’s very adept. You can tell him everything you’ve learned so far about your fiancés disappearance, and I’ll make sure he pursues it.” “And in exchange, all I have to do is pretend to be a whore?” He grimaced. Christ, she felt strongly about this. He should have known that any woman who would thrust a sword at him wouldn’t be easily bullied. “No.” “No, what?” she demanded. “You needn’t pretend to be a whore. Just don’t leave. This can still work.” “I don’t see how,” she shot back. “You’ve already said we met in a brothel. Telling them we’re thieves is no better. I won’t have them thinking that we’re about to steal you blind.” “I’ll come up with some story, don’t worry,” he clipped out. “Something else to make me sound like a low, grasping schemer?” “No” She had him cornered, and she knew it. “Trust me, your background alone is enough to alarm Gran. She pretends not to mind it right now, but she won’t let it go on. Just stay. I’ll make it right, I swear.

The scent of my perfume fills his nostrils. He has lusted after me for some time. Christ, every time he sees me, he undresses me with his eyes, or he gropes me. God, what a fool I have been, to give this bastard something to leverage against me. “Do you have any ideas, Karen?” As Lucas moves closer to me, I have never felt so small in my life. He towers over me looking down; I know Nick would believe anything he told him. I have to persuade him not to tell anyone about this, or it would ruin my marriage. “Do you have any ideas, Karen?” He snarls again, obviously pleased with the position he is in. ‘What’s the worst he can do? Hell this guy is likely to want and do anything. He treats people as toys, so why should it be any different with me.’ “I'll do anything to persuade you, it was innocent?” I can’t believe I’m hearing myself say that. Not sure at this point, what ‘anything’ will be. “Please don't tell Nick.” I place my small hand gently on his huge chest, thinking I can flirt my way out of this. He grabs my waist, and lifts me off the ground, so my body leans against him. “Let's see if you will do anything.” Laughing, he looks at the pain, confusion, and fear in my face. It’s enough to convince him. He knows I will do anything, now to keep him quiet. He sets me back down, and then makes an offhand remark, “I will see if you will really do anything.” “You know Karen, I've always been a little jealous of Nick.” With a consuming look, he is undressing me with his eyes. “I mean, who wouldn't envy a man married to a hot piece of ass like you, even if he is my son.” His hand reaches out, tucks my hair behind my ear. Afraid, I flinch as I see his huge hand approaching. Then when I realize he isn't going to hit me, I relax, just a bit. This man is capable of anything, and he knows, I know it. “Don't you think, if you have some unfulfilled need, that maybe we can handle it within the family?” Smirking now, he looks into my eyes awaiting my response. “I don't know what you mean, Lucas.” Hoping I’m wrong, but knowing exactly what he means. “Can't we just forget about what you saw, and go back to the way it was?” He is just staring down at me, stroking my hair. Then he lets his finger trail down my shoulder to my breast. I start to move away, then think better of it. “That's not going to happen, Karen. You are like a little bitch on heat and I can smell you.

Marlboro Man paused, his eyes piercing through to my marrow. We’d started out watching the sunset over the ranch, sitting on the tailgate of his pickup, legs dangling playfully over the edge. By the time the sun had gone down, we were lying down, legs overlapping, as the sky turned blacker and blacker. And making out wildly. Making out, oh, so very wildly. I didn’t want to wait for him to bring it up again--the dreaded subject of Chicago. I’d avoided it like the plague for the past several days, not wanting to face the reality of my impending move, of walking away from my new love so soon after we’d found each other. But now the subject wasn’t so scary; it was safe. I’d made the decision, at least for now, to stay--I just had to tell Marlboro Man. And finally, in between kisses, the words bubbled suddenly and boldly to the surface; I could no longer contain them. But before I had a chance to say them, Marlboro Man opened his mouth and began to speak. “Oh no,” he said, a pained expression on his face. “Don’t tell me--you’re leaving tomorrow.” He ran his fingers through my hair and touched his forehead to mine. I smiled, giggling inside at the secret I was seconds away from spilling. A herd of cows mooed in the distance. Serenading us. “Um…no,” I said, finding it hard to believe what I was about to tell him. “I’m not…I’m…I’m not going.” He paused, then pulled his face away from mine, allowing just enough distance between us for him to pull focus. “What?” he asked, is strong fingers still grasping my hair. A tentative smile appeared on his face. I breathed in a deep dose of night air, trying to calm my schoolgirl nervousness. “I, umm…” I began. “I decided to stick around here a little while.” There. I’d said it. This was all officially real. Without a moment of hesitation, Marlboro Man wrapped his ample arms around my waist. Then, in what seemed to be less than a second, he hoisted me from my horizontal position on the bed of his pickup until we were both standing in front of each other. Scooping me off my feet, he raised me up to his height so his icy blue eyes were level with mine. “Wait…are you serious?” he asked, taking my face in his hands. Squaring it in front of his. Looking me in the eye. “You’re not going?” “Nope,” I answered. “Whoa,” he said, smiling and moving in for a long, impassioned kiss on the back of his Ford F250. “I can’t believe it,” he continued, squeezing me tightly.

FASCIA: THE TIES THAT BIND Imagine a collagen-rich, stretchy slipcover for every organ, nerve, bone, and muscle in our bodies, and you start to get a sense of how fundamental connective tissue—specifically fascia—is to the entire body. Suspending our organs inside our torso, connecting our head to our back to our feet, fascia protects, supports, and literally binds our body together. Fascia can be gossamer-thin and translucent, like a spider web, or thick and tough like rope. Ounce for ounce, fascia is stronger than steel. Other specialized types of connective tissue include bones, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and fat (adipose) tissue. Even blood, strictly speaking, is considered connective tissue. But to me, the most exciting aspect of the latest research on connective tissue relates to fascia. Fascia is the stretchy tissue that forms an uninterrupted, three-dimensional web within our body. Our body has sheets, bags, and strings of fascia of varying thickness and size, some superficial and some deep. Fascia envelops both individual microscopic muscle filaments as well as whole muscle groups, such as the trapezius, pectorals, and quadriceps. For example, one of the largest fascia configurations in the body is known as the “trousers,” a massive sheet of fascia that crosses over the knees and ends near the waist, giving the appearance of short leggings. This fascia trouser is thicker around the knees and thinner as it continues up the legs and over the hips, thickening again near the waist. When the fascia trouser is healthy, supple, and resilient, it acts like a girdle, giving the body a firm shape. Fascia helps muscles transmit their force so we can convert that force into movement. The system of fascia is bound by tensile links (think of the structure of a geodesic dome, like the one at Epcot in Disney World), with space and fluid between the links that can help absorb external pressure and more evenly distribute force across the fascial structure. This allows our bodies to withstand tremendous force instead of absorbing it in one local area, which would lead to increased pain and injury. Fascia is also a second nervous system in and of itself, with almost 10 times the number of sensory nerve endings as muscle. Helene Langevin, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has done landmark studies on the function and importance of connective tissue and its impact on pain. One of the leading researchers in the field today, Langevin describes fascia as a “living matrix” whose health is essential to our well-being.

Through the open doorway suddenly stepped a small woman, long ebony hair braided intricately, huge blue eyes flashing at Mikhail. As Byron shouldered his way inside behind her, she gave him a friendly smile and stood on her toes to brush his chin with a kiss. Mikhail stiffened, then immediately wrapped a possessive arm around her waist. “Carpathian women do not do that kind of thing,” he reprimanded her. She tilted her chin at him, in no way intimidated. “That’s because Carpathian males have such a territorial mentality— you know, a beat-their-chest, swing-from-the-trees sort of thing.” She turned her head to look at the couple lying on the floor. Her indrawn breath was audible. “Jacques.” She whispered his name, tears in her voice and in her blue eyes. “It really is you.” Eluding Mikhail’s outstretched, detaining hand, she ran to him. Let her, Gregori persuaded softly. Look at him. Jacques’ gaze was fastened on the woman’s face, the red flames receding from his eyes as she approached. “I’m Raven, Jacques. Don’t you remember me? Mikhail, your brother, is my lifemate.” Raven dropped to her knees beside the couple. “Thank God you’re alive. I can’t believe how lucky we are. Who did this to you? Who took you from us?” Shea felt the ripple of awareness in her mind. Jacques’ shock. His curiosity. He recognized those tear-filled blue eyes. Shea caught a glimpse, a fragment of memory, the woman bending over him, her hands clamped to his throat, pressing soil and saliva into a pumping wound. Shea held her breath, waiting. Jacques’ silent cry of despair echoed in her head. She forced herself to move, found his hand with hers, silently supporting him as she regarded the woman kneeling beside her. You didn’t tell me she was so beautiful, Shea reprimanded deliberately. In the midst of Jacques’ pain and agony, his possessive fury and maniacal madness, something seemed to melt the ice-cold core of murderous resolve. The urge to smile at that feminine, edgy tone came out of nowhere. Something snarling to be set free retreated, and the tension in him eased visibly. Is she? Jacques asked innocently. Shea’s green eyes touched his face, and warmth spread further inside him. And the beast was temporarily leashed. “Is this your lifemate, Jacques?” Raven asked softly. Shea looked at her then, this woman who had been a part of Jacques’ life. “I’m Shea O’Halloran.” Her voice was husky and ragged. “Jacques has been unable to use his voice since I found him.” Raven touched Shea’s bruised throat with gentle fingers. “Someone had better tell me what happened here.” Her blue eyes were studying the dark smudges closely. “Help her to the bed,” Gregori interceded, distracting Raven from her study. You owe me one, old friend, he sent to Mikhail.

Hey,” a deep unfamiliar voice said from behind her. Every nerve went on alert. Her heart pounded with fear. Instinct told her to run, but how far could she go with him so close? She grabbed a knife from the butcher block beside her and spun around, hurting her sore feet but not really feeling the pain. “Stay where you are. Don’t come any closer.” Somewhere in her muddled mind he looked familiar, but the fear stole her rational thoughts. Her hands shook and she backed up into the counter, looking everywhere for an escape that seemed impossible. “Hey now, you’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” Tears filled her eyes. Too much to take in one night, she stammered, “Get out. Leave me alone.” The stranger took a step toward her, and she took one toward him. “Get out, or I’ll gut you where you stand.” One side of his mouth cocked up in a slanted grin. His eyes flashed with admiration, confusing her. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m looking for Owen.” “He doesn’t live here. Why does everyone think he lives here?” she yelled. A flash of movement came from her left; she swung to face the new danger and inhaled when Owen rushed her, pushing the knife out of his way and pulling her close. She immediately dropped it and grabbed hold of him as he kept his back to the stranger, her back to the counter, and his big body protecting her. “You’re okay, sweetheart. That’s my brother, Brody. He came to help me board up the glass door.” He hugged her closer when she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and held him tighter, crying all over the front of his shirt, her face buried in his chest, her bravado from a moment ago drained away, overwhelmed by her fear. Owen was here, holding her, keeping her safe. She needed him and refused to let go, even when he tried to back away. “Brody, man, you want to give us a minute.” “Sure. I just wanted to let her know I’m here. She’s got a lot of guts, facing off with me with that knife. I like her.” “Yeah, I like her, too.” Owen brushed his hand over her head and settled into her, holding her tight and close. Brody left with a chuckle and an “I bet you do.” All of a sudden she felt foolish, but it didn’t stop her from staying in Owen’s arms. She shifted on her feet, and he slid his big hands down her back to her waist, hoisting her up onto the counter. His warm hands settled on her thighs, spreading them wide so he could stand between them. Close. Intimate. Their eyes met, and he reached up and swiped his thumbs across both her cheeks, taking away the tears. She got hold of herself enough to say, “Your brother is huge.” “You just faced off with an ex– Army Ranger. He could take you out with one lethal smile.” “He wasn’t smiling.” “He doesn’t much, since he got home. Unless he’s with Rain." -Brody, Claire, & Owen

The perfect girl what can I say; to be so close yet, feel miles away. I want to run to her, but have to walk out the door going the other way. The only words spoken to her are- ‘Have a nice day.’ I think about her and the summer, and what it could have been with her. It reminds me of- sixteen, you are on my mind all the time. I think about you. It is like a vision of the stars shining, ribbon wearing, bracelet making, and holding hands forever. All the sunflowers in the hayfields and kissing in the rain, no more brick walls, no more falling teardrops of pain, and no more jigsaw puzzle pieces would remain. True love should not be such a game; does she feel the same. She is everything that I cannot have, and everything I lack. What if every day could be like this- Diamond rings, football games, and movies on the weekends? It is easy to see she belongs to me; she is everything that reminds me of ‘sixteen’ everything that is in my dreams. Everything she does is amazing, but then again, I am just speculating, and fantasizing about Nevaeh Natalie, who just turned the age of sixteen! Nevaeh- I recall my first boy kiss was not at all, what I thought it was going to be like. I was wearing a light pink dress, and flip-flops that were also pink with white daisy flowers printed on them. I loosened my ponytail and flipped out my hair until my hair dropped down my back, and around my shoulders. That gets A guy going every time, so I have read online. He was wearing ripped-up jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He said that- ‘My eyes sparkled in blue amazement, which was breathtaking, that he never saw before.’ Tell me another line… I was thinking, while Phil Collins ‘Take Me Home’ was playing in the background. I smiled at him, he began to slowly lean into me, until our lips locked. So, enjoy, he kissed me, and my heart was all aflutter. When it happened, I felt like I was floating, and my stomach had butterflies. My eyes fastened shut with no intentions of me doing so during the whole thing. When my eyes unfastened my feelings of touch engaged, and I realized that his hands are on my hips. His hands slowly moved up my waist, and my body. I was trembling from the exhilaration. Plus, one thing led to another. It was sort of my first time, kissing and playing with him you know a boy, oh yet not really, I had gotten to do some things with Chiaz before like, in class as he sat next to me. I would rub my hand on it under the desks- yeah, he liked that, and he would be. Oh, how could I forget this… there was this one time in the front seat of his Ford pickup truck, we snuck off… and this was my first true time gulping down on him, for a lack of a better term. As I had my head in his lap and was about to move up for him to go in me down there, I was about to get on top and let him in me. When we both heard her this odd, yet remarkably loud scream of bloody murder! Ava was saying- ‘You too were going to fuck! What the fuck is going on here? Anyways, Ava spotted us before he got to ‘Take me!

What does he have planned?” “He said it was a surprise, but apparently it includes all my favorites things about the city.” “That’s cute. Maybe it’ll be the refresher you guys need. It’s hard being apart for so long, especially when there is a super-hot ex-boyfriend living next to you.” I give her a pointed look. “And speak of the devil. Look whose truck just pulled into the driveway.” Amanda puts her drink on the coffee table and crawls on top of me, her knees digging into my stomach as she tries to catch a view of Aaron. “Will you please get off me?” “I want to see what he looks like. I want to see these muscles you speak of.” Amanda reaches the window, but I yank on her body so she can’t sneak a peek. “Hey, stop that, I can’t see.” “Exactly. He’ll catch you looking, and I don’t want him thinking it’s me.” “Don’t be paranoid. He won’t think that. Now let me catch a glimpse.” Pushing down on my head, trying to climb over me, she reaches for the blinds, but I hold strong and grip her around the waist, using my legs to hold her down as well. “Stop it.” She swats at my head. “Just a little looksy.” “No, he’ll see you.” “He won’t.” “He will.” “He—” Knock, knock. We still, our heads snapping to the front door. “Is someone at the door?” Amanda whispers, one of her hands holding on to my ponytail. “That’s what a knock usually means,” I whisper back. “Is it him?” Oh hell. “I have no idea.” I hold still, trying not to move in case the person on the other side of the door can hear us. “Answer it,” Amanda scolds. “No.” “Why not?” “Because if it’s Aaron, I don’t want you anywhere near him. You’ll embarrass me, I know it.” Amanda scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She pushes off me, her hand palming my face for a brief second. “I’ll answer the door.” When she places one of her feet on the floor, I hold her in place. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not answering that door. Just be still, the person will go away.” Knock, knock. “You’re being rude,” Amanda says as she plows her elbow into my thigh, causing me to buckle over in pain. She frees herself from my grip and rushes to the door. Right before she opens it, she fluffs her hair. You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t even have to ask if it’s Aaron because that’s just my luck. Also, Amanda makes a low whistle sound when she opens the door. “Amanda?” Aaron’s voice floats into my house. “Aaron Walters, look . . . at . . . you.” I sit up just in time to see Amanda give him a very slow once-over. “You were right, Amelia, he has gotten sexier.” What? Jesus! I hop off the couch, limping ever so slightly from the dead leg Amanda gave me. “I didn’t say that.” Amanda waves her hand. “It was in the realm of that. Come in, come in. We need to catch up.” Amanda wraps her hand around Aaron’s arm and pulls him into the house. When she passes me, she winks and squeezes his arm while mouthing, “He’s huge.” I shut the door behind them and bang my head on it a few times before joining them in the living room. I knew Amanda’s visit was going to be interesting

One of his hands tangled in my hair, tugging it to tip my chin back and eliciting another moan of pleasure from my lips. He swallowed it up, his tongue sinking into my mouth and making my heart find a rhythm it had never beat to before. He kissed me like he wasn't allowed to kiss me, but if he didn't he'd die. I tangled myself around him with equal desire, the well of magic in my body spilling over and flooding my veins. A profound and unknown energy hummed within me, drawing to the edges of my skin. Orion seemed to sense it too as the hairs raised along my arms and static energy crackled everywhere our flesh met. I was entirely lost to the deepest and most carnal desire I'd ever felt. His hand found the slit in my dress and his fingers trailed onto my bare leg, making me gasp in response. Fire surged down my spine only to bounce back up again as he gripped my thigh and squeezed. With so little clothes parting us, I felt every inch of his arousal pressing between my legs and I started to wonder how far this kiss was going to go. My fingers slid into the verge of his hair as I ground against him and my thoughts scattered again. He released a rumbling growl filled with nothing but need and his hand shifted between us, roaming deeper beneath my dress until he found the top of my panties. I nearly lost my mind as his fingers brushed the sensitive flesh there and skimmed the line of my underwear. My back arched as I tried to bring his hand closer to fulfil the promise of ecstasy I knew he could bring me. Instead, he pulled his hand free and placed it on my hip with a heavy breath. It took everything I had, but with his fingers firmly away from the area of my body which was trying to run the show, I could think a little clearer. He pulled back almost the same moment I did and I swallowed hard as I felt the lasting sensations of that kiss everywhere. My mouth tingled and my cheeks stung from the scrape of his stubble. My thigh muscles throbbed where they were still locked tightly around his waist and my heart seemed to bleed from the loss of contact with his mouth. We remained breathless and silent, staring at each other like the reality waiting above us wasn't about to rip us apart. But I knew as well as he did, this was a one time only thing. Now I just had to convince my body of that. I unwound my legs from him, bracing my hands on his shoulders as I dropped down. He steadied me for a moment then the air between us changed. His eyes darkened and he didn't need to speak to let me know what he was thinking. A vow hung solidly around us. This won't happen ever again. He opened his mouth to speak but I spoke before he could, not wanting to be commanded into eternal silence. I already knew what would happen the second we left this magical place behind, I didn't need to be told. “Let's go.” “We can stay a little longer...if you want.” His expression was that of a wounded man but I knew whatever pain lay in his body, would never be mine to heal. I shook my head, lifting my chin to gaze up at the surface of the pool. “No, I think we should go back to reality now.” The longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave. “Are you angry with me for bringing you here?” he asked and I was compelled to look down, falling into the intensity of his eyes as a strained line formed on his brow. “No.” He reached out to skate his fingers across the line of my jaw, feather light. “You know how it has to be.” I nodded, leaning away from his touch which felt like forcing two magnets apart. “I know.” What happens at the bottom of the pool, stays at the bottom of the pool. “Come on then, Blue.” He held out his hand. I took a shuddering breath, placing my hand in his. “I think it might be best if you don't call me that anymore.” I tugged at a lock of wet hair. “It's not blue anyway.” (DARCY)

Truth or dare,” I ask, my voice edgy with anticipation and yearning. I know he’ll answer dare – and it will be the last one I give him. “Dare.” “Fuck me,” I beg. He immediately rolls over, gently resting his body on top of mine. I spread my legs, positioning his trim waist and hips in between my thighs. The hard outline of his cock grazes the front of my panties, sending my eyes rolling into the back of my head. He slides his hands under the covers. His fingers sneak under the waistband of my panties. He sits up to slowly glide them down my legs, revealing body in the moonlight. He tosses them, dripping wet, by the side of the bed and the then slides off his tight briefs. His erect cock stands at attention once removed from its fabric confines, pulsing up and down in rhythm with Cole’s racing heartbeat. With the covers now cast to the side, Cole leans over me, devouring my lips. My lips open and I yield him my tongue, which he handles adroitly, flicking it with his own and sucking it with his lips. He leans over to the side of the bed and bends down, picking up his shorts. The movement of his body over mine sends the peaks of his deeply sculpted abs gliding across my soft skin, generating a shiver that trembles through my body. He pulls out his wallet from his shorts pocket and extracts a condom. He kneels on the bed and works the condom down the expansive length of his solid shaft. He imposes his body back over mine, covering me with his huge torso. The length of his cock rests against my warm pussy, throbbing against it. I wrap my legs around his waist and lock my ankles together, pulling him closer toward me. His rough, masculine scent fills my nostrils. He kisses my neck, the light stubble on the side of his check rubbing against my skin. I buck my hips toward him, pressing his cock against me. The bottom of his shaft rests on my warm opening, the tip extends up to my belly button. A delicious anxiousness overtakes me. Will I really be able to fit all of him inside me? “Fuck, Emma, you’re so sexy,” he moans while raking his lips and tongue up and down my neck. He nibbles lightly on my earlobe, his hot, staggered breath brushing against the side of my face. “I want you inside me,” I pant to him. He lifts his hips up and steadies his cock at the precipice of my slick center. He looks me in the eye, and I nod, imploring him to plunge inside me. He does. I shut my eyes as a brief wave of pain washes over me, the shock of accommodating his massive size inside. It soon subsides and my body comfortably accustomed itself to his presence. He slowly pumps in and out of me. I bite down on my bottom lip, waves of pleasure erupting from my center and traversing every inch of my body. My stomach is in knots and my breath is quick and sharp. Every time he lifts his hips to thrust out, my wet cavern craves for him to come back – and he immediately does, pushing himself back in, the length of his shaft rubbing against my insides, the friction driving me wild with ecstasy. I lose track of time as he continues to thrust in and out. I buck my hips against him, hungry for his full length. I tighten my grip with my legs around his waist, greedy for his body to press against mine. “Fuck, Emma, shit,” he moans. I can only respond with unarticulated moans of pleasure and gasps for breath. “Oh, fuck, Cole, I’m gonna come,” I announce. I shut my eyes tight and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him into me. He thrusts one more time, strongly, and my orgasm erupts. Pulses of pleasure shoot up and down my spine and turn my insides, my chest beats and my heartrate booms against my eardrums. The outside world disappears as I feel my body melting into Cole’s. Cole collapses next to me, a sheen of sweat glistening over his body in the moonlight, highlighting the twists and turns of his musculature. Slowly the world comes back into focus and a blissful

I've come to realize that the true lie the darkness tells is one of omission. The darkness doesn't tell you how pain is simply the price of admission. And it's a steal, really, a bargain. One I will pay a hundred times over for the simple pleasure of a beautiful sunrise or a mug of tea heavy in my hands or another mile run or a hug from a longtime friend or the simple of my child across a crowded room. For the comfort of my soon-to-be husband's arm strong across my waist while he watched me sleep. For the moments when the darkness whispers is lies in the night and I am able, still, to answer it with the only two words that matter: I'm here.

Greg Abbott was a great track star in high school, having never lost a race, but in 1984 a tree fell on him while he was jogging through the wealthy enclave of Houston’s River Oaks, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He had just graduated from law school and had no health insurance. Fortunately, he won a $9 million judgment from the homeowner whose tree had fallen, and from the tree company that had inspected the tree and failed to recommend its removal. Later, as a member of the Texas Supreme Court, and then as attorney general, Abbott supported measures that capped pain-and-suffering damages in medical malpractice cases at $250,000.

It felt like we were on fire. Everything got so hot, it was almost too much to stand. Kissing him, having his body close. I thought of how you feel when you're eating a meal and don't realize how hungry you are till you're three bites in. You start eating faster, savoring every bite. Now I couldn't stop, so I took another kiss, then another. I let his tongue slip into my mouth, and I shivered again. He smiled at my reaction and went in for more. The way his hands started to move over my body gave me the impression he had been there before. I could have stopped, I knew I should have stopped, but all the drama and emotional pain I'd experienced over the last few days made me recklessly ignore that thought. I tore his shirt off. He gasped, which made me giggle. I covered my mouth, and he grabbed my hand and put it around his neck. He scooped me up and I tightened my thighs around his waist. He sat me down on the bar and peeled off my blouse. Any last ounce of Southern lady I had left in me exited the building. I unhooked my bra and threw it across the room. Screw it. If I was going to go ahead and make a mistake, I might as well take the fast lane. We watched it slingshot and land on a booth. "Is the door locked?" he asked, gasping for air. "Think so," I said, taking big gulping breaths. I was drowning and was totally fine with it. "Good," he said. He pulled me to the end of the bar and pulled my shoes off. I hopped off and helped him along by unbuttoning my jeans and wiggling out of them as sexily as I could. He did the same. "Man, you look good enough to eat," he said. "So do you. Take a bite," I said. We were standing about four feet apart and our clothes were all over the floor. I stood there almost naked and drank in the sight of him. He took a few slow steps toward me, like a lion about to jump on his prey, and dug in.

I shook my head, then cried out in pain. Fucking hell, my head hurt. And my neck. And my chest, my neck, my waist... I was one giant ache, but nothing was broken. More importantly, I was alive. The same couldn't be said about Bree. Not yet, anyway. Not until they got her out and started treating her.

River Of Deceit" My pain... is self-chosen At least so the prophet says I could either burn Or cut off my pride and buy some time A head full of lies is the weight Tied to my waist The river of deceit pulls down The only direction we flow is down Down, oh down My pain... is self-chosen At least I believe it to be I could either drown Or pull off my skin and swim to shore Now I can grow a beautiful Shell for all to see The river of deceit pulls down The only direction we flow is down Down, oh down Mad Season, Above (1995)

I can’t be your king.” As reasons go, it’s a good one. But I know there’s more behind it, and that’s what I want. An actual explanation. “So, if I were just a simple girl, from a simple family, and not the princess…?” Rhys’s hand finds my waist, and he nudges me back until our faces are as close as they were before. “I wouldn’t be able to walk away from you.” He lets out a self-deprecating sort of laugh. “What am I saying? I know better, and I still haven’t been able to walk away.” My heart breaks a little. Why must life be so unfair? Why was Braeton taken from me; why was I sent in his place? I don’t want to be queen—I don’t want to choose our king. I just want Rhys. “Just for a few minutes, can’t we pretend there isn’t a title attached to my name?” I whisper, running my fingers through the damp hair at the nape of his neck. “Would that be so wrong?” “It would be,” Rhys answers, his voice full of conviction. Yet his hand tightens at my side, drawing me even closer, his physical response at odds with his answer. His eyes are on mine, the intimacy of it almost too much to bear. “But I don’t have the will to stop you right now. If I am what you want, then I give myself to you. However, please know these fleeting minutes are all we have.” I lick my lips, and his eyes follow the movement. My breaths are short and fast, and Rhys’s fingers press into my side in the most intoxicating way. Making a decision I’ll likely regret, I slowly pull back. Disappointment flashes in Rhys’s green eyes when I put space between us, but I stand strong. “If minutes are all you can give me, I won’t waste them now,” I tell him softly. “I’ll save them, hide them away. Outwardly, I will keep our relationship purely platonic, but sometime—when I need you the most—I’ll make my request.” “Amalia…” Rhys says, sounding pained. Unable to help myself, I lean in and press the briefest kiss to the very corner of his lips. For a moment, I wonder if the knight is going to lock his arms around me, hold me here, convince me to use those minutes now. But he doesn’t. “You can deduct a second from my total,” I tease softly when I pull back. I then climb out of the hot spring, dripping water along the stone.

When she straightened, I had to suppress a curse. This girl didn’t need a filter. She wore a red summer dress that accentuated her narrow waist and round butt and made her legs look miles-long, even though she was a petite woman. I forced myself to keep checking the shop displays because I’d frozen in my tracks upon spotting the Vitiello princess. Her gait spoke of unwavering confidence. She never once swayed despite her ridiculously high heels. She walked the streets as if she owned them—her head held high, her expression cold and painfully beautiful. There were girls that were pretty, there were girls that were beautiful, and there were girls that had men and women alike stop in their tracks to admire them slack-jawed. Marcella was the latter.

I lift my arm, a sudden pain scratching the insides of my chest at the kind gesture. In my boredom, I’ve made several twig bracelets. I used to do that all the time when I was out camping with my dad and brothers. While they were out fishing, hunting, or gathering wood, I’d sit and fashion bracelets. They were never really anything special, just something to do when I didn’t want to join my family while they foraged the area. This one is beautifully perfect though. I tilt my head back up. Is this his way of apologizing after storming away from me earlier? If so, he’s definitely on the right track. “Thank you,” I say. “Fuck.” The word is barely past his lips before he’s grabbing my waist and lifting me up. My legs automatically go around his waist, and a moan slips out of me when his hardness encounters my softness. Without another word, he carries me to his bed, and we do what he said. We fuck.

With a snarl of pain, she forced herself to sit up, her head spinning with the sudden movement. One hand touched her temple, sticky with dried blood. She winced, feeling a gash along her eyebrow. It was long but shallow, and already scabbing over. She clenched her jaw, teeth grinding, as she surveyed the beach with squinting eyes. The ocean stared back at her, empty and endless, a wall of iron blue. Then she noticed shapes along the beach, some half-buried in the sand, others caught in the rhythmic pull of the tide. She narrowed her eyes and the shapes solidified. A torn length of sail floated, tangled up with rope. A shattered piece of the mast angled out of the sand like a pike. Smashed crates littered the beach, along with other debris from the ship. Bits of hull. Rigging. Oars snapped in half. The bodies moved with the waves. Her steady breathing lost its rhythm, coming in shorter and shorter gasps until she feared her throat might close. Her thoughts scattered, impossible to grasp. All thoughts but one. “DOMACRIDHAN!” Her shout echoed, desperate and ragged. “DOMACRIDHAN!” Only the waves answered, crashing endless against the shore. She forgot her training and forced herself to stand, nearly falling over with dizziness. Her limbs aches but she ignored it, lunging toward the waterline. Her lips moved, her voice shouting his name again, though she couldn’t hear it above the pummel of her own heart. Sorasa Sarn was no stranger to corpses. She splashed into the waves with abandon, even as her head spun. Sailor, sailor, sailor, she noted, her desperation rising with every Tyri uniform and head of black hair. One of them looked ripped in half, missing everything from the waist down. His entrails floated with the rear of him, like a length of bleached rope. She suspected a shark got the best of him. Then her memories returned with a crash like the waves. The Tyri ship. Nightfall. The sea serpent slithering up out of the deep. The breaking of a lantern. Fire across the deck, slick scales running over my hands. The swing of a greatsword, Elder-made. Dom silhouetted against a sky awash with lightning. And then the cold, drowning darkness of the ocean. A wave splashed up against her and Sorasa stumbled back to the shore, shivering. She had not waded more than waist deep, but her face felt wet, water she could not understand streaking her cheeks. Her knees buckled and she fell, exhausted. She heaved a breath, then two. And screamed. Somehow the pain in her head paled in comparison to the pain in her heart. It dismayed and destroyed her in equal measure. The wind blew, stirring salt-crusted hair across her face, sending a chill down to her soul. It was like the wilderness all over again, the bodies of her Amhara kin splayed around her. No, she realized, her throat raw. This is worse. There is not even a body to mourn. She contemplated the emptiness for awhile, the beach and the waves, and the bodies gently pressing into the shore. If she squinted, they could only be debris from the ship, bits of wood instead of bloated flesh and bone. The sun glimmered on the water. Sorasa hated it. Nothing but clouds since Orisi, and now you choose to shine.

With your hard as hell body, I’m sure I’ll still have a bruise or two.” His arm hovers behind my lower back for a moment before settling around my waist with a featherlight layer of security. “I can help you with that later.” A smirk’s twisting his lips up when I turn to look at him. “With what?” He arches an eyebrow. “Easing your aches and pains.

I’d travel until I found a place where they’d never heard of Adarlan. If such a place exists.” And she would never come back. And because he was young, and so damn clever and amusing and wonderful, wherever she made her home, there would be some man who would fall in love with her and who would make her his wife, and that was the worst truth of it all. It had snuck up on him, this pain and terror and rage at the thought of anyone else with her. Every look, every word from her… He didn’t even know when it had started. “We’ll find that place, then,” he said quietly. “What?” Her brows narrowed. “I’ll go with you.” “What about being Captain of the Guard?” “Perhaps my duties aren’t what I expected them to be.” “You love your country,” she said. “I can’t let you give all that up.” He caught a glimmer of pain and hope in her eyes, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d closed the distance between them, one hand on her waist and the other on her shoulder. “I would be the greatest fool in the world to let you go alone.

My head throbs. Wincing, I close my eyes, trying to fight off the worst of the pain, when I'm suddenly jerked forward by the cuffs on my wrists. I yelp, and then, to my surprise, I'm freed. "Take her, Kazex," the blue alien says, running a hand through his short hair. "Don't let her run. We're going back to the ship right away. Ruth has to know." "Of course, Lord Straik." A surprisingly gentle arm goes around my waist, and then I'm being supported against a larger body that smells pleasant and doesn't treat me like I'm a sack of grain to be thrown around. He guides my arm over his shoulders and holds me close. "I've got you," he says in a comforting voice. "You're safe." "Ruthie," I murmur as we fall in line behind the blue alien. "He called me Ruth. I'm not Ruth. I'm Ruthie." A name is a small matter in the scheme of things, but it's all I've got. "Ruthie," the man holding me up murmurs. "I'll remember." The

A shadow passed over her hand. Strange, because she hadn’t seen any large animals since she’d started welding. Every now and then, she was treated to the sight of a massive whale in the distance. And sometimes at night she listened to their haunting songs as they swam by the city. It was beautiful, and for some reason, it always made tears sting in her eyes. Mouth full, still chewing, she looked up to find the source of the shadow and froze. A monster hovered in front of the glass. His black tail, so long it tangled in the kelp, was at least ten feet long. Blue slashes of fins, so deep they blended in with the water, undulated all along the black scales. It stretched up to his waist, seamlessly turning into that pale, almost gray skin. His body was as all the rumors claimed. So handsome it was painful to look at, and eerily like the gold sculptures that surrounded her.