I felt the back of my neck crawl. The crawling reached around to the corners of my jaw, then up to my temple, and across my cheeks. I reached up to touch it. Splinters, small fingers, hooks. Scraping at my fingertips, gouging. Slowly reaching for my ...
In the days when money was backed by its face value in silver or gold, there were limits to how much wealth could flow around the world. Today, it's virtual money that the bank lends into existence on a computer screen. "And unless the economy contin...
As it happens, I’m a terrible dancer. Bears are simply not made for dancing. We’re much better at sitting and sleeping and singing. But there are humans who catch bears and force us to dance. It’s agony. And there are other humans who pay to wa...
Squinting in the darkness Anya could just make out a strange curving symbol scratched into the bark. Baba Zosia scored a line through it, disfiguring the symbol. Anya felt something in the air change and give, like the forest had let out a breath it ...
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those...
Jace set what he was holding down on the windowsill and reached out to her. She came to lean against him, and his hand slid up under her t-shirt and rested caressingly, possessively, on the small of her back. He bent to kiss her, gently at first, but...
Did you ever think she was your mate?” Lucas asked unable to help himself. Clyde tensed, seemingly caught off-guard by the question. “I knew she wasn’t mine,” he said then exhaled. “Angels don’t mate, remember?” “Then why did you make...
Heavy hearts, heavy eyelids," said the master of the caravan. "Huh?" Heather looked up in dismay, shocked to find she'd nearly been left behind as the caravan prepared to move on. Her last night's sleep had been fitful, full of dreams where Khalid ma...
I was now blinded by a flood of light, but when I realised how many countless numbers of angels were imprisoned in Bardo’s dismal prison, it took my breath away. “Gabriel!” I shouted to my leader with all my might, but he gave no sign of hearin...
Most days I live awed by the world we have still, rather than mourning the worlds we have lost. The bandit mask of a cedar waxwing on a bare branch a few feet away; the clear bright sun of a frozen winter noon; the rise of Orion in the eastern evenin...
Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who hadn't lived yet. Premature ghosts. Half-ghosts. X's without Y'...
I carry my liberty with me. It is in my thoughts, in my head. Shakespeare is one of my countries, Goethe another. You can change that badge that I wear, but you can’t change the way I think. It is through my intellect that I can escape the roles, i...
Love"I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus,"I said. "I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of sayi...
13 NOTES She hesitated. For two years she had kept as far away from Mikael Blomkvist as she could. And yet he kept sticking to her life like gum on the sole of her shoe, either on the Net or in real life. On the Net it was O.K. There he was no more t...
You hardly know me and yet you invited me out on a date,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘Why?’ Because you called me a phoney, Moist thought. You saw through me straight away. Because you didn’t nail my head to the door with your crossbow. Because you...
Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night... Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in ...
He opened his eyes again, raking his gaze up and down my body before coming to rest on my crotch. "Quite simply," he said, "I'd like to lick your cunt. I'd like to hear you scream my name." The world seemed to sway. "Don't... don't you have groupies ...
Ah, mistress, you’re an angel. Sure there’s not a drop left? I might have remembered one more person….” “Up yours,” I said rudely with another belch. “It’s empty. You should tell me the name anyway, after making me drink all that sewa...
What you don't ever catch a glimpse of on your wedding day - because how could you? - is that some days you will hate your spouse, that you will look at him and regret ever changing a word with him, let alone a ring and bodily fluids. And nor do you ...
What you don't ever catch a glimpse of on your wedding day - because how could you? - is that some days you will hate your spouse, that you will look at him and regret ever exchanging a word with him, let alone a ring and bodily fluids. And nor do yo...
There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that...
