I’m not your boyfriend!” I snapped, trying to gently move her hands away from my body.“How can you say that?” Sara asked in horror.“It’s shockingly effortless,” I replied. “My vocal chords vibrate, and my mouth and tongue articulate. I can even do it without thinking.” I had to remind myself to stay calm, and sarcasm was the best way to do that.“When are you going to give me a key to your house so I don’t have to knock like some guest?” Sara asked, coming at me again.I backed away. “How about never? Is never good for you?”Sara, undeterred, said, “You’re the reason I go to therapy on Fridays.”“The plot thickens!” Gabby exclaimed for comedic relief.

As we pass the mirror in the bedroom, my attention is drawn to the lovely couple in the reflection. There is a man, tall with broad shoulders. His red hair cut short. He has nothing but a towel on. In his arms is a female, slender but muscular. Her wheat colored hair is pulled back in a neat bun on top of her head. Both of their skin is smooth and flawless, a little paler than most, but still complete perfection. You can tell by the way the man holds her, he cares a lot for her. You can also tell that he is afraid of holding her too tight, not wanting to crush her smaller frame into his body. Looking at this young pair in the mirror, one can only wonder of all the possibilities. What led them to this place? What is in store for them? Will there be a happy ending?

Sitting on the train I watch the scenery speeding by, notice a cobweb in the top corner of the window, undulating with a gentle breeze I can’t feel. I lean back in my seat and take my book out of the carrier bag. Turning it over in my hand, it feels warm. It feels how I want to feel; full of knowledge, full of the future.The time I’ve spent staying in bed smoking dope I’ve been hibernating, recuperating and gaining strength. I’m weak socially, but being away from other drug users has made me resilient. It’s allowed my mind and body to heal and mend. As if the winter is over, I’ve come out stronger now. I’m on my own. I have the choice of what to do with my life.I’m going to stay clean. I’m going to be the woman I can be.

You said the demon’s signature is faint. I may be able to heal her if she’s been injured.”“Not in your present state, you said.”She scowled at him. “I won’t let you back into my uncle’s home.”“Then I can’t protect you if the Baltimore demon comes for you.”She folded her arms.Hunter’s jaw tightened. “All right. I’ll call you.” He snorted under his breath. “You’re a Kubiteron and I’m a Matusa. That means you’re to obey me.”“You mean, ‘You, Matusa, me, Kubiteron?’ No way, Tarzan. Go beat on your chest before some other lesser demon.”Jared quickly hid a smile.Hunter’s face turned dark. She gave him a quirky smile, then vanished.

They say love is blind...but it isn't. Love is perfect sight. Love is the ability to see a person, I mean really see him-his strengths, his weaknesses, his flaws, all his past triumphs and mistakes-and view that person not as the world says you're supposed to see him, but as you see him-as that special someone you know you will always embrace, body and soul, no matter what anyone else says or thinks I know I can't tell anyone what I've been through. I know they wouldn't understand. They don't see him the way that I see him. All they know is the legend, the darkness. They don't know the inner beauty, the warmth and the joy more intense than anything I ever thought was possible to experience. They don't know the truth behind the name. My angel. My only. Lucifer.

Raffin appeared again, a floor above her, on the balconied passageway that ran past his workrooms. He leaned over the railing and called down to her. "Kat!""What is it?""You look lost . Have you forgotten the way to your rooms?""I'm stalling.""How long will you be? I'd like to show you a couple of my new discoveries.""I've been told to make myself pretty for dinner."He grinned. "Well in that case, you'll be ages."His face dissolved into laughter, and she tore a button from one of her bags an hurled it at him. He squealed and dropped to the floor, and the button hit the wall right where he'd been standing. When he peeked back over the railing, she stood in the courtyard with her hands on her hips, grinning. "I missed on purpose," she said."Show off! Come if you have time." He waved, and turned into his rooms.

I just read this great quote by Junot Diaz, he was talking about true intimacy, and he was saying that it was the willingness to be vulnerable and to be found out. That’s what I felt that YA did. It wasn't pretentious, and it wasn’t hiding its heart. It wanted to be found out...It felt like those moments when you go to a party and you're standing around for a long time, going, I don't fit in here, what am I going to talk to these people about? And everybody's getting drunk, and then you find this one person, and you end up sitting in some corner talking about all these arcane things.And then before you know it you're having a conversation about the meaning of life and it's four o’clock in the morning. That kind of feeling, that kind of intimacy — I felt like that's what I got from YA.

You are sitting in my chair, my lord." She said the words very civilly, she thought. Although he quirked a brow and lowered his chin as if giving her one of those looks. Like really? In a way that wasn't a question. She was telling a fae king, a hawk fae king, and a guest of the dark fae, that he should be sitting in her seat? But she didn't stop there. "You may sit there if it pleases you." She pointed to Micala's seat since he was not at the meal. Her mother's mouth gaped and for once she didn't have an immediate rebuke ready for Ritasia. The king gave Ritasia such a sinister smile, she was afraid she might have gone a little too far with her first encounter with him. She quickly remembered her manners, curtseyed, though, because she wasn't wearing a gown, she thought she looked a little ridiculous, then looked back up at him.

…There’s forty-two thousand jobs, near ten thousand of ’em got by people like us. Everyone’s gotta eat. Industry feeds ’em. They figure Little Bear here’s gonna clean it up." He squeezed his baby, a dimpled plump girl with tufts of jet-black hair."Paa paa ba baaa!" she said. It was time for a nap.Lou sipped from his thermos, and Little Bear’s eyes drooped, and Missy remembered the voice of Rasmus Krook. 'The people will pay with their whole being: physically, mentally, ideologically, spiritually, with their land, their soul. And not just country people. Not just native people. Poison will flow through villages, towns, and cities and not stop. We must rise up. We must disrupt the system. Capitalism is a deception.'"You can help pirates," she said, because that’s the only answer she knew. Lou lifted his coffee in salute, and Missy stood up to jump.

Oh, what had she done?"He'd startled her; that was the problem. It was all his fault he was lying on the ground, looking rather cherub like, his blond hair curling about his ears, his bright blue eyes closed now, his masculine lips parted slightly as he slept the sleep of the dead.She studied his masculine lips. And thought just how much havoc she could wreak if she kissed him. Served him right for startling her so.Without analyzing whether she should do it, and just because she could, she pressed her mouth against his and gently kissed his lips, meaning only to give a quick peck and that was it.... His lips curved up under hers and for a second, she thought he was awake, smiling at her kissing him....Her thoughts reverted to the kiss and immediately the human faery tale Sleeping Beauty and the prince giving the princess a kiss to wake her sprang to mind. Why ever did humans make up such nonsense anyway?

Have you kissed many boys before?" he asked quietly. His question brought my mind back into focus. I raised an eyebrow. "Boys? That's an assumption." Noah laughed, the sound low and husky. "Girls, then?""No.""Not many girls? Or not many boys?""Neither," I said. Let him make of that what he would."How many?" "Why—" "I am taking away that word. You are no longer allowed to use it. How many?" My cheeks flushed, but my voice was steady as I answered. "One." At this, Noah leaned in impossibly closer, the slender muscles in his forearm flexing as he bent his elbow to bring himself nearer to me, almost touching. I was heady with the proximity of him and grew legitimately concerned that my heart might explode. Maybe Noah wasn't asking. Maybe I didn't mind. I closed my eyes and felt Noah's five o' clock graze my jaw, and the faintest whisper of his lips at my ear."He was doing it wrong.

There aren't many berry bushes where I'm from.""And just where would that be?"His hand paused on a berry like it was a monumental decision whether to pluck it or not. He finally pulled and explained he was from a small town in the southernmost part of Morringhan. When I asked the name, he said it was very small and had no name...."A town with no name? Really? How very odd." I waited for him to scramble, and he didn't disappoint me."It's only a region. A few scattered dwellings at most. We're farmers there. Mostly farmers. And you? Where are you from?"...I took the berry still poised in his fingers and popped it in my mouth. Where was I from? I narrowed my eyes and smiled. "A small town in the northernmost part of Morrighan. Mostly farmers. Only a regions, really. A few scattered dwellings. At most. No name."He couldn't restrain a chuckle. "Then we come from opposite but similar worlds, don't we?

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you’re really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I’ve learned it’s not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it’s more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don’t always nail it, but I’m getting better at it. And it’s always the truth even if it isn’t how I see it.Is it deceiving? No. It’s being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn’t important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames

In trials of ir'n and silver fain“The dead will rise and walk again“The blesséd few that touch the light“Will aid the war against the night.“But one by one they all will die“Without a cause to rule them by“As Darkness spreads across the land“He'll wield the oceans in his hand.“Five warriors will oppose his reign“And overthrow the Shadow Thane“They come from sides both dark and light“The realm the mortals call “twilight.”“A magus crowned with boughs of fire“Will rise like Phoenix from his pyre“A beast of shadows touched with sight“Will claim a Dark One as her knight“The next, a prophet doomed to fail“Will find her powers to avail“The final: one mere mortal man“Who bears the mark upon his hand“The circle closes round these few“Made sacred by the bonds they hew“But if one fails then so shall all“Bring death to those of Evenfall.

That day and night, the bleeding and the screaming, had knocked something askew for Esme, like a picture swinging crooked on a wall. She loved the life she lived with her mother. It was beautiful. It was, she sometimes thought, a sweet emulation of the fairy tales they cherished in their lovely, gold-edged books. They sewed their own clothes from bolts of velvet and silk, ate all their meals as picnics, indoors or out, and danced on the rooftop, cutting passageways through the fog with their bodies. They embroidered tapestries of their own design, wove endless melodies on their violins, charted the course of the moon each month, and went to the theater and the ballet as often as they liked--every night last week to see Swan Lake again and again. Esme herself could dance like a faerie, climb trees like a squirrel, and sit so still in the park that birds would come to perch on her. Her mother had taught her all that, and for years it had been enough. But she wasn't a little girl anymore, and she had begun to catch hints and glints of another world outside her pretty little life, one filled with spice and poetry and strangers.