41
" David started up the wheeled stairs to the upper floors with his sword at the ready. He expected to encounter Blackadder warriors, protecting the lady of the castle. But there were none on the stairs and none guarding the door on the first floor.
Damn it. She must have escaped. He gritted his teeth as he envisioned the lady’s guards leading her through the tunnel.
He was about to open the chamber door to make sure it was empty when Brian, one of his best men, came down the stairs.
“Laird, I checked all the chambers while ye were in the hall,” he said.
David’s jaw ached from clenching it.
“There’s one door on the floor just above us that wouldn’t open with the latch,” Brian said. “Shall I break it down?”
David waved him aside and pulled the ax from his belt as he raced up the stairs.
“Open it!” he shouted and pounded on the door.
He did not wait. She could be escaping through a secret door this very moment. Three hard whacks with his ax, and the door split. He kicked it until it swung open, then stepped through.
At his first sight of the woman, his feet became fixed to the floor. He felt strange, and his vision was distorted, as if as if he had swallowed a magical potion that narrowed his sight. He could see nothing in the room but her.
She was extraordinarily lovely, with violet eyes, pale skin, and shining black hair. But there was something about her, something beyond her beauty, that held him captive. She was young, much younger than he expected, and her features and form were delicate, in marked contrast to the violent emotion in her eyes.
David knew to the depths of his soul that a brute like him should not be the man to claim this fragile flower, even while the word mine beat in his head like a drum. He had no notion of how long he stood staring at her before he became aware that she held a sword. It was longer still before he noticed the two wee lasses peeking out from behind her like frightened kittens.
Anger boiled up in his chest. Every Blackadder man in the castle who could still draw breath should have been here, standing between him and their lady. Instead, she faced him alone with a sword she could barely lift with both hands.
It was a brave, but ridiculous gesture.
There was no defense against him. "
― Margaret Mallory , Captured by a Laird (The Douglas Legacy, #1)
43
" We stepped in, and, as we paid the cover charge, the music hit us. The double doors buzzed open and we walked in. A handsome man and his lover in an orange top snuggled as they walked to the exit. Veronica turned to me and smiled, taking my hand. I unbuttoned my shirt at the neck and exposed my collar. It was a thin metal collar with a padlock on the front. If the padlock wasn’t attached it would have looked like any other interesting necklace that was tight against my neck, but it got more interesting with the padlock.
On Veronica’s left hand there was a thick bracelet, and that had a key on it. Her right wrist had a glow bracelet. We walked past the tables of people as they drank and screamed over the music to talk. We decided to go right to the dance floor. She took me by the hand, led me.
We were on the dance floor and I couldn’t dance. I ended up just throwing myself around, getting lost in the people surrounding us. The bodies pressed against us, the industrial music loud and crisp. The bass shook your bones, and my ribcage felt like it was rattled to pieces. I closed my eyes and just moved. Veronica moved with a grace I hadn’t seen in awhile when I opened my eyes. She pressed herself against a couple that surrounded her. I felt my breath catch in my throat, my heart pounded from excitement. She squeezed past them and moved to me, her hands ran down my face, and then she gripped the padlock with her left hand.
She pulled me down to her, which wasn’t very far, but it was the intensity of the moment that made all the difference. What she did next made me jump, my body tensed and relaxed in milliseconds. She gave me a deep kiss, and, while she kissed me, distracted me, her other hand undid my padlock. I pulled back as I jumped in shock. Our eyes were locked on each others’ in the flashing neon stage lights. She had a twinkle in her eye as she pulled me close to her.
“Find a man, for you.”
I pulled back, looked at her in surprise. She smiled wickedly, an erotic edge to her features suddenly. She was hot when she was getting dressed and she was even hotter now. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I leaned into her ear.
“Are you looking for a woman? "
― Todd Misura , Divergence: Erotica from a Different Angle
46
" You’re not touching us,’” Eve said, and raised her voice. “Shane! Shane, get your ass up here now!’”
There was a touch of panic in her voice, although she was putting on a good front. Her hands were shaking where they gripped the hockey stick.
The man glided around the end of the bed, prowling like a cat. Six feet tall, at least, and as broad as two of Eve, maybe bigger. His bare arms were ripped with muscle. His blue eyes looked shallow and hungry.
Claire heard the thump of footsteps outside, and then a bang as Shane fetched up against the locked door. He rattled the knob and pounded hard. “Eve! Eve, open up!’”
“She’s busy!’” the biker yelled, and laughed. “Oh yeah, gonna be real busy.’”
“No!’” Shane screamed it, and the door shook with the strength of the blows he put into it. “Stay away from them! "
― Rachel Caine , The Dead Girls' Dance (The Morganville Vampires, #2)
47
" It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. "
― Ray Bradbury , Fahrenheit 451
49
" I know I have a pretty good sense for music, but she was better than me. I used to think it was such a waste! I thought, ‘If only she had started out with a good teacher and gotten the proper training, she’d be so much further along!’ But I was wrong about that. She was not the kind of child who could stand proper training. There just happen to be people like that. They’re blessed with this marvelous talent, but they can’t make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I’ve seen my share of people like that. At first you think they’re amazing. Like, they can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you’re overwhelmed. you think, ‘I could never do that in a million years.’ But that’s as far as they go. They can’t take it any further. And why not? Because they won’t put in the effort. Because they haven’t had the discipline pounded into them. They’ve been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they’ve been able to play things well without any effort and they’ve had people telling them how great they are from the time they’re little, so hard work looks stupid to them. They’ll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher figures they’ve put enough into it and lets them go to the next thing. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a certain element required or character building. It’s a tragedy. "
― Haruki Murakami , Norwegian Wood
51
" Are you super strong? Can you be hurt?" " Of course I can," replied Dimitri. " I'm strong, but all sorts of things can still hurt me." And then being Rose Hathaway, I said something I really shouldn't have to the boy. " You should go punch him and find out." Jonathan's mother screamed again, but he was a fast little bastard, eluding her grasp. He ran up to Dimitri before anyone could stop him-well, I could have-and pounded his tiny fist against Dimitri's knee.Then, which the same reflexes that allowed him to dodge enemy attacks, Dimitri immediately feinted falling backward, as though Jonathan had knocked him over. Clutching his knee, Dimitri groaned as though he were in terrible pain.Several people laughed, and by then, one of the other guardians had caught hold of Jonathan and returned him to his near-hysterical mother. As he was being dragged away, Jonathan glanced over his shoulder at Dimitri. " He doesn't seem very strong to me. I don't think he's a Strigoi. "
52
" There were days so clear and skies so brilliant blue, with white clouds scudding across them like ships under full sail, and she felt she could lift right off the ground. One moment she was ambling down a path, and the next thing she knew, the wind would take hold of her, like a hand pushing against her back. Her feet would start running without her even willing it, even knowing it. And she would run faster and faster across the prairie, until her heart jumped like a rabbit and her breath came in deep gasps and her feet barely skimmed the ground.
It felt good to spend herself this way. The air tasted fresh and delicious; it smelled like damp earth, grass, and flowers. And her body felt strong, supple, and hungry for more of everything life could serve up.
She ran and felt like one of the animals, as though her feet were growing up out of the earth. And she knew what they knew, that sometimes you ran just because you could, because of the way the rush of air felt on your face and how your legs reached out, eating up longer and longer patches of ground.
She ran until the blood pounded in her ears, so loud that she couldn't hear the voices that said, You're not good enough, You're not old enough, You're not beautiful or smart or loveable, and you will always be alone.
She ran because there were ghosts chasing her, shadows that pursued her, heartaches she was leaving behind. She was running for her life, and those phantoms couldn't catch her, not here, not anywhere. She would outrun fear and sadness and worry and shame and all those losses that had lined up against her like a column of soldiers with their guns shouldered and ready to fire. If she had to, she would outrun death itself.
She would keep on running until she dropped, exhausted. Then she would roll over onto her back and breathe in the endless sky above her, sun glinting off her face.
To be an animal, to have a body like this that could taste, see hear, and fly through space, to lie down and smell the earth and feel the heat of the sun on your face was enough for her. She did not need anything else but this: just to be alive, cool air caressing her skin, dreaming of Ivy and what might be ahead. "
― , The Blind Faith Hotel
