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ba1bb80
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Eleanore," he whispered again, tilting his head to mine, his lips skimming past my cheek, his breath in my ear. "I'd wait forever for you, you know. If it mattered. If you'd care." "I do care," I whispered back, miserable. His fingers tightened, warm and firm. "No, you don't. Not the way I mean. Not yet."
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touching-moments
sweet
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Shana Abe |
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3d574df
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No." He caught her back to him, spreading his fingers over her uninjured cheek. "Listen. When you were twelve years old I saw you for the first time. Truly saw you. And from then on, I took note whenever our paths crossed. You were so quiet it was difficult to believe you sprang from the same messy bloodlines as the rest of us. You had modesty and grace. You didn't flirt, and you didn't give quarter." His palm slipped from her face; he took..
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Shana Abe |
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d7f5400
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There is a fierce joy to letting loose, to cutting yourself free from all the countless mundane threads of restraint that fix like you in your place, that tighten so gradually day by day that you do not even realize how bowed you are until you're quit of them.
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Shana Abe |
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1131450
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I wasn't even certain if my wings were meant for flight. I hadn't exactly had any luck with it the one time I'd tried. I could glide, though. Probably. Maybe. Should worse come to worst, I could smoke up to them. Turn to dragon right there, dig my claws in, and hang on. That might do it. Looked like I was about to find out. What I hadn't thought about, what I'd completely managed to forget about, was that I wasn't exactly skilled at mainta..
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Shana Abe |
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29f676f
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He had a swift and utterly lucid vision of himself in this position in thirty-odd years. Loathsome tea, hot steam, silver spoon, and fifty-year-old Chloe seated opposite him talking about clothing, because to her it was categorically, absolutely, the most fascinating topic on the planet. Besides, of course, herself. For an unflinching instant, Armand wished with his whole heart that he were dead. Then, at the very edge of his perception, so..
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Shana Abe |
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85ddefa
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All this is simply your reaction to my Gifts. You never loved me before, not in all those years. Now that you who I--what I can do, you've convinced yourself it's more than it is. Its simple instinct." "Perchance you're right. But the result is the same, isn't it? We were meant to be together in life. That's our law, because that is our instinct, the natural order of our kind. Strongest mates to strongest." She took the steps necessary to s..
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Shana Abe |
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c62e682
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The shelf number for the book would be inked in beside it, but each shelf contained about fifty books, so you had to hang there on the ladder and read every spine of every one until you came across yours. Let it be said that nothing was ever accomplished in haste at Iverson.
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Shana Abe |
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e564038
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By the next afternoon, a shepherd boy had heard his shouts and he'd been hauled up the cliffs and confined to an empty pigeon house, the sole survivor of his doomed mission. Gone cracked, though, from the ordeal. Ranting in perfect English about dragons and a young woman who could fly. No one believed him. A few people swore the airships had suffered lightning strikes, although the night had seemed so clear. A few more vowed they'd spotted ..
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Shana Abe |
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398af55
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It is considered an honor to be...plucked from the crowd, so to speak. There are fine families in the district who have lived here for generations, none of whom have been so favored with the duke's attention. Yet I wonder if it's not truly His Grace himself behind this invitation, but his son." "Perhaps there's a piano aboard." Her nostrils flared. "Don't be pert. This is not a matter of jest, Eleanore. If you go on that yacht, your every m..
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Shana Abe |
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3b0a34c
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Armand towed me up and Jesse hustled me away. I staggered against him, looking past his shoulder just in time to see my nightgown dance over the rim of the roof, a twirling, empty ballerina blowing away to the stars. "That was stupid," I said loudly. "Too right it was." None of Armand's fury had left him. "No, I mean of you. Following me like that. You could have been killed!" " were doing well enough until you-did that! Went to smoke ..
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Shana Abe |
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2d51209
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I think the word is much too small to encompass the magnitude of all it defines. For me, right then, meant that everything within me-my organs, my spirit, my hope-plunged down into a place of utter density, of blackness so heavy and bleak I had no idea how to lift any of it up again. But I had to. We were going to die unless I did.
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Shana Abe |
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bacc3d6
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I remember thinking that the Germans must have had a very fine view of all the neighborhoods they were obliterating.
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Shana Abe |
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1252931
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You deserve someone who loves you without conditions. Who would never look at another woman for the rest of his life with anything but indifference, because you are the sum of his dreams. The one girl whose eyes shine with all the days and nights he prays will come. His stars and his sun and his moon. His happiness, his true heart." His voice roughened. "His everything." She gazed up at him, her lips trembling. "Is that it? Is that how you ..
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Shana Abe |
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bb832dd
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My neck was slender and long and I could bend it nearly all the way about to take in my body: also slender, also shining. I was a dragon of gold, as if Jesse had touched me and transmuted me but not taken my life. I was sinuous and covered in lustrous golden scales, all the way almost to the tip of my tail, until they faded into purple. I had a mane, too, mapping a line down my back. It looked like a ruff of silk or cut velvet. I folded my ..
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Shana Abe |
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18ad772
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It's funny how your life can come apart in an instant. How you can feel safe and satisfied one moment, and the next you're dangling over an abyss, no warning, no quarter. You're absolutely about to fall.
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Shana Abe |
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7a82373
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I lay in my bed and tried not to miss him, to miss the entire experience of him. I wanted to feel the shape of him beside me. I wanted him to touch my hair. To kiss me, long and velvety slow.
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Shana Abe |
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d7d0240
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Kit opened his eyes. " ?" The voice was high and thin and directly by his left ear-also the location of the blade pressed up hard against his jawline. "Where is she?" the voice demanded again, whispery words nearly spilling over one another in fury. "Tell me, you bastard! I'll kill you!" Options flitted through his mind: this person was small, this person was young, it smelled like an urchin, the blade felt like a dagger or dirk. He could b..
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Shana Abe |
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cfff065
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There are certain moments in life when hard, hot truth shines at you like a spotlight from heaven, like the focused beam from a lighthouse on the shore of yourself, and you find yourself stripped naked in its light. You can't hide from it. You can't close your eyes and wish it away. It's truth; easy truth or unbearable truth, either way, it won't be vanquished. And there you are for all to see, stuck in its merciless glare.
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Shana Abe |
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4c6c1aa
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It wasn't only you, Lord Langford. It was this place, these people. This life. I want nothing to do with it." "It's a bit late for that, Rue. Whether you like it or not, we are your blood." " my blood." "Aye," agreed the marquess, sober. "Although 'twould seem you've gotten the better half by far. All beauty, none of the beast." She blinked at that, and crossed her arms. "How charming! Had you planned that for long?" "Only since this morni..
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Shana Abe |
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3185a80
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I want you in the sky, and against the earth. I want to kiss you again, I want to touch you, I want to feel you in my arms and I want to hear you gasping my name when I'm inside you. I want all that, and I want it badly. Every time I look at you, I want it." -Kit to Rue"
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Shana Abe |
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43a7fea
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Shocking," said one of a pair of fashionable young ladies seated upon a bench. She lifted her newspaper closer to her nose, scanning the print by the waning light. The spectacular loss of the Monfield gemsones was included in all five evening editions of the London papers. "Indeed," agreed the other, smoothing the pleats of her petticoat. "They didn't even mention the bracelet. And it is particularly fine." The first woman lowered her pape..
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Shana Abe |
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28462da
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Zane gestured to the table. "Did you see what I brun-brought?" She shook her head, turning back to the papers. "I've read these." "Not that one. Nipped it from The Spotted Dog. Last week's news, but I thought you'd like the bottom-right bit." "At least your reading is coming along." "An' I washed my face last Sunday," he said virtuously. -Zane & Rue"
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Shana Abe |
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5ccb345
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Are the family lists complete yet?" he asked George. "Aye, my lord. We've gathered the names of every possible successful runner for the last forty years. Not many men, I'll tell you that. Six at most, and all were thought to be very much dead. Four apparently lost to fire-you remember the blaze that leveled the tavern in '33-one to drowning, and one bloke to, ah, wolves." Kit raised his brows. "Wolves?" "That's what his son said. Stirling ..
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Shana Abe |
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e422ca7
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Sun's down," muttered one of the guardsmen by the windows. "Then it's time." Grady made to push away from the table, and the rest began to follow. "No," said Kit. Grady paused with his palm pressed flat against the tabletop; all the other men froze. "What?" "No," Kit said once more, very polite. "Be seated. All of you." "Why are we wasting-" "Be ." Even his old nemesis knew to obey that tone. It sliced across the room slick as steel, resou..
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Shana Abe |
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55fcfc4
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He straightened. "Are you ready?" "Yes." He nodded, his gaze traveling the length of her body, deliberately, slowly, as if to memorize her as she stood. "Then may I have a kiss?" he asked, unmoving. "For luck?" She felt her heart pick up. She felt her face grow hot. "You see? I'm asking, not demanding." He lifted his hands to her, palms up. "Even the most beastly of us can learn." Rue dropped her gaze to the ground, discomfited. "I don't ..
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Shana Abe |
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207dd4e
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I confess, as much as I enjoy you in breeches, you hold up that gown rather well." She studied him through the eyeholes. "You truly stopped trying to be charming." "You're the most ravishing creature in the world, sweet Rue, even when hidden behind feathers and beads. How was that?" "Adequate, if insincere." "Then you mistake me." He took up her free hand and pressed her fingertips to his lips, gold to gold, sending a flash of sudden, sen..
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Shana Abe |
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66ebb35
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There are things in this world," she said steadily, still holding Zane's eyes, "that defy easy words. There are things in this world worth protecting, fragile things, secret things. Things that would do great harm should they ever be handled carelessly." "Rue." The marquess loomed just beyond her. "Things like magic." She touched a finger to Zane's cheek, a shock of warmth. "Things like love." -Rue, Zane, & Kit"
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Shana Abe |