Ever After

What are you doing now?" Al questioned "Seeing if your circumcision is gone? It is. My expression went blank, and Trent hesitated. He looked at me, and I put a hand to my mouth, face flaming. "Oh. My. God. Trent. I'm sorry" "Um" Trent said, clearly at a loss. "Call me tomorrow," Al said seriously, "I've got a curse that will take care of that. Unless you like the snake in a turtleneck look

You cannot thrash the person who makes you coffee. It's a rule somewhere.

I am yours," Trent gasped through clenched teeth, and my hand sprang from him, thinking I was betrayed. Trent fell to a knee, looking up at me, pleading. "I. Am. Yours. Claim me, Rachel! Damn your morals and claim me!

I want…” he said, then hesitated, taking a breath of air and lifting his chin. “I want one pure thing in my life,” he said loudly, his voice ringing in the red-tinted air. “I want one thing I can point to and say, ‘That is good, and it’s a part of me.

His eyes met mine at the soft touch, and a chime seemed to shake the ley line, realigning the universe. He was mine.

Al's voice was faint but resolute. "Stand up. Try to look sexy." "In a bedsheet?" I complained, running my hands down it. "How can I look sexy in a bedsheet?" He cleared his throat, and I grimaced. "Never mind.

Avoiding me, Quen downed a swallow of wine. "Trent is a fine young man," he said, watching the remaining wine swirl. "Yes... " I drawled, cautiously. "If you can call a drug lord and outlawed-medicine manufacturer a fine young man.

[Jenks]"I think you're all screwy in the head," he said when Bis nodded his encouragement. "But go ahead. I've got Quen's number in my phone. I'll call him if you both explode in a flash of black underwear and money so I won't have to fly all the way home.

I thought of Al in his dream, looking nothing like this, more like an elegant bat. Broken? Perhaps, but I had put his butterfly back together with my blood. “I never liked the movie Titanic,” I said, and he grunted, his gaze sharpening on me. “They both could have gotten on that damn door.

Did something happen to the sanctity of your church again?" My eye twitched. "Newt broke it so she could look in my closet." Again.

Al was cruel, vindictive, angry, elegant, powerful. He gave me strength, he gave me wisdom, not only about magic, but about myself. He was a lot like Trent, only harsher around the edges.

She was only a year old, but elves grew up fast. Not like witches, who Jenks swore were not able to be on their own until they were thirty. Ahem.

You are the devil to talk to, Rachel," he said curtly. "Will you shut up and listen?

I will compensate all your one-inch, two-inch losses because I know how important every inch is to you aged, decrepit men.

I sighed. "And what am I to you, Al?" "My maid," he said brightly. "Shall we do this?

We could've done this anywhere, but I wanted you to see me, to see this," he said, gesturing at the room. "I wanted you to know where I come from, what I am under the choices I make.

Jenks squinted at me, and when Trent nodded, the pixy gestured sourly to Bis to get on with it. A four inch man ruled us all.

Hate is all that keeps us alive when love is gone. You’re almost there. Not quite ready to let it go yet.

If he betrays you, I will finish what I started with his fingers," he said, and I shivered. "Tell him that.

If it was up to me, I’d choose the hard path with the easy ending, not the easy path with the hard end.

Piss on my daisies, we have to save the demons!

With a gentle pressure, our lips met. His hands slipped more firmly about me, and I held myself back, not afraid, but wanting to feel everything slowly as I leaned in, tasting the wine on him, feeling the warmth of his body pressing into mine, breathing in our scents that were mingling and changing with the warmth. My hands rose to find his hair, and I relaxed into him as the silky strands brushed through my fingers. I wanted more, and I leaned into him as our lips moved against each other.

But I knew Nick. He was too ugly to die.

that was humanity's problem right there. they are brain damaged from the early sun

What are you doing now?” Al questioned, listing heavily as he tucked another one of those bottles under his arm and staggered for the cot half hidden behind a curtain. “Seeing if your circumcision is gone? It is.

A clipboard and a hard hat could get you just about anywhere.

Pierce took a step back to put more space between us. “I demanded too much,” he said, his sadness at himself, not me. “I see in your heart you found someone who makes you strong who does not hold too tight, who has learned that the pain of losing you to fate is more than the pain of you dying in a cage. Who is he?

I have to save the world tomorrow, and I don’t even know what I’m going to wear yet.

The demon had trouble remembering what she was doing, but she was powerful, sort of the crazy Wendy of the lost lord-of-the-flies boys.