Inward Trembling Novels & Stories

I could feel it in my ears, in my fingertips, in the base of my throat. Eleven o'clock. Eleven fifteen. Each minute felt like it was pulling something tighter inside my chest. Some wire wound too many times, getting closer to the point where it either snapped or I did. Eleven thirty. I pressed my back flat against the wall beside the door. My whole body was shaking now. Not visibly maybe but I could feel it. A deep fine tremor running from my core outward. My hands. My legs. The air coming in and out of my lungs in careful controlled measures because if I let myself breathe wrong I was going to fall apart and I could not fall apart. Not yet. Not here.

Then the room took a breath with her. Her spine arched the smallest amount. Bones don’t so much break as choose different math; I could feel the sums changing under my palm the way you can feel thunder in your teeth before it decides to speak. Her fingers curled. Nails thickened a fraction. A tremor went through her hips and stilled. This is where the stutter shows, if it’s going to. This is where a man-made wolf’s body starts to argue and lose. I pulled my own breath low so I wouldn’t hand her fear by accident.

He didn’t. My hand settled gently over his trembling one where it lay on his knee. His skin was cold. His fingers flinched beneath mine, then slowly, hesitantly, turned, lacing through mine with a desperate, clinging pressure. His grip was crushing, anchoring himself to me as if I were the only solid thing in a world dissolving into chaos. A choked sob escaped him, muffled against the darkness. He bowed his head again, his forehead almost touching our joined hands, his shoulders shaking with silent, wracking tremors.

"I want to be inside you so badly, I'm shaking, baby." As he slowly made his way down her trembling body, the burning pleasure swept over her like a violent storm and choked moans emanated from her. The depths of his throat were torn out. When he reached her tense, twitching belly, Mira was just a melting, gasping mass of nerve endings,

I question myself, trying to figure out my surroundings. My lips feel parched, and hunger growls in my stomach. The blackness continues to engulf me; a strong tremor of panic vibrates in my core. I’m restrained; sightless and motionless, and I’m in deep shit. I’m as good as dead surely; like a lamb awaiting slaughter. The tremor of panic increases in intensity until I physically shake in time with it.

Sharp little intakes of breath that spoke of shock and pain and the body's involuntary response to stimuli it couldn't process or understand. Shuddered when I touched her, full-body tremors that ran through her like electricity, like her nervous system was shorting out under the weight of what was happening. Flinched like something inside her was burning slow, like wet wood that refuses to catch fire no matter how much fuel you add, no matter how hard you blow on the embers. But she never screamed.

Tremors wracked his entire body, and he fought to remain upright as waves of anguish crashed over him. Ederic's surroundings seemed to fade away, his senses dulled by the overwhelming grief. The world became a blur for a moment, his vision clouded by tears. He moved closer to his mother's bedside, standing there as if in a trance. His trembling hands reached out to touch hers, the effort to steady his own shaking fingers a monumental task.

He reached up — slow, careful — and brushed a strand of hair from my face with the same tenderness he’d used a thousand times before. But his fingers trembled. Just once. A tiny, involuntary tremor that the Vuk would never allow. Because the real Vuk — the one who carried me through fortresses and knelt for me and begged gods he hated — never trembled unless something was tearing him apart. My breath hitched, sharp and painful, like a blade slipping between my ribs. The kicks in my belly stuttered — once, twice — then went still. Too still. Far too still. I pressed both hands there, frantic now, fingers digging into the soft curve as if I could force life back into it.

It was so magnificent and destructive when heard directly from outside that it felt as if it would burst my eardrums and paralyze my reason. My body was trembling uncontrollably, as if caught in a fever. That was by no means out of terror or anger toward this illicit sin. Deep within the abyss of my empty core, the desires—starved and cowering for a decade—sensed the intimate, wet friction and ragged pants pouring from my sister and the servant. They reared their heads like a viper. I dabbed a generous amount of sweet moisture on the tips of my trembling fingers, very carefully bringing them to a corner of the closed paper door.

The needle on the temperature monitor was creeping upward, inching toward the red zone. "Steady," I whispered to myself. "Just stay steady." I reached out to adjust the manual flow valve. My hand hovered over the metal wheel, and that’s when I saw it. The tremor. It was slight, a subtle vibration in my fingertips, but it was there. My hand was shaking. I clenched my fist, pressing my fingers into my palm until the knuckles turned white. I took a sharp breath, willing the tremor to stop. But it didn't. It was a physical betrayal; a symptom of a body that was running on fumes.