“Signý knew she would die a thousand deaths upon seeing another woman with him, bearing his children, raising them with him. All the while, Signý, caged in his dungeons, hearing all the painful details of his life with someone else, drowning in her own despair, her love for him turning to hatred. A more tragic life, she could not imagine.”

“She liked his unique smell, and it turned on all five of her senses, wanting to see him naked, touch him while naked, hear him as he moaned while he made love, taste his skin, and feel his naked body as she seduced him with the trailing of hungry fingers.”

“...the girl longed for a love that could not be ended by death. From the time she was young, she knew that her true love was there, somewhere, living a life that would one day intersect her own. Knowing this made every day full of sweet possibility. Knowing that her true love lived and breathed and went about his day under her same sun made her fears vanish, her sorrows small, and her hopes high. Though she did not yet know his face, the color of his eyes, still she knew him better than anyone else knew him, knew his hopes and dreams, what made him laugh and cry.”

“Rachel’s kiss reached inside him and twined around what passed for his soul. and when she took her mouth from his, she had it all. He knew he loved her with everything he was. Everything that he could be. There would never be another woman for him.And he could never tell her.”

“Tilting her face back, he looked into her eyes. They were unfocused, unable to settle on his face. And the same terrifying feeling stole over him once again. An acute fear—a final, painful realization—that her world was one of utter blackness. At last he realized the magnitudeof her blindness. He couldn’t imagine never seeing her again.It was like a death, the inevitable conclusion when someone was gone. Why it should hit him now, after all these years, he could not fathom, but it was there, and finally he understood her private hell. He’d told her he would die without sight. Selfish, arrogant bastard, concernedwith his own needs, his own perversions to watchhimself pleasure her, to study her as she accepted him, to watch their bodies joined. How carelessly he had said that, not thinking of Elizabeth and what she would die for. What she wanted in this life.”

“The vulnerability undid him even as the strength brought him pride. And the whole of her brought him love beyond the measuring of it.Of all he'd craved in his life, all he'd dreamed of having, all he'd fought to gain by fair means or foul, he'd never imagined having such such as she as his own. Never imagined himself the man he'd come to be because she was.”