“Will an hour be enough?”An hour implied that I needed a lot of help. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said coolly. I was ready in twenty minutes.”

“That's impossible," Gwen gasped. "The fastest I've ever run on a treadmill was ten and a half minutes and I nearly died. And it was only one mile. I had to rest for hours and eat chocolate to revive myself.”

“Not now, old woman," I tossed over my shoulder coldly. "I need sleep." Funny. You didn‘t seem to need so much a few days ago." I felt the blood drain from my face. I wasn‘t ready for this confrontation. I might never be ready for it. In fact, sleep was the last thing on your mind," he said tightly. He was angry. I could hear it in his voice. What was he angry about? I was the one who‘d been through the emotional wringer. My hands curled into fists, my breathing grew shallow. I trusted him no more today than I had two months ago. "Fucking was all you wanted.”

“He sees her like I do: at seventeen, twenty, thirty. Superimposed over the fourteen-year-old, he sees the woman she'll become.And he's staking claim.Over. my. Dead. Fucking. Body.And I can't die.”

“My breathing was shallow and my hands were fists. 'Oh, yes, I'm going to have to kill you Barrons.' I said coolly, Partly because, for the most miniscule sliver of an instant, while looking at those handcuffs, I'd imagined myself climbing back into bed and pretending I wasn't cured yet.”

“Because I knew the moment I saw you,” he ground out savagely, her “I hate you” still ringing in his ears, “that in another life—a life where I didn’t become a dark sorcerer—you were my wife. I cherished you. I adored you. I loved you until the end of time, Jessica MacKeltar. But I doona get to have that life. So I’ll take you any fucking way I can get you. And I’ll not apologize for one moment of it”

“There are moments in my life when I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to do. I pay attention to them. They’re my cosmic landmarks, letting me know I’m on the right path. Now that I’m older and can look back and see where I missed a turn here and there, and know the price I paid for those oversights, I try to look sharper at the present.”