Lindsey Bell

“And what do you care anyway ? You don't want to marry me."
"I do want to marry you !" She stamped her foot in frustration. "If there was a Priestess standing here, I'd marry you right this minute !"
"She offered to marry him," Merry said.
"In front of witnesses," Jaenelle added.
Lucivar pointed a finger at Marian and snarled, "I accept."
"And he accepted," Merry said gleefully.
"In front of witnesses," Jaenelle added. "How soon can the Priestess get here ?”
― Anne Bishop, Dreams Made Flesh

“I can do this,” [Daemon] crooned, slowly circling around her. “I can keep Dorothea and Hekatah off-balance enough to keep the others safe and also prevent those Ladies from giving the orders to send the Terreillean armies into Kaeleer. I can buy you seventy-two hours, Jaenelle. But it’s going to cost me because I’m going to do things I may never be forgiven for, so I want something in return.” He could taste her slight bafflement before she said, “All right.”

“I don’t want to wear the Consort’s ring anymore.” A slash of pain, quickly stifled.

“All right.”

“I want a wedding ring in its place.” A flash of joy, immediately followed by sorrow. She smiled at him at the same time her eyes filled with tears. “It would be wonderful.” She meant that.”
― Anne Bishop, Queen of the Darkness

“It is easier to kill than to heal. It is easier to destroy than to preserve. It is easier to tear down than to build. Those who feed on destructive emotions and ambitions and deny the responsibilities that are the price of wielding power can bring down everything you care for and would protect. Be on guard, always.”
― Anne Bishop, Heir to the Shadows

“Yes, Smoke told him reluctantly, Lucivar had cried. Heart pain. Caught-in-a-trap pain. The Lady had petted and petted, sung and sung. It had been more than a dream, then. In one of the dreamscapes Black Widows spun so well, Jaenelle had met the boy he had been and had drawn the poison from the soul wound. He had wept for the boy, for the things he hadn’t been allowed to do, for the things he hadn’t been allowed to be. But he didn’t weep for the man he’d become.

“Ah, Lucivar,” she’d said regretfully as they’d walked through the dreamscape. “I can heal the scars on your body, but I can’t heal the scars of the soul. Not yours, not mine. You have to learn to live with them. You have to choose to live beyond them.”
― Anne Bishop, Heir to the Shadows