"No."
"Then we're going to have to be grown-ups here because I love my wife too much to hurt her. She's lost one sister, it would kill her to lose another one. She needs Tabitha." Kyrian grimaced as if in pain, then held his hand out to Valerius. "Truce?"
Valerius took his hand into his. "Truce."
Kyrian released him, then Julian offered his hand.
"For the record," Kyrian said before he left. "This only makes us friendly enemies."
Tabitha came into the kitchen as they left. "You okay?"
He nodded. "Kyrian decided to grow up."
She looked impressed. "I guess immortality agrees with him."
"Apparently so."
The two of them stayed at the wake until just after midnight when they decided to head home in Tabitha's beat-up Mini Cooper.
As they entered the foyer, they found Ash waiting for them.
"What are you doing here?" Valerius asked.
Ash came forward and handed a small box to Tabitha. "You know what to do. Just remember: Don't drop it."
Tabitha was aghast as she held the box that contained Valerius's soul in her hand. "We had decided that we weren't going to do this. I don't want to take Valerius's immortality from him."
Ash let out a long, tired breath. "Until you return his soul to him, Artemis owns him. Is that what you want?"
"No."
"Well, there you go." Ash headed for the door, then paused to look back at them. "By the way, Tabby, you're immortal now, too."
"What?"
He shrugged. "It wouldn't be fair to Amanda to lose you to old age."
"But how? How can I be immortal?"
Ash gave her a wry grin. "It's the will of the gods. Don't question it."
He slipped out the door and left them alone.
"Wow," Tabitha breathed as she opened up the box to see a royal blue medallion inside. It was vibrant with swirling colors that made it seem as if it were living.
She closed the box. "Well, what do you think?"
"I think you'd best not drop it."
She agreed.
Later that night when it came time to stake him so that she could return his soul to him, she learned something horrible.
She couldn't do it.
"C'mon, Tabitha," Valerius said as he sat up on the bed, shirtless. "You stabbed me the night we met without even blinking."
"Yeah, but you were a dirtbag then."
"I think I'm offended."
Weeks went by as Tabitha attempted to stab Valerius, only to meet with failure.
She even tried to pretend he was a Daimon.
It didn't work. Not to mention the small fact that they had yet to discover what would drain his Dark-Hunter powers and make him human long enough to die.
So they settled into a strange kind of peace. Tabitha moved out of her apartment over her store and left that for Marla to keep while she lived with Valerius.
They stayed together in the daytime and hunted together at night.
Still she couldn't stake him, but at least one afternoon, she'd learned his weakness: hurting her. It'd been an accident. He'd been reaching for his sword when he'd accidentally elbowed her. For two hours, his eyes had been blue.
Even so, she hadn't been able to stab him.
It was hopeless.
Until that summer. While Tabitha and Valerius were in the middle of training in the upstairs gym, the unthinkable happened.
One minute, she had been playing with Valerius; the next, Kyrian burst through the door, causing Valerius to strike her by accident. His eyes turned instantly blue. Before she realized what he was doing, Kyrian grabbed Valerius, threw him to the ground, and drove a stake through his heart and left it there.
"What are you doing?" Tabitha shrieked, rushing toward him.
Amanda caught her. "It's okay, Tabby," she said, forcing the box that held Valerius's soul into her hand. "Since you keep telling me that you can't do this, Kyrian volunteered."
"Yeah, and with any luck, you might actually drop it," Kyrian said evilly.
Tabitha scowled at him.
Grabbing the box from her sister, she knelt beside Val.
Valerius lay on the floor panting. His face was covered in sweat while he bled from his wound.
"Don't worry, baby. I won't drop it."
He offered her a trembling smile. "I trust you."
Tabitha's heart stopped as he died. Grabbing the medallion, she cried out as it burned her palm. Tabitha bit her lip and placed the medallion to the bow-and-arrow brand on Valerius's hip.
"Sh," Amanda said soothingly. "It'll stop burning in a second. Just think about Valerius."
She did, even though every sane part of her wanted to let go of the burning hunk of lava that seared her hand.
Finally, it started to cool.
Valerius didn't move.
Tabitha began to panic.
"It's okay," Amanda said. "It just takes a minute."
And after a few more, Valerius opened his eyes, which were now a permanent and vibrant shade of blue. His fangs were completely gone.
Tabitha smiled at the sight of him, grateful beyond measure that he was alive. "You don't look right."
Valerius cupped her face. "I think you look beautiful."
"I think I should stake him again just for good measure," Kyrian said.
"I think we need to be going," Amanda said as she got up from the floor, grabbed her husband, and made a quick exit.
"Oh, c'mon," Kyrian whined from the hallway. "Can't I please stake him one more time?"
"Hi, human," Tabitha said before she kissed him.
Then she pulled back with a cry as she realized something.
She was immortal. Now that Valerius was no longer a Dark-Hunter, he wasn't.
"Oh, my God," she breathed. "What have we done?"
But the answer was simple. They had just damned her to live out eternity without him.