He had been betrayed one time too many.

He would say he was a slow learner, but that wasn’t true. What he’d been was so desperate for someone to care about him that he had ignored the darker side of her nature.

Ignored it until she’d had turned her back on him and left him to die.

Some crimes were even above his ability to forgive.

His thoughts turned from himself, to the innocent men who were living in a cave. Men who knew nothing of their new existence or enemies. He couldn’t leave them there like that.

He had cost enough people their lives, their futures.

There was no way he could let them lose their souls and life too.

“All right, Artemis. I will give you what you want, if you give them what they need to survive.”

She beamed.

“But,” he continued, “my terms are this: you are going to pay them every month a wage that will allow them to buy whatever they need or desire. As stated earlier, they will need shield-bearers to care for them personally so that they won’t have to worry about scrounging for food, clothes or arms. I don’t want them to be distracted from their work.”

“Fine, I will find humans who will serve them.”

“Living humans, Artemis. I want them to serve of their own free will. No more Dark-Hunters.”

“Four of you are not enough. We need more to keep the Daimons in check.”

Acheron closed his eyes as he felt the endlessness of this relationship. All too easily he could see into the future and where this was headed.

The more Dark-Hunters, the more he would be locked to her. There was no way to keep her from tying him to her forever.

Or was there?

“All right,” he said. “I’ll give on this, if you will agree to provide them a way out of your service.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to establish a way for the Dark-Hunters to regain their souls so that they are no longer bound to you if they so choose it.”