She has very strong ideas about family - ideas that probably sound kind of sexist to you. She believes all dhampirs should train and put in time as guardians, but that the women should eventually return home to raise their children together. But not the men? No, he said wryly. She thinks men still need to stay out there and kill Strigoi.

We all screw up. Everyone makes mistakes. That’s what she did. It was bad judgment, that’s all. You don’t cut off the people you love for mistakes like that.

I looked him in the eye. “I will always love you.” Then I plunged the stake into his chest.

If not for me being stoned and clinging to a taco, it would have been terribly romantic.

Even I make mistakes." I put on my brash, overconfident face. "I know it's hard to believe—kind of surprises me myself—but I guess it has to happen. It's probably some kind of karmic way to balance out the universe. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to have one person so full of awesomeness.

I’d said it before and meant it: Alive or undead, the love of my life was a badass.

Honor, I thought. For real: the guardians should have taught it. Because I hadn't learned it.