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Phillip: Mine

VDIDN’T SEEM TO KNOWwhat her soft smiles and raspy laughter did to me, especially aimed at a man like Sloan.

The way she shyly tucked hair behind her ear, or how the young Hunter’s cheeks reddened in both embarrassment and coy interest any time Sloan paid her any small compliment at all was fire in my lungs. Mostly, it was how V so easily bestowed her gentle, entreating countenance to a man I knew was worthy of it that wedged actual weight inside my chest.

But she was young. Too young, some would argue, for me to lock down and keep for myself. She hadn’t lived much life, and she hadn’t been permitted to move freely or act the way she wanted. She’d barely scraped the surface of living, and of course her feelings would change.

I mean, look at that damn wolf.

Months ago, she was Nigel’s faithful girlfriend. Then things changed. Her feelings faded. Her desire for him vanished like water on a hot summer day, and the two parted ways.

Sure, I had a little something to do with it, but even I wasn’t good enough to destroy true love. It was laughable to think how with some wolf, one not the least bit worthy of her, I’d fall into the trap of jealousy.

But Sloan was different. He was a man worthy of her time. He wouldn’t lead her astray or take advantage of her. He could understand the life she led and empathize. More so, Sloan was unrelentingly clever and kind. He’d protect her. He’d do right by her.

I, on the other hand, was far more jaded than most.

After Giselle’s death, I promised never to love again; never to be torn apart by love like losing her had done to me. For decades, she was my reason for living and why I fought to keep going despite having every reason not to. And the minute she was gone, nothing mattered anymore. No one could take her place, and the void she left inside my heart was as vast as the ocean.

In truth, I initially developed the serum to put an end to the torture of a love lost and heart broken apart, never to mend. Without the one person who understood and loved me for several decades, I couldn’t imagine a future. I wandered through life, an empty shell—a perfect killing machine employed by the same people who sent my precious Giselle to her death.

Sloan came into my life when I was ready to give everything up, and he offered to help create the serum. The clever bastard knew just what to do and say to get the truth out of me.

It was one of his abilities, I was convinced.

After hearing the truth, Sloan’s only stipulation to assist with creating the serum was that instead of death, I used my pain and the vast void of Giselle’s absence to take on the Organization.

So, even though he insisted I was owed the credit, Sloan was the first to suggest we take on the Organization. It was Sloan who put forward the idea that we could do more damage from within. But he, to this very day, claimed it was initially my story that convinced him to do anything at all.

Because it was his story, too.

Unlike me, however, Sloan didn’t discourage love or romance. He argued it was love that gave us the power to fight and do better; that it was love and only love that would save us from succumbing to evil-doing. Bloody Buddha, that one, but I couldn’t exactly argue he was wrong. I wasn’t as idealistic as he was, but I could appreciate the unfaltering hope he maintained.

For this reason, there was no better man than Sloan for V, if she was ever to choose him.

In all honesty, if I’d been a better man—I wasn’t—I’d do what I could to drive her into the other Hunter’s arms. To encourage the union because V was likely to be the happiest with someone like Sloan. Yet, it didn’t seem to matter when my eyes followed her every movement, the heart of a greedy man eating away at my thoughts, and every one of my emotions tied directly with hers.