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A lump formed in my throat, so it was hard to swallow. “Lies. Who are you and what have you done with Phil?”

Finally, Phillip laughed and the tension in my chest eased. “Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know anymore.”

“Believe that you’re Phil, or believe what you’ve done with him?”

His eyes rolled, and I sucked in a relieved breath. “We’ll start first with why I didn’t mention what Cassius said.” He carded a large hand through his wet locks, the dance of his chest muscles distracting my eyes for a second. “It’s not that I don’t intend to tell him. We haven’t confirmed anything yet.”

“And?”

Phillip’s hot sigh painted my forehead, his hold on me tightening. “And it’s pointless until we have.”

“Then, is that what you were so salty about? Not being able to tell Sloan what we learned from that Dark Fae bastard?” I moved cautiously before wrapping my arm around his waist and inhaling the Austrian’s deeply masculine scent.

The embrace was somehow more intimate than previous ones, and I didn’t want to risk saying anything that might make Phillip pull away. I enjoyed the way it felt to be in his arms, close to the slow pound of his heart.

“Not really.”

“That’s not an answer,” I complained, tracing the valley of his pecs with a finger. “I thought we’d gotten past all this cryptic bullshit you like to pull.” I lifted my head, resting my chin on my hands over his chest. “You need to start telling me shit, Phil. I might be younger and maybe not be as smart or as clever as you are, but I’m also not stupid.”

The sides of his mouth twitched upwards. “I feel like responding to any of that is a trap.”

“It is,” I confirmed, smirking. “But one you should just go ahead and walk into. I’m not backing off.”

Phillip groaned and threw his head back into the pillow. “I know better than anyone you mean that.” My victorious smirk finally won the dude over. “Fine.”

As he absently guided his fingers through my hair, Phillip let loose another breath and bent an arm under the back of his head. His expression bled away to melancholy. It was a look that stole my smile because it was the first time I’d ever seen it on the Austrian. It was the expression of a man torn apart by loss. It was a moment stolen by heartbreak, and it was hard to look at.

“I was in love once,” Phillip started quietly.

Oh, shit.

Here it was—the moment I’d worked so hard for. But something in my heart reacted to the statement. Pain stabbed into my chest, and the acidic burn of emotion reached my throat. I couldn’t understand it at first, but I wasn’t given time to dwell on it.

Phillip went on despite my internal dilemma, “She wasn’t half vampire like you and I. Instead, she had Fae blood.”

She was a magic-user? So, they really did exist. Magic-using Hunters were also who killed my parents, so it was a bitter pill to swallow hearing that he’d known all along.

“She was kept in the same facility as I was, so, naturally, we became close. We were treated, at best, poorly, and we took comfort in each other’s company. Over time, she and I were the only thing keeping the other person sane. But interaction was strictly forbidden with the outside world, and even more so internally. Thankfully for us, it wasn’t easily mitigated, so we found ways to keep in touch. Her magic was one of them.”

The sad glimmer in his eyes was like a dagger right into my heart that never stopped attacking.

“For sixty years, she was my everything. I did what the Organization asked to earn my release, as did she. It was the only way we’d secure a future together. Then the time came and we bought this home together. She and I saved every last dime and worked for the same people who imprisoned us for nearly four decades just so we could have something of our own in this godforsaken world. While we were given separate partners and assignments, we always managed to meet here whenever we got a moment.”

This home. As in the same one I was presently lying naked inside of. This home was the treasured haven where he kept the trophies of every step he’d taken over two centuries of life, and where he’d spent special, hard-fought alone time with the love of his life.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

The burn in my throat was by far the worst it’d ever been, and it made me bitter and desperate to run away from the conversation. I was afraid of what I’d hear next, and I didn’t really understand why. It wasn’t fair to Phillip for me to react this way, but I couldn’t help it. The discomfort was so intense I wanted to do whatever I could to free myself from this vice-like grip around my heart.

I swallowed, pulling away some, but Phillip’s arm around me squeezed and refused to let me get far. “Phil—”

“By that time, I’d made a name for myself. I was the target of a lot of very powerful dark creatures, but none that I couldn’t defeat. It didn’t occur to me that there’d someday be someone more powerful, and it was inevitably my downfall.”

His voice softened. “I’d gotten the attention of Eros after a mission where I stopped him from assassinating an important contact of the Organization. He made it his goal to slaughter every last person I loved in retaliation. Giselle was first. He’s the type to go straight for the throat, so he killed her before I ever knew he was a threat. Then everyone else important to me thereafter.”

The Hunter’s story blindsided me, and I didn’t know how to react when Phillip relived the painful memory with every drop of his voice and deepened line on his face.

“He slaughtered Giselle while she was out on a mission, and I never got a chance to protect her or even warn her,” Phillip whispered angrily.