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Still, something about the way he talked about it gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Like he wasn’t saying everything. Like he was keeping secrets again. And it hurt to think he’d have to keep anything from me.

But today, I discarded the phone I kept here and got a new one. Today, my connection with Kate ended.

“I’m so sad we can’t graduate together, but I’m so jealous of you, V. Go out there and get yo man. A spicy teacher-student romance?! Why not me?!”

Kate’s last text was full of her vibrant spirit. I wanted to save it, but I could only save her words in a written diary entry.

I’d told her about Phillip and I—how we’d fallen in love and couldn’t stay in town, so we were running away. She’d, of course, eaten it all up before demanding details, then effortlessly accepting it with the sort of fervor I’d come to expect from her. She offered every bit of passionate support a close friend would. It was the first time I went out of my way to lie to her, and it didn’t feel great to use Phillip to do it. But after Phillip explained who Eros was and what he was capable of doing, I couldn’t risk involving her. Eros was seriously bad news, and my near-death experience was plenty evidence of that.

We couldn’t stay.

I wrote everything about Kate down in my encrypted code, shying away from descriptive details just to be safe. But I wrote about her spirit and her vibrance, and I recorded the last things she said to me. I kept whatever pieces I could of her. Because I couldn’t keep her. For her safety, I couldn’t keep in contact.

And I’d miss her.

Phillip stole the bag slung over my shoulder and threw it into the back of his car. His hair was gelled back, the same way it had been the first time he came into our Biology classroom, though his attire was a fair bit more casual.

We hadn’t talked about the kiss, or really even about how he’d addressed me affectionately after I had. Mein schatz was a term of endearment, meaning “little treasure” or “little jewel” and was used primarily with couples. I’d looked it up later after we got home, because Phillip barely said anything at all.

He also didn’t talk about what made him cry—whether it was me or just maybe memories brought up by the entire event. To be fair, I didn’t think the dude could actually cry. It didn’t seem like something the ever-cool Hunter would allow himself to do.

The more you know.

But it was evident Eros was someone who had seriously stained Phillip’s life because the deadly look in my partner’s eyes always returned the second the Dark Fae’s name was mentioned. It suggested whatever history was between them, it was dark and depressing, and so I shouldn’t ask about it. Better to let him talk about it when he wanted to and not pry.

Most depressing about the last few days was Phillip didn’t ask me why I’d kissed him, and I didn’t have the courage to bring it up. Mostly because I wasn’t sure why I’d kissed him, or why the thought about never seeing him again twisted my insides and burned like acid in my throat; why the very idea of losing him in any way tore me apart and made me desperate to do everything in my power to ensure I never did.

What was this feeling?

But maybe it was because he’d saved me that day. He’d stayed by my side after he chased down our attacker. He’d held me gently, tenderly, as if he was worried he’d lose me. Somehow, deep down, I knew it was for more reasons than because I was Rose’s granddaughter. Or because I was the same as him. Or because I was his partner. The way he looked at me, the way he called out to me, it was different. It was deeper.

The Austrian’s silver and gold rings glinted in nothing but sunlight, and the air around his body seemed to radiate for a second before Phillip’s eyes met mine. “Ready?”

I carded back my hair, then slid into the front seat after Phillip opened the car door for me. “As ready as I can be.”

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