Page 34 of Seph

Which means... if Simeon were really in love with you—he wouldn’t give up on you. He’d keep trying to be a person you can love.

He’d do things like keep being your friend, even if you told him you could never be anything more. Even if you told him you couldn’t even be that.

But he’s still here. Not just when he needs you, but when you need him.

Like he loves you.

Why did that thoughtsmack into her middle so heavily?

“Sorry, not takin’ it lightly, love. So, 999 is first, then we dial 222 and 333. That brings Hades, Zag, and Milly to us. They can handle the fighting. This is an easier mission than I thought.”

Emily’s jaw dropped. “Why?Whywould you say that? Easy mission? Now we’re going to have to fight our way out of a demon prison or something!”

“I meant there might not be a lot of punch-ups. But hard! Yes! Hard. So hard. Incredibly hard. And long. Long-lasting and hard. A week of long, hard nights.”

Emily’s jaw closed, slowly. Simeon stopped talking.

That conversation had ended up in a very different location than she’d intended.

“I think the AC in this thing is busted.” Simeon squinted at the dash and started tapping buttons.

“Stop poking things before you blow us to Mars or something,” Emily hissed, but privately, she agreed. Hades’ car must be charmed to teleport, shrink, and make everything super hot. Why else would she suddenly feel the need to strip down and hop in an icy shower? “You’re room temperature,” she accused as Simeon struggled out of his long black coat and tossed it in the backseat.

“Still hot.”

Emily bit her lip and looked out the window. Yes. Still hot. Simeon Crow, scum of the earth, was hot in his muscle-hugging black t-shirt and generous mane of chin-length brown-black waves. Very,veryhot, and now she could see more of him, and she had a week off where no one would be watching her to make sure she lived up to the Van Helsing name.

This week, it would be the two of them, alone together with no audience. Simeon and her, on the hunt, on the prowl, working nights and then hiding from the sun by day with long days to fill. They would have to stay inside somewhere. In a room together, maybe. Because of... security. Strategizing. And needing to keep an eye on him to make sure he behaved himself. And because only Simeon had the magic emergency god-calling phone, and the one credit card, and one bed, and oh no. Where was that coming from?

That thought about missing out on what could have been and the thought of lovers spending a thousand years apart, and the thought of Simeon, trapped for an eternity, paying for someone else’s mistake?

I could lose him.

Her hands flexed on her knees as the unwelcome truth landed a knockout blow.

I don’t want that. If he leaves, if he goes where I can’t save him, can’t even see him again—he’ll never know how much I’ve come to—

“So, as for a plan, we strictly locate and don’t get killed,” Simeon concluded.

“Wait. Wait, didn’t you bite anyone else? Simeon! You’renotthe youngest spawn of Lilith, are you?Youmust’ve turned someone atsomepoint in a century and a half!”

Simeon gave her a wary look and slid the keys out of the ignition. “I don’t like... I don’t turn things. You need time andenergy to be a sire, and I was too busy enjoying my new power, Van Helsing. I had people to kill, not lives to remake. That’s the end of it.” Simeon looked ahead, features grim and set.

“Well... what about Lilith’s other victims?”

“Hades says that the Van Helsing line wiped out the rest of her offspring. Look, Huntress, if Hades, the big head honcho in charge of life, death, and demons tells you thathisrecords indicate you’re the man for the job—you’re the man for the job.”

“Oh. Right. That’s incontrovertible evidence, huh?”

“I guess. Why? It wouldn’t matter who had to do the job, I’d have to help if I wanted to say I did everything I could.” He looked out across the town with a heavy sigh. “All of us do or die on this one.”

Emily nodded, looking at him. No, really looking athim.“And you want to say that?”

“What?”

“That you did everything you could.”

Simeon was giving her a look now, eyes penetrating hers.

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