The bad thing about caves: there’s nowhere to go when you want to get away. I stomp to the other side of the cave, slip through the thin crack in the wall, and march into the shipping tunnel. Probably not the wisest thing to do given what we did to a bunch of sun dweller soldiers at the other end of the tunnel, but I need to cool off, and I can’t do that with my friends watching me.

Argh! I silently scream. How could I be so stupid? Did I really think that the son of the President of the Tri-Realms would be interested in me? His veins were probably full of some kind of love potion, mixed up by a mad scientist with an agenda and a proficiency for creating potent elixirs. But the thing is: I fell for Tristan, too, which was so unlike me. So maybe I’d been slipped a bit of the potion, forcing us together in the unlikeliest of pairings. The buzzing in my scalp and spine every time I was near Tristan was just a side effect of the drug, a neurological response to a catalyst. Nothing more. Not a connection, that’s for sure. When the buzzing and tingling stopped, perhaps the drug had worn off. We kidded ourselves into thinking that we still had feelings for each other, but really it was over the moment we peed or sweated or spat the last of the toxins from our bodies.

Could it really be a drug? My mind doesn’t even believe my own reasoning. It seems too farfetched, too sci-fi, too ridiculous.

Something my father once said to me pops into my head:

Sometimes the hardest things to believe are the ones that are the most true.

But sometimes they aren’t, too. Right?

Behind me there’s a scrape of cloth on rock and the scuffle of feet on hard ground. I didn’t even realize I stopped, but now I’m acutely aware that I only made it ten or so feet from the entrance to our hideaway before pulling up to puzzle over things in my head.

I stride in the other direction, hearing Tristan say, “Adele, wait!” behind me. Breaking into a run, I wish with all my heart that he’ll just let me be, leave me alone for however long it takes me to come to terms with what’s slowly dawning on me: we’re not meant to be together.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he races after me, his heavier, louder footfalls drowning out my own. I know he’ll catch me because he’s faster, but I don’t stop until his hand grabs my shoulder from behind.

I whirl on him, fire in my chest and eyes. “What!?” I scream, much louder than I should, given where we are.

“Please, Adele. We need to talk,” Tristan says, his face a mixture of white concern and red exertion. He’s still bare-chested, his muscles tight from our fight. I try not to stare at them. “Please,” he repeats.

Looking at his pitiful face, I can’t hold onto my anger, although I definitely try. He’s just so damn handsome, his wavy blond hair an inch from his evening-blue eyes, his lips red and full and a perfect match for his right-sized nose and strong jaw. And his voice is so full of longing that my mind draws a blank when I try to come up with a sarcastic comment.

With my ebbing anger, my shoulders sag and my knees weaken. The adrenaline from our harried sprint catches up with me, and it’s all I can do to lower myself slowly to the ground, lean back against the wall and hug my knees.

“I really don’t want to talk right now,” I say honestly.

Tristan dips down next to me, looks at me even though I refuse to look at him. Puts an arm around my shoulders, and although I feel like I should, I don’t shake it off. Swarms of bats flap unbridled through my stomach. Right away, I feel bad about all the things I’ve said to him. It’s not his fault we got played, like life-size pawns in some real chess match. He’s been nothing but good to me, even if he wasn’t entirely in control of his actions.

“Adele, I—I...”

I’m scared of his next words, scared they’ll make everything even worse, even harder.

“I just want to understand,” he says, and I let out a grateful breath. He deserves to understand. “Did Roc tell you something that you might have misunderstood? If he told you about what happened when I was fifteen, I swear I was going to tell you—”

“No. He didn’t say anything about that. What happened when you were fifteen? That was the year your mom disappeared, right?”

Tristan sighs, pulls my head into his chest, which I allow because I have no fight left in me. And because it’s pretty awesome to be close to him again, to his heart, which is beating against my cheek. “Yes, that was when my mom left us. I just don’t think it’s the right time to talk about it.”

I pull back from him, anger surging through me once more. “When will be the right time?” I say, raising my voice. “Because you always seem like you want to tell me something important, something that might bring us closer, but then you never do.”

Tristan hangs his head and I feel bad again. He’s been so calm and patient with me, and I’m throwing a tantrum. “Look, I—I just want to know you better,” I say.

He shoots me a troubled stare. “That’s kind of hard to do when you’re acting like you don’t want to be with me anymore.”

Good point. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you, it’s just that something brought us together, and I don’t know how much of it was real and how much wasn’t. Every time I think that someone’s been messing with my life, I get so angry.”

“Our lives,” Tristan says, and I tilt my head to the side in confusion. “You said ‘my life,’ but it’s both of our lives that are being messed with,” he explains.

“I know, Tristan, it’s not your fault, but when I fell for you so hard—I mean, you’re the first person I’ve really ever liked like this—I really wasn’t prepared for it.” My voice is shaking as my emotions spiral out of control, and I worry the tears might start falling soon. I pause, take a deep breath, try to get control, wait for Tristan to reply.

“What did Roc think?” Tristan asks, making me glance up at him.

“Roc?”

“Yeah, you talked to him about it, didn’t you? That’s why you were so weird when I interrupted your conversation. Roc’s usually right about things. I don’t know how and sometimes I hate to admit it, but he has really good instincts. I trust his opinion.”

“Well, after discussing all the facts, he thinks it’s possible our relationship is a sham,” I say bluntly.

“He said that, did he?” Tristan says, his lips curling into a one-dimpled smile that takes my breath away. “‘Sham’ just isn’t a word I would expect him to use.”

I find myself smiling back, taking yet another strange twist on the endless emotional miner’s cart ride I seem to always find myself on. “Okay, maybe not sham, but definitely fraud.”

“Mm-huh,” Tristan murmurs, not trying to hide his disbelief.

“Okay, okay. Technically he didn’t say that either. He just said ‘I don’t know.’”

Tristan grins again. “That alone is enough to scare me,” he says. “Roc usually always has an opinion.”

“So now you’re worried too?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Nope. Because I trust my feelings for you. They’re as strong as they’ve ever been. When I’m near you, when I touch you, when I just think about you, I just feel good. That’s enough truth for me.” Tristan’s cheeky grin is gone, replaced by big earnest eyes and a serious mouth.

The desire to kiss him wells up like hot lava bubbling from a crevasse, and I can’t stop from leaning into him and doing just that, crushing my lips to his. His hand burrows into the hair on the back of my head, running through it to my scalp. He leans back, pulling me on top of him as we move our lips back and forth and up and down hungrily. My want—my need!—to be close to him is so strong that I’m losing control of myself, running my hands along his bare chest and sides, feeling his hard muscles tighten and contract as we enjoy each other. Our tongues find each other’s, moving across and around. Before Tristan, I’d never kissed a guy. And before now, I’d never kissed Tristan like this. It feels amazing and I want it to go on forever, but then Tristan laughs mid-kiss.