Bride

by Ali Hazelwood

“Your cat is welcome among us,” Lowe says. If that’s not a jab, nothing else is. “Wonder how that feels,”

“Is that appropriate for a … three-year-old?” “I’m seven,” she declares haughtily. Holding up six fingers.

My husband, I discover, wears size fourteen shoes.

This is a drawing—an architectural drawing of a vault, flawlessly executed.

He’s an architect. I’d forgotten.

Just for fun, I’m tempted to contact a therapist and ask them to quantify how bad a person I am.

For the next Father’s Day, I should get him a mug that says All I care about is machinating and like, three people. Except we don’t celebrate Father’s Day, either.

lake. I don’t even mind the bugs, I tell myself. If I persevere, I’ll believe it.

“I can start a fucking computer.” “Lowe. My friend. My spouse. You’re clearly a competent Were with many talents, but I’ve seen your phone. I’ve seen you use your phone. Half of your gallery is blurry pictures of Ana with your finger blocking the camera. You type ‘Google’ in the Google bar to start a new search.”

I’m sure you came here to … What do you do here, anyway? Scratch your claws? Howl at the moon?” “Deflea myself.” “See? I wouldn’t want to be in your way. Do go on.”

“Is this a trap? Are you looking for an excuse to watch my entrails fertilize the plumbago?” “Would be highly inefficient, since I could just push you and no one in my pack would question me.” “What a beautiful flex.”

He makes a show of hiding his hands behind his back. “I’m harmless.”

“It sounds fucking horrible.” He nods thoughtfully. “Does it?” “It’s a life sentence.” No parole. Just you and a cellmate who’ll never know you exist. “Maybe.” Lowe’s shoulders tense and relax. “Maybe there is something devastating about the incompleteness of it. But maybe, just knowing that the other person is there …” His throat bobs. “There might be pleasure in that, too. The satisfaction of knowing that something beautiful exists.”

“Maybe some things transcend reciprocity. Maybe not everything is about having.”

“That was a badass speech, Misery.” “Badass is my middle name.” “Your middle name is Lyn.” Shit. “Stop reading my file.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I roll my eyes. I’m tempted to ask when, between leading a pack and becoming an architect, he got a small aircraft license. But I suspect he wants me to, and I’m too petty to oblige.

“I don’t need to speed-read Architecture for Dummies and pretend I can tell Gothic and art deco apart?” He turns to me, stone-faced. “You’re joking.” “Please look ahead.” “You can, right? You are able to tell apart—” “Husband, darling, deep inside you know the answer to that, and please look at the road when you’re landing a plane.”

“I know you don’t like my scent.” “I fucking love your scent.” “So the baths did work— Oh.”

This might be new to me, and I may not be a Were, but whatever just happened between us went beyond let me disguise you real quick and straight into something different. Something sexual. And if I know it, there is no way he doesn’t.

“I’m not going to piss off the lady who tried to kidnap Ana,” I say, outraged. Then clarify, “I might stab her. But I’m not going to sass her.”

I won’t babyproof his environment. He’s a big boy who knows what he can take.

“But I won’t take from her.” His eyes leave mine and steadily trail down my face. They stop at the neckline of my dress. Tonight I’m wearing our wedding band as a necklace, and he studies the way it disappears into the curve of my breasts. His gaze lingers, leisurely, for what feels like hours but is probably a brief moment. Then it moves back up. “Above all, I won’t take her freedom. Not when so many others have already done so.”

“She wouldn’t admit it—she might not even realize it herself, but she’s the kind of person who would feel beholden to me. She would think I need her. When what I really need is for her to be happy, whether it’s with me, or alone, or with someone else.”

she couldn’t decide whether to call me a leech or a bitch and blurted out “Bleetch,”

“You said you were dressed.” “I’m wearing my modesty froth. You, on the other hand.”

“You know,” I muse, relaxing into the water, “I think I want to see you.” He looks down at his body. “You want to see me.” “No, not naked.” His head tilts in confusion. “As a wolf.” His “Ah” is soft and amused.

“Traditionally, the Alpha of the Northwest pack takes a vow of celibacy.” Oh, God. “Did you?” Lowe shakes his head. “Feels like it, though,” he murmurs,

Lowe, whose Alpha nature manifests through having to drive every single means of transport he boards, pulls up to the house.

“Can you keep it there?” when I’m about to leave tells me otherwise. “You feel so cool.” “Who do you think I am?” For her pleasure, I produce a deep frown. “Your personal ice pack?” Her giggle squeezes my chest.

“Were there giraffes in California?” “Not in the wild, love.” She purses her lips. “I’d like a more aunenthic present next time.” “Noted.”

This friendship, or lack of enmity, appears to be highly rewarding to my dopaminergic system.

Not rolling my eyes at Owen requires a degree of control over my ocular muscles I didn’t know I had.

“If you’re ordering pizza, get extra large.” I’m not sure why a Vampyre would order pizza,

Did I skip a day? I have no phone to check, so I do the pre-technology thing: head outside to ask someone.

pink. I don’t know what you were embarrassed about, you majestic fluffball—

“Do you have no fucking fear?” “No.” “I have enough for both of us, then.”

I may not be who Lowe was meant for, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t something here. And I’ve had so little throughout my life, I know better than to demand all or nothing. I’m good at making do.

I’m being discovered. Mapped. Soothed and ignited at once.

Though I’m worried.” He scowls. “Worried?” “About my fangs. What if I cut you? Or bite your lips accidentally?” “You’ve bitten me before. I didn’t mind then.” He leans forward, eager. “I won’t mind now.”

“Lowe,” I mumble against his mouth, forcing myself to stand. Warm water sluices over my skin, and he follows the journey of every single drop. He leans forward to press his lips to the soft skin underneath my belly button, then rises to towel me dry. The front of his shirt is wet. My lashes are clumpy, beaded with water, and he kisses the drops out of my eyes.

“And I need to eat you out.” He needs to. “Okay?” “It’s a Were thing,” he says, almost apologetic.

“I think,” he says, winded, hoarse, “I’m going to lock you in this closet forever.” I nuzzle closer. “I think I’d love that.”

Owen’s formal “Congratulations on evading your first assassination attempt” is so factually incorrect, I almost hang up on him.

She makes him want to draw again.

“That search we were working on before you …” He gestures at me. “Almost croaked?” “Yes. I continued it while you were …” “Almost croaking?”

“He believed that?” “He’s an idiot, and Humans are apparently big on thank-you gifts.” He shrugs. “I read it online.” “Wow. You were able to fire up a browser all on your ow—” He shushes me with his thumb on my lips.

“Use me.” I don’t get it. And then I do get it, and my entire body melts into lava. Stiffens into lead.

“I want to.” He is so earnest. And young. And the boldest I’ve ever seen him—when his baseline is pretty bold.

He’s silent. Like he has his answer, but he’s willing to wait for me to find mine.

“Misery.” His voice is soft. Faintly amused. There is a solemn shine in his eyes. “We are the consequences.”