Bride (Bride, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

This marriage, it’s going to be a problem. She is going to be a problem.

“And they say romance is dead,” I say,

I Love her

L. E. MORELAND

Ahhhhh

She is resilient. He tries to imagine how he’d feel if he were in her position—alone, removed, used, and discarded. He has nothing but reluctant respect for her, and that angers him.

“You should punish her.” I snort out a laugh. “Yes, Lowe. Spank me and take away my TV privileges.”

“You blade-eared leech.”

Stfu

“Wonder how that feels,” I say breezily, and slip out of the room without glancing at him again.

The scent is growing into more than just a problem. It invades. It swirls. It travels. It sticks to his nose. It concentrates, sometimes. They rarely touch. When they did, her wrist accidentally brushed against the front of his shirt, and he found himself tearing off the piece of fabric where her smell was most intense. He slipped it in his pocket, and now carries it everywhere. Even as he leaves to avoid her.

Ana interrupts her bedtime story to communicate to him important, time-sensitive information: “Miresy is so so soooo pretty. I loooove her ears.” He presses his lips together before resuming his reading.

“What the fuck are you doing, wife?”

Some nights, when he’s walking past her door, he has to whisper to himself: “Keep going.”

Yes gawd

“There might be pleasure in that, too. The satisfaction of knowing that something beautiful exists.”

She tastes the way she smells.

“I fucking love your scent.”

“My smell. Do I smell like . . . ?” “Mine.” It’s a rumble in his throat. “You smell like you’re mine, Misery.”

She’s not like he imagined. He won’t admit to picturing how she’d be while he was growing up, but there was always something in the back of his head, a faint hope that maybe, one day. She’s not like he imagined. She’s more, in every possible way.

“You think, but you don’t know. You don’t know anything about what it’s like to find your other half,” he continues, voice low and sharp. “I would take anything she chose to give me—the tiniest fraction or her entire world. I would take her for a single night knowing that I’ll lose her by morning, and I would hold on to her and never let go. I would take her healthy, or sick, or tired, or angry, or strong, and it would be my fucking privilege. I would take her problems, her gifts, her moods, her passions, her jokes, her body—I would take every last thing, if she chose to give it to me.”

“Above all, I won’t take her freedom. Not when so many others have already done so.”

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.”

“That you’re intelligent, and incredibly skilled at what you do, and brave. That despite your weird belief that you’re heartless, you’re more genuinely caring than anyone I’ve ever met. That you’re so resilient, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. That you’re very . . .” He pauses. Wets his lips. My heartbeat skips. “Very beautiful to look at. Always so beautiful. And that—”

The past year notwithstanding, he was always comfortable with sex and everything that came with it. He knew what he liked, and he knew how to get it. He was content. Now he can’t remember what satisfaction felt like.

“Misery. Misery.” He scoops my head deeper into his neck. Bucks against me in a way that feels not wholly voluntary. “Take all you need.”

She is fearless, and the thought terrifies him.

Whoever did this will pay. Slowly. Painfully.

She told him Vampyres do not dream. And yet, once her midday rest is over and the evening approaches, her sleep becomes fitful, agitated. His touch seems to comfort her, and the thought fills him with pride and purpose.

“Yeah?”

“Stop eye-fucking each other in front of me—this is incest. Bestiality, at the very least. Misery.”

She makes him want to draw again.

Awe

“That’s not the reason.” I tilt my head, confused. “Use me.”

“You can do what you want with me,” he says, and it feels like he means more than just his blood.

“Please,” he says, soft, hungry, and I sink my teeth into his vein.

“Of all the good things I’ve felt in my fucking life, you are the best.”

“Didn’t change what?” “The sheets.” “Why?” “They smelled like you.”

She makes him laugh. It’s no small gift.

Lowe may have a mate, but she’s not Gabi.

Its u dummy

but that just doesn’t reflect what I feel for you.”

Nah

“That there is no world, no scenario, no reality in which I’ll gracefully allow you to leave me. That if I don’t let you go now, five years, five months, five days down the line, I won’t be able to. Every second, I want you too much, and every second, I’m on the verge of wanting you more. Every second is my last chance to do the decent thing. To let you live your life without taking up all of it—”

He shakes his head, eyes burning into mine. “You’re not a problem, Misery. You’re a privilege.”

Maybe you’re not meant for me the way I’m meant for you, but I’m going to choose you anyway, over and over and over again. I don’t need a special genetic permit to feel sure that you are my—”

“Eyes on mine,”