Bride (Bride, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

“Apologize to my wife.” “Sorry. Sorry. Please don’t— I’m sorry.” Max starts sobbing. Lowe turns to me. “Do you accept?” “Accept…the spit?” “His apology.”

Serena loved berries, and I tried memorizing their names, but they’re so counterintuitive. Blueberries? Not blue. Blackberries? Not black. Strawberries? Straw free. Raspberries? Do not rasp, or make any noise at all. I could go on.

“Please, please, don’t let me die until I turn twenty-five or I get to visit the the Spy Museum, whatever comes first.” Yeah. He prays a lot.

It must be tiresome, being a decent person, and I can’t relate. I revel in my moral flexibility.

“Please, don’t leave. I’m sure you came here to…What do you do here, anyway? Scratch your claws? Howl at the moon?” “Deflea myself.”

“Architecture, right? I don’t fully get it. Buildings are kind of boring. I’m grateful they don’t fall on top of my head, though.” “I don’t get how one can type stuff into a machine all day and not be terrified of a robot uprising. I’m grateful for Mario Kart, though.”

“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.”

“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.”

He’s just—so, so handsome, even to me, someone who’s so different, so chronically weird, that I’m rarely afforded the privilege of noticing these things in others. And yet, the more I know him, the more I find him magnetic. Unique. Genuinely decent, in a world where no one seems to be.

“How do you feel?” I ask. “Like I’m about to puke on you.” “Could you please puke on Sparkles first?” She gives it a long thought before formally declaring, “As you wish.”

“Of all the good things.” He grasps my hips as I roll them into his. “Of all the good things I’ve felt in my fucking life, you are the best.”

“Any advice on how to successfully carry out a coup, Alpha?” “I was going to recommend a hearty breakfast, but…”

“Excellent suggestion. Let’s focus on what to do.” She takes a fortifying breath. “I’ve actually been working on a plan.” “Let’s hear it.” “It involves staying here. Building a life. Growing old. Developing cataracts.” I smile. “You always had the worst fucking plans.”

“You thought that the end result would be a wolf in a little sweater vest and a bow tie? Just to be clear, is that what you expected?”

When Alex arrived on the scene, his first question to me was whether all the blood was making me hungry. Once we’re back in Were territory, I plan to smear a pancake on the inside of a toilet and ask him the same.

“Shut up, Lowe.” He laughs, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Not the appropriate way to speak to the Alpha of the pack you claim to want to join.” “Right. Shut up, Alpha.” I

And I…maybe I don’t have the hardware, but the software is here, and I get to program it. 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—”