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“You are Koen Alexander, aren’t you? The Alpha of the Northwest.” “I sure am. What’s your name, bud?” “That’s not important. If you come any closer—” Koen clucks his tongue. “You gotta tell me your name, or I’ll have to make one up. Any ideas, Serena?” I clear my throat. “I like Bob.” “Bob the Vampyre. Love it.”
“Is this the way you talk to your beloved mate?” A single eyebrow lifts. “I said you were my mate. Not that I loved you.”
“What Misery is to Lowe, you are to me.” Oh. Oh? Oh. “Is this a, um…terminal diagnosis?” His lips twitch. “No cure, I’m afraid.” “I see.” I clear my throat. “Well, this relationship sure escalated quickly.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen,” he says simply. Like it’s not a big deal.
“I think you owe me an apology.” “For what?” “The way you stared at my tits.” Silence. Then, instead of the I’m sorry or Go to fucking sleep I expect, he says, “I think you owe me an apology.” “For what?” “How spectacular your tits are.”
“Has anyone told you that you’re kind of a nuisance, killer?” “A guy. Once or ten times.” I grin. “But I could be so much worse.” “I’ll take it as a threat.”
The first makes me blush and roll my eyes and wish that I had a shovel to bury myself in Koen’s garden: every single pair of underwear he selected for me is red. Bright red. Dull red. Wine red. Blood red.
“Come on,” Koen urges calmly. “Say it. What is she?” “Your mate.” “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten about that.” Koen slaps his own temple with the heel of his palm. He continues, monotone, “Since you’re so sure that everyone here despises her, including me, let this be known: fuck with my mate, and I’m going to kill you so slowly, draw it out so long, tectonic plates will move and create whole new mountain ranges. And when the rest of your family comes to avenge you, I’ll do the same to them. And if your friends come, I’m not going to fucking stop. Not even if all that’s left of the pack is me and her.
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“That sounded mean,” I say softly. “Yeah. Unfortunately, I am mean.” He says it like he couldn’t care less but feels like he should. Kind of endearing. “And no one’s touching you on my watch.” “Noted.”
“What about you, Koen Alexander? Are you your parents’ son?” Koen freezes. His shoulders go rigid. “Boy, I’m faster than you, and a hell of a lot stronger. If you run, I will catch you within one hundred feet, and I’ll probably end up hurting you.”
“Say it. After what?” I have to. Out loud. For the very first time. I have no choice but to make this real. “After I die.” The second the words are out, hanging heavy in the air between us, Koen…smiles. He bends further, and there isn’t a single trace of doubt on his face. He’s an immovable object and an unstoppable force. And he says, slowly, “If you think I’m going to let you die, Serena, you know fuck all.”
“When I die—” “Not on my fucking watch, Serena.” “Okay. But when I die—” Koen’s fingers abruptly slide into the hair at the side of my head. Bend my neck back, none too gently. “Serena.” He stares down at me, eyes a few inches from mine. His fury is a physical, formidable thing. It doesn’t scare me. “If you say anything like that ever again, I’m going to kill you myself. Understood?”
He easily resigned himself to a lifetime without her, but… Simply put, he is unwilling to contemplate a universe in which she no longer exists.
“I think I should hear this from Koen.” “Aw. Are you guys sleeping together yet?” “What? No!” “Well, since it’s probably going to happen, would you like a heads-up on the biology?” “The what?” “His dick. It—” “It’s not going to happen, Misery. It’d be against the law. He took an oath of celibacy.” “I mean, sure.” She doesn’t sound sure. “But you should know that because you’re his mate, at the base of—” “Stop.” At the what of what? “I liked you better when you were a virgin.” “Yeah, well, Lowe didn’t. So.”
“I should go to sleep,” I say. “Okay. Which room?” “Um, mine?” “Okay. We’ll sleep there.” “We?” “We.” My eyebrow lifts. “Uh-oh. Celibacy Threat Alert.”
“You’re doing so good, killer.” “Yeah?” I whimper. “Yeah, baby.” His laughter is soft. Wound up. “I’m trying to come up with a list of things I wouldn’t do just to be allowed to eat your cunt right now, and I can’t think of a single item.”
“I hate it,” he breathes out. “What?” “How perfect you are. I spent the last twenty years hoping that if there was a mate for me out there, I’d never come across them. And then I found you, and, Serena…there isn’t one thing I would change about you. Or one single thing I regret about knowing you.”
“Is this okay? I’m making a mess of you, and—” “Do more of it.”
“I know that you took an oath. And I know that this is doomed. But…Koen. There is very little that I wouldn’t do for you, if you were to ask me.”
“Listen,” Amanda says bluntly. “As much as we love setting our alarms one hour earlier to come visit with Mommy and Daddy, if we knew how to make pancakes, we would not be here.” I cock my head. “Am I Mommy in this scenario?” “Or Daddy,” Saul offers. “You get to pick first, since you provide the pancakes.”
“It’s not fair. That they won’t allow you to—” Fall in love. Have a family. A chance at happiness. A chance with me. “It’s inhumane.” “Maybe it is.” He smiles, a little lopsided, like he has made peace with this. “But we are not Human.”
“There could never be disappointment, because there were never any comparisons, or expectations, or hopes, or standards to meet. There’s only…” He casts a glance around the room, searching. Then his eyes settle on me. “There is only you, Serena.”
“Did she shoot me?” “Irene? Yup, but only in the arm. Leg? I don’t know. You were in wolf form.” “Where is she?” “Um, so. Koen was, um, mad.” “Ah.” “You have been de-aunted, I fear.” “How tragic,” I say, not giving a single fuck.
“Oh my God. I bit you?” She did. She fucking did. Koen is inordinately proud of her. How deep her little teeth got. The sharp blades of her canines. It even hurt a little. Okay, not really, but he felt her seize the inside of his soul. She owns him. It’s official.
