Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

Because every single thing I glanced at, grazed, examined, eyed, or even considered when we were at the grocery store, every single thing I decided to walk past, every single thing I told myself I didn’t need—every single thing has somehow made it here, inside Koen’s house.

Her laughter adjusts the spin of his atoms.

“Before I leave, I think I need to hold you for a minute.”

Shut the fuck up STAWP

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.”

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.

“When I say that I would do it all over again, I also mean that I would go through what he did all over again. If it brought me to you.”

“You are my mate. I would have wanted you no matter what. I will want you no matter what. But you are also…” He licks his lips. “If someone had given me a piece of paper and asked me to list everything I liked, everything I dreamed of, everything that I was sure would make me happy, you would have been the final product of it.”

“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.” It’s unacceptable, his adoring expression.

“It wasn’t.” I steady myself. “Just a few days ago you listed several reasons why you had to choose the pack over me. What changed?” He roams the inside of his mouth with his tongue. Waits out the end of a particularly strong gust of breeze. “You told me that you loved me, Serena,” he says simply. His eyes are earnest, liquid. So profoundly good. “And while I’m willing to resign myself to an existence without the person I love, I refuse to condemn you to it.”