Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“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.”

“Mouthy, isn’t she, Boden?” He sighs. “Never thought I’d be into that, and yet. Bane of my fucking existence.”

He wants to show her every corner of his territory. The deep blue lakes and the snow-capped peaks. Moss-draped trees and rock spires. He wants to be with her for each marveled intake of breath.

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.”

“If today was my last day, I’d be happy to have spent it with you.”

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 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.”

“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.”

“Serena.” I hear the blurry edge of his smile. A quiet sigh. “I would throw away my pack, my life, and my entire world for you. Which is the exact reason I cannot have you.”

“I like you more than anyone I’ve met since Misery. And when I’m with you, I feel…a little less like half of two things, and a little more whole. And when you touch me, it feels right. So right that I forget it’s wrong. I forget that you’re the heart of this pack. I forget that thousands of people rely on you, and that every moment I spend with you, I’m taking something away from them.”

touching. I feel as though we’re made of the same stuff. Me and him, set apart from the remaining matter of the universe.

“In a matter of days, you’re going to leave, and I’ll spend the rest of my life as your fucking servant. Whatever you ask me for, you’ll have. But here you are. Defenseless. Mine for a short time.”

I could spend the next hundred years cataloging new things about him, and never be done. He could be the project of my lifetime.

love you. And I’m never going to stop, no matter what.”

He never says that he loves me, but it’s written all over my skin.

“And while I’m willing to resign myself to an existence without the person I love, I refuse to condemn you to it.”