Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“You’re the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen,” he says simply. Like it’s not a big deal. Like he’s complimenting my taste in socks. Like I could resemble the reflection of a wart on a doorknob, and it would change nothing for him.

“I’m simply going to lock you up, killer. If I have to chain you to my fucking bed to keep you alive, I will not hesitate.”

“You’re such a fucking nuisance,” he murmurs, almost softly.

Her bare nape is there for him to stare at, pink and vulnerable and accessible. It’s so flagrantly indecent, he must excuse himself.

“Pretty sure being Alpha of this pack gives me a pass to run people through the paper shredder and make dinosaur-shaped nuggies out of what’s left.”

Cute, how she thinks he’d ever let her out of his sight.

“If I’ve given you the impression that I’m kind, something is very wrong, either with me or with you.

Look at her. Just—look at her.

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.

“Why are you being like this? I’ll be gentle. Am I not gentle?” “You mispronounced ‘annoying.’ ”

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.

“Your name doesn’t fucking matter. You are my killer. Okay?”

“Because the idea of having you out of my sight makes me want to flip those cars one by one.”

foreign to flow out with ease. But then he says, “Before I leave, I think I need to hold you for a minute.”

I’m in his arms before I know how I got there. He bends down to scoop me up, and my forehead fits so perfectly into the valley of his already-prickly throat, this cannot be anything but fated. He lifts me higher, my feet no longer touching the ground, and hides his face in my neck.

And he says, slowly, “If you think I’m going to let you die, Serena, you know fuck all.”

“Anything that’s going to happen to you,” he promises, voice honest and pitched low in the swish of the breeze, “is going to be over my dead body.”

Koen cups the back of my head. I lean into the soft press of his lips against my brow. He says nothing, barely breathes, but his hands don’t let go of me for a long, long time.

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.

my entire body hurts with how much I care for him. I would give a year of my life, a year I don’t even have, to press a kiss against the corner of his lips.

“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.”

“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.”

And I think he likes it, too. He encourages me with low, filthy praises, telling me how beautiful I am, how perfect, what an honor it is for him to be here, with me, how he wouldn’t want it any other way, how he would do unspeakable things to have it again.

He didn’t think she could be more perfect. Then she offered him her bite.

Have to admit, killer, that your presence in my life has been humbling. A fucking revelatory experience. Thought I knew myself, but…” He laughs. Rubs his palm against his mouth. “The truth is, if you decide to spend your Heat with someone else, they’ll have to chain me at the bottom of a well and seal its mouth with concrete.”

“My entire life is made of fucking lines. And you’re blowing past all of them.”

“It’s okay. I know how hard this is. I’m going to take care of you, okay?”

can. I want you to tell me what you need, and I want the privilege of giving it to you. I want you to use me.” A

“If you think there is anything I would like more than seeing my mate through her Heat, you are fucking wrong. If this is all I get, I’m going to make the most of it. Okay?”

tremble in his arms and let him take me apart as he tells me how beautiful I am, how good, how lost he is.

“I’ll never be okay again.” “Yeah.” He is hoarse. Desperate but amused. “We’re both fucked.”

My afterlife will just be me, watching you move around my house in nothing but my clothes. Knowing that you’re warm and fed and safe and so damn soft.”

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.”

“I would throw away my pack, my life, and my entire world for you. Which is the exact reason I cannot have you.”

His nuisance. That’s what she is.

She is meant for him, but they couldn’t be more impossible.

“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 always smell like you were made specifically for me. To fuck. To be around. To worship. But right now, you smell like you’d give me anything I asked for. If that’s the scent you’re planning to wash off…don’t do it on my account.”

“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.”

“You do. You were made for it. How could I ever think of fucking anyone else, when you take it so well?”

“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 is only you, Serena.”

Girls in Heat only get what they ask for if they finish their water.

“Unbelievable, how fucking unreal you feel, soft and wet and warm and every good thing in the world, baby.”

expression, like the existence of me, of what we’re doing, is something he hadn’t taken into consideration. Like I make the world a different place.

“Things have changed.” “Things—nothing has changed. You love the Northwest more than anything.” “Not more than anything, Serena.”

“You are the heart of this pack, Koen.” He nods. Even as he says, “And you are mine, Serena.”

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