Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

She tore him apart and remade him. It took her less than a second.

“They say she’s your mate.”

“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.”

He does, no questions asked—kneeling briefly to plug my damn charger into the damn socket. I pretend not to see it, and close the door.

“You’re the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen,” he says simply.

“Well, I’m probably going to lie to you a lot.” “Yeah?” His smile is almost charmed. “What kind of lies do you tell?” “All sorts.”

“You’re my closest friend’s husb—mate’s closest friend. And I’d love to get along with you. So maybe we could be, you know, friends.” “What about polite acquaintances?” he counters. I cannot tell whether he’s serious, so I nod. “Deal. And you may quietly pine after me, if you must.”

He’s going to take her lies and peel them off one by one. Then he’ll force her to show him what’s underneath.

“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.”

“I don’t know. I…Maybe I just didn’t want you looking down on me.” “I will never not look down on you, chiefly because of our height difference.

And…I feel safer when I’m with you.” His tongue prods at the inside of his cheek. “You do?” I nod, wondering why it’s the truth.

She calls him out of the blue. He hasn’t saved her number, but it’s etched into the hidden layers of his skin.

I woke up deeply aware that he wasn’t around—not in the house, not roaming the woods outside, not anywhere nearby. I’d say GPS tracking is a Were superpower, but mine doesn’t extend to anyone but him.

A smile pulls at the edge of his mouth—and then mine. We share a long look, equally frustrated and amused by each other. A weird string strains between us, tugging at me, reminding me that I like him, I liked him from the start, I don’t want to fight with him.

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

There is a card inside, which has Koen’s features tensing with worry. The note, unsigned, simply says, From your mother. Underneath there is a silver necklace: a moon scratched by four claw marks.

“First of all, we both know you don’t.” I nudge the mug up at him until he has no choice but to accept it. “Secondly, you can’t. This is like when Misery decided that she wanted me to clean her room instead of giving her a kiss on the cheek.” Koen frowns. “I want a kiss on the cheek.” “You can’t change your mind after you pick—that’s the whole point of the game. And the kiss wasn’t even an option for you.” “Bullshit. I want both options.”

Look at her. Just—look at her.

“Actually,” I whisper. “I had an idea. To show the gratitude I cannot verbalize.” “We already discussed it.” His voice is a low murmur, too. “Dusting.” “The problem is, you do not own a duster. You barely own fixtures.” “I’ll buy more useless shit. To keep you busy.”

He lingers for a fraction of a second, his nose hovering by my temple, and I hear a deep inhale. A slower exhale. A gust of warmth against my heated skin.

so I shift my attention to the third thing. And I stop breathing. 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.

“Oh, yeah, he is so fucking…” Laughter. “Gone. She killed him, and now she’s haunting him. But he’s not going to admit it. Or make it her problem.”

When I look over, Koen’s a couple of feet away. Looking bored. “Mouthy, isn’t she, Boden?” He sighs. “Never thought I’d be into that, and yet. Bane of my fucking existence.” His eyes flit to mine. “Don’t stop on my account,” he says with a lopsided smile. “I love watching asses being ridden. It’s my favorite kind of porn.”

“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.

I grin wide, lift my eyes to meet his, and find that he’s already staring at me, black eyed and voracious. “Look at you,” he says. At least, I think so. I could have imagined it, because it’s little more than a whispered growl, quickly followed by a much lighter question.

Mai nods. “We stopped eleven Vampyres from entering our borders in the last two days.” I gasp. “Eleven? Is that a real number?” “Would you like to see their bodies?” Koen asks. “No.” “Good.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “They’re not in great shape.”

The cabin smells like… Impossible. He must be losing his mind.

“You absolutely do not have to cook for these losers,” Amanda tells me. Then adds, “But if you do, please remember that I, too, did not have breakfast.”

“Walk slowly to the washing machine and get rid of the clothes.” His voice pins me to the ground. Something builds in my belly. “Do not make me chase after you.”

He didn’t eat any of the food I made last night, either. It stings, and I don’t know why.

The covenant was never a big part of his life. He would forget about it for months, even years. It never felt like a sacrifice, just a simple trade-off, an integral feature of who he was: the Alpha of the Northwest. Then she arrived, assumed total control of him, and left no room for anything but her.

“He’s not,” I say distractedly. “He’s not…?” Anneke asks. “Breaking the covenant. I remain tragically unfucked.”

“You said it’s not mutual? You’re not her mate even though she’s yours?”

“Hey,” I say. His nostrils work. “Hey, killer.” I clear my throat. “You look so much more dignified, now that I’ve de-shed you. Cuter, too. Just like that hot guy. From that movie.” “What movie?” “All of them.” I wet my lips.

“And, killer?” “What?” “Tuck that T-shirt in your pants. It’ll look less like it’s mine.”

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.

“We have stories in the north. Legends, ballads. Ancient stuff about children born of Weres and Humans. Weres and Vampyres, too. We call them halflings.” “Halflings.” I taste the word, then smile. “I like it. More than ‘hybrid.’ Makes me sound less like a car.”

Feverishly, he whispers, “As the prophet said. As the prophet wills.”

“You want her, but you are not worthy of her.” “Man, you don’t know me. I think I bring a lot to the table.”

He shakes his head, at a loss for words, and in this moment—when he looks as confused as I feel, when he chooses to share his lack of understanding with me, I think I love him. Just a little bit.

“Do you want to come with me?” Yes, with every single cell of my body. “Why would I come with you?” “Because the idea of having you out of my sight makes me want to flip those cars one by one.”

His teeth clench. There’s a flicker of something unreadable in his face. “If I come back and something has happened to you, Serena, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.”

“If you were mine, it would. And clearly, you fucking should be.”

“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.”

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

This is too much. I can’t process it, not tonight. “I should go to sleep,” I say. “Okay. Which room?” “Um, mine?” “Okay. We’ll sleep there.” “We?” “We.”

“You’re not going to—fuck it.”