Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“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.”

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

“I can’t believe you take your coffee black but sweeten your tea,” I say. “I don’t drink black coffee.” “What? Since when?” “Since I started drinking it, during the High Middle Ages.” “But…I’ve been giving you black coffee.” “And I have been hating it.”

“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.”

“The line is everywhere, Serena.” A hollow laugh. His hand travels up my spine. Cups my nape. Our lips are closer than ever, but never meet. “My entire life is made of fucking lines. And you’re blowing past all of them.”

“What if I’m doing all the work? What if you’re just my…Mine.”

“No, Serena. You can’t. But I 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 kiss on my collarbone. “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?”

“Okay?” he asks, and I shake my head. “I’ll never be okay again.” “Yeah.” He is hoarse. Desperate but amused. “We’re both fucked.”

“It’s a very small space, Serena, and you are…Your scent destroys my focus. It’s better if we’re not too alone.”

He is so handsome, I have to close my eyes against it. And I like him so much, I’m going to have to close my heart, too.

In lieu of a reply, he drops down. Crouches till we’re eye to eye. And… I really am absolutely gone over this man. Fully, irreparably lost.

He sits quietly, looking up at me like I’m a queen. His life and death are but my decision. He wouldn’t dream of objecting. If I want to carve his heart out of his chest, he’ll crack his rib cage open and lie prone for me.

muscles to make sure that there is no give. “Fuck,” Koen swears, and he’s coming again, a short burst that has him driving his hips up into me, and he mumbles into me that “there’s no need,” that he’s “already fucking gone” over me, that I’m “so good,” it’s going to “destroy” him. So I do it again, just to watch the way the pleasure transforms his face, the tendons of his strong neck in relief as he arches back, his muscles tensing and releasing. And once more, because he’s losing his mind, and I love it.

If he’s even aware of what he’s doing, staring at me with a faint half smile that is just… Lovesick.

“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.”

He is—perfect. Mine, mine, mine.

His duties, the one to his pack and the one to his mate, should be tearing him in two. And yet he has never felt more intact than he does right now.

My eyes lock with his, willing him to understand. “You are the heart of this pack, Koen.” He nods. Even as he says, “And you are mine, Serena.”

This is unthinkable. “If you leave for me, and anything happens to the Northwest…I’m going to hate myself for the rest of my life. Your life. Our life.” That besotted half smile, again. “That was a ‘we.’ ”

I feel close to you. So much so, sometimes I wonder if fate really does exist. When you’re around, the universe feels more bearable. This mate business—does it feel like I have you in my palm? Like we’re tethered to each other? Like I changed you at the nuclear level? Asking for a friend.

“Koen.” I smile. He leans forward. I should be scared. I’m just not. “I love you,” I say simply. His eyes close. “You are mine. My mate. My—” “More importantly, you love me. And that’s why you have no authority

“She is my mate,” Koen snarls. “I get to treat her like she’s made of mother-of-pearl. You do not.”

She’s a small wolf. Cream and white colored, with the same dark brown eyes as her human form, and pale yellow ears that are large for her body and more pointed than most. Her thick tail and delicate muzzle have a few light markings that make her utterly unique. So pretty, he thinks that if she were the last thing he saw, he wouldn’t mind. Not at all.

“Serena, our first meeting sent you into Heat.”

“So…you are my mate?” “We might never know, since your biology is different from a full Were’s. I don’t care very much, because…” “Because?” “Because you’re perfect.”

It doesn’t help, that he doesn’t hear from her more often while he’s gone. He refuses to become the kind of person who sends little heart emoji texts every ten minutes, but by God, can’t Serena shoulder the burden of being the needy one? Can’t she blow up his fucking phone?