Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“Maybe it’s just easier to worry about what people are thinking than about…about the real shit.” “Such as?” “That my father killed your parents. And you killed mine.” I can’t believe it all fits in exactly ten words. Our pasts, woven together. One—no, four more reasons we could never work. As though we needed them. They come with a garbled mess of questions that I haven’t even begun to wrangle free. Do I resent him? Does he hate me? Am I angry? How much of this is his fault? Should I carry my parents’ sins? Can I forgive? Can he? Is there anything to forgive here? He’s just as stumped. Fiddling with these impossible thoughts. Gives me a stuck, resigned look and says, “Couple goals, am I right?” I laugh. The low, rolling sound that slips out of him could be laughter, too. We regard each other like that, no judgment, no fear of being judged. I could live in this weird limbo for the next century. “I would do it all over again,” he murmurs at last, eyes never letting go of mine. “Even knowing what it did to you. And for that, I’m sorrier than I’ll ever be.” We are not Human. His pain squeezes my chest. “I don’t want you to…If when you look at me you see Constantine, I don’t want you to—” “Serena.” He shakes his head. “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.”