Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

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

“Don’t worry,” Misery reassures me, “every day I drill into her that we’ll be disappointed in anything but a DJing career.”

“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.”

“What is your preferred morning upper?” Amanda asks with a wide smile when I find the kitchen after some wandering. “Coffee? Tea? Methamphetamine?”

It’s Misery’s fault if I have a thing for tall blondes who use fuck off humor to shield their true selves.

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

“Hang on. What would I have gotten if I’d chosen the other?” “A hug.” His eyes widen. Then squint. “What if I want to change my answer?”

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.”

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.

“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. And when the rest of your family comes to avenge you, I’ll do the same to them. And if your friends come, I’m not going to fucking stop. Not even if all that’s left of the pack is me and her. I will paint this entire territory green before I let anyone in the pack spill a single drop of red. Okay?”

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

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.”

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 eyebrow lifts. “Uh-oh. Celibacy Threat Alert.”

“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.”

“Good. Keep it that way. Koen’s inner circle is very happy that Mommy and Daddy got it on.”

“And you are mine, Serena.”

“You told me that you loved me, Serena,” he says simply. His eyes are earnest, liquid. So profoundly good. “And while I’m willing to resign myself to an existence without the person I love, I refuse to condemn you to it.”

“I don’t think I can go on without you. Above all, I don’t think I can go on knowing that you need me, and I’m not by your side.”

I wonder why it took me until this very moment to realize that it’s been his way of saying I love you all along.

It tastes, Koen thinks, like forever should.