Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

She’s joking, I think. Not sure. Faced with proof of the existence of stuff like biologically mandated mates, and hybrids, and the legality of child beauty pageants, it’s hard to discount…anything. I’m a single internet rabbit hole away from becoming a Hollow Earther.

“Nothing. Just, look at you. Being all sciency.” “I had a mandatory biology class in college.” “And you retained knowledge from that low C?” “Stay out of my transcripts.” “But they’re such a riveting bedtime read.” “And it was a C-plus.” “You woman in STEM.”

“Now that I think about it, Serena, send me your new phone number. So I can keep you updated on Sparkles’s bowel movements, as you requested.” “I requested cute pictures. Please, stop sending cat turds.”

“She bought it for me with her monthly allowance.” Which is nearly as high as my salary used to be. Misery is not strict with that child.

“What? You don’t believe that a family can be a girl and her pink stuffed penguin?” “I emphatically do not.” “You’re so bigoted.” “Glad you finally noticed.”

“So you do chop firewood.” “I work wood. Not the same thing.” Lumberjack, I mouth to myself.

“Not to mention, I snoop around. You’d have to hide all your porn magazines.” “I have Wi-Fi, killer.” “Well, turning on incognito browsing is a pain.”

“In that case, we’ll find a place where you can be alone in the middle of nowhere.” My heart soars. “Really?” “No,” he says mildly. “Fuck that. You’ll stay where I put you.”

“Does it not bother your back, Koen?” “You mean, the supermassive weight of my ego? No, it does not.” “Oh, come on. How did you know—” “You’re gonna have to come up with more creative insults than that, Serena.”

Brenna, what specifically about me is not full-package material? Because we’re positively besieged by choices here. Is it the fact that I’m a hybrid? That I don’t know how to be a proper Were? That there’s a bounty over my head? That I grew up with a Vampyre? That I’m unemployed?

He grasps my chin. “For once, do what I say and close your damn eyes.”

“Take a deep breath. Another. Good. Another.” His voice lowers to a rumble, not deeper than usual, but more resonant. Soothing and authoritative.

“Since you’ve had so much exposure to my good looks.” Carter and I burst out laughing, then stop when we notice Koen’s narrow-eyed stare.

“Don’t criticize my looks. It hurts my feelings.” “Your what?” I ask. Koen gives me a deadpan look.

Pick up a candle. Smell it—lavender, vetiver, a hint of vanilla. Decide that I love the scent and inhale it again. Put it back on the shelf.

“Please. Let me make you pretty.” “I’m already pretty. I’m fucking stupendous.”

“Has anyone told you that you’re kind of a nuisance, killer?” “A guy. Once or ten times.” I grin. “But I could be so much worse.”

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.

A DREAM

The second just grins, waves at me, and bends over to stretch his hamstrings, giving me a thorough view of his butthole.

“Mouthy, isn’t she, Boden?” He sighs. “Never thought I’d be into that, and yet. Bane of my fucking existence.”

One day his frontal lobes will develop, he’ll think back to this interaction, and his friends will have to remove all sharp objects from his household.

“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?”

Before I can go in search of one, he tugs at my wrist and pulls me between his knees. My ass hits the hard muscles of his quads none too gently, and his left arm loops around my hips, the back of his hand resting on the upper part of my left thigh. He angles me so that my legs occupy the slice of space between his.

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.

I beg the god of physiologically dysregulated bitches with sleep disorders to keep him away for ten more minutes.

Maybe she’ll sign him up for a dating app named Howlr, which someone should totally invent.

That’s when my phone rings with an unknown number. In the past, I’d have eaten glass with gonorrhea smeared on it before picking up.

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

I smell a surge of panic. Sudden alert. Sphincters clenched tight enough to make diamonds.

I switch my hold on the razor to use it as a weapon, ready for an invasion. So ready. They don’t need to know that earlier I pulled a muscle while combing my hair.

“That’s some grade A compartmentalization.” “Thanks.” I toss my hair back. “It’s the childhood trauma.”

“I didn’t know Weres have cults.” “Everybody has cults.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. If anything happens to me, what do you do?” “Buy a black veil, pretend I’m a widow, cash in on your life insurance.”

Serena: Would you love me less if my name was Eva? Misery: Yes. Misery: But not like, by a lot.

“How bad?” “Bad bad. Like…Our lives, bad.” “Whoa.” “Yeah. I feel way less special, knowing that there’s all this trauma waffling about.”

Wanna hang up and spend the rest of the day buddy watching that Human show about the MILFs?” “Yeah, actually.” “Tough shit. I’m giving you the cult deets whether you want them or not.

But I’ve also never met anyone with a belly-button fetish, and they exist.” “Do they?” “Alvinophilia.

His hand comes up to snatch my chin. “You could be fucking good, for once.”

“Good girl. Fingers,” he orders. “Now.” I shove my hand down my underwear with no grace.

Nod frantically as my fingers speed up under the cotton of my soaked panties, and— “I didn’t say you could go faster,” he chides with a brief tap of his fingers over the fabric.

“Each side of your throat.” He sucks on the right for far longer than would be necessary for a simple demonstration. By the end, I’m trembling so bad, my fingers can barely stay on my clit. “And then there’s the back of your neck.” Another slow, savoring lick. My eyes roll back in my head.

One last kiss. He covers my back with the curtain of my hair and taps again at my hand—a silent order to continue touching myself.

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. So I suck, and take more, even as I feel his muscles vibrate and the rope of his scent drawing tighter around me.

Koen kisses me on the forehead. His hold never loosens, and we both fall asleep.

I wouldn’t want to upset you.” “You aren’t,” I say. Very upset.

“There will also be temporary physiological changes. For instance, your scent will become more appealing to potential partners.” “As in, my smell brings all the Weres to the yard?”

Back in college, whenever Misery would catch me playing with the neighbor’s kids, pinching their cheeks, calling them cute, she’d roll her eyes so hard, her contacts nearly popped out. I hear they shit everywhere. And eat all your peanut butter. That’s true of you, too. Precisely. Do you really need two of me?

Which means that I have more than just months left. I can make choices. I can go back to the Southwest, see Ana grow up, watch Misery be the worst parent on the planet.

I don’t care if Vampyres don’t eat. I’ll take her refusal of my cooking personally till the day I die.

“You didn’t ask if I could play. You asked if I played. And before this week, I hadn’t. Not in years.” “God, I hate you.” “Sure.”