Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“Before I leave, I think I need to hold you for a minute.” I’m in his arms before I know how I got there. He bends down to scoop me up, and my forehead fits so perfectly into the valley of his already-prickly throat, this cannot be anything but fated. He lifts me higher, my feet no longer touching the ground, and hides his face in my neck. A long, deep inhale. My pulse begins to dance.

Serena: Would you love me less if my name was Eva? Misery: Yes.

“No one ‘lets’ me do stuff or go places,” I point out tiredly. “That’s not how it works, Koen.” “If you were mine, it would. And clearly, you fucking should be.” I can’t tell if it’s a threat or a promise. All of a sudden, Koen’s eyes are so full of anger, I shiver and turn aside.

“After I die.” The second the words are out, hanging heavy in the air between us, Koen…smiles. 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.”

“Alpha, I think it would be best if you and I could talk privately.” “About me?” I sit back in the chair and cock my head. “That has to be a HIPAA violation.”

As we exit the building, Koen halts briefly. His throat works as he looks into the distance, tight-lipped, running his tongue over his teeth. Composing himself.

“Hear me out for a second.” “I am.” “You are not—” “I can walk and listen at the same time.” He stares straight ahead. “Must be one of those elusive Alpha traits.”

“Guess I’d have to spank you.” He seems unbothered by the prospect.

“When I die—” “Not on my fucking watch, Serena.” “Okay. But when I die—” Koen’s fingers abruptly slide into the hair at the side of my head. Bend my neck back, none too gently. “Serena.” He stares down at me, eyes a few inches from mine. His fury is a physical, formidable thing. It doesn’t scare me. “If you say anything like that ever again, I’m going to kill you myself. Understood?”

Once again, I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “What then, Serena?” I can’t bring myself to say, I think we both know, but he hears it anyway, because his nod is there, barely perceptible. This time, when the pressure swells behind my eyes, I let the tears flow. I feel them splash down on my collarbones. Dampen the tips of my hair. “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.”

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.

I’m about to move to the living room and not mind my own business,

“Aw. Are you guys sleeping together yet?” “What? No!” “Well, since it’s probably going to happen, would you like a heads-up on the biology?” “The what?” “His dick. It—” “It’s not going to happen, Misery. It’d be against the law. He took an oath of celibacy.” “I mean, sure.” She doesn’t sound sure. “But you should know that because you’re his mate, at the base of—”

Serena: What I’m trying to say is that I am grateful that our misfortunes brought us together. Misery: Oh my god. Are you dying? Shit. Serena: Is that the only reason for me to tell you nice things? Misery: It’s the only reason for me to listen to them.

“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.”

You promised to do what I say.” A kiss on my cheek. “Is this who you are? Someone who breaks her promises?” I shake my head, feverish, panting. “Good girl. Fingers,” he orders. “Now.”

“You’re doing so good, killer.” “Yeah?” I whimper. “Yeah, baby.” His laughter is soft. Wound up. “I’m trying to come up with a list of things I wouldn’t do just to be allowed to eat your cunt right now, and I can’t think of a single item.” “Why don’t you, then?” I whine. “ ’Cause you’ve never asked me to before. And no, now doesn’t count. Open your legs wider.

“This one is special. It’s where I would bite you, Serena. High up, where clothes couldn’t hide it.

“Fuck the covenant. I want to be so deep in your cunt, you’d be squirming to breathe—”

For instance, your scent will become more appealing to potential partners.” “As in, my smell brings all the Weres to the yard?” “Well, I haven’t gotten close enough to you to ascertain whether the enhancement has begun, but—” “It has,” Koen said,

“What if…” I close my eyes. “What if my body is set on Koen?” What if my soul is, too. What if the idea of doing any of this with someone who isn’t him makes my stomach turn and my heart shrivel?

A large stain seeps into the dark gray of his cotton Henley.

Ali Hazelwood and these damn Henleys

“Why does it feel like you’re playing house again, killer?” Because I am. “Playing” being the key word. “I’m sorry.” My mouth is dry. “I didn’t mean to—” “C’mon. I didn’t say stop.”

“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.”

When two people fall in love, how many nights do they spend together, doing absolutely nothing, before they’ve had their fill? How many silences and crosswords and mugs of tea do they share? What can Koen and I do, to get as many as— “Don’t,” he murmurs into my hair,

“Whatever you’re thinking about,” he rasps against my ear, “continue.” “Yeah?” He nods. “You smell incredible right now.” “Like…how?” “Like you’d let me keep you here and fuck you for the next six months. Like you need me to.”

“Last night,” he says against my cheekbone, “you fell asleep, and I couldn’t stop thinking about your fingers. How they’d been between your legs. How I could have licked them.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Imagine how difficult this must be for him. “What does…celibacy. What does it mean?” He stares up, cheeks flushed dark. “I’ll get you a dictionary for your birthday.”

“It’s okay. I know how hard this is. I’m going to take care of you, okay?”

“I can’t, Serena. If I touch you there, it’s over.” His kiss on my cheek is light. “There’s this voice in my head, screaming at me that I should hold you down and knot you and shred your gland until it’ll scar in the shape of my teeth, and I’m trying very hard to muffle it.”

“I know that you took an oath. And I know that this is doomed. But…Koen. There is very little that I wouldn’t do for you, if you were to ask me.” “Serena.” I hear the blurry edge of his smile. A quiet sigh. “I would throw away my pack, my life, and my entire world for you. Which is the exact reason I cannot have you.”

He is afraid—not only of what might happen to her, but also of what he might do to the world in retaliation.

There are more than half a dozen people in the room, but his gaze falls on me instantly, like I’m the center of mass of his universe.

Would you like some tea, Alpha?” “That would be lovely. Chai, two sugars.” “Nele? Do we have…No? No chai, unfortunately. Can we offer you anything else?” Koen sits back. “Lady, fuck you and your tea.”

“Out of curiosity, Alpha. How long have you known that you killed her mother?”

If you are certain that your mother was with Constantine that night…” “We are,” Irene says. “Then yes. I killed her.”

If I want to carve his heart out of his chest, he’ll crack his rib cage open and lie prone for me.

Koen is now being asked to choose between respecting the covenant or guaranteeing his mate’s well-being. And if you need him, he’s never going to say no.” “I never asked him. I didn’t—” “Do you really think you need to ask him, Serena?”

“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.”

I feel as though we’re made of the same stuff. Me and him, set apart from the remaining matter of the universe.

“I saw these the first day we met. Been thinking about them.” He lifts the hem of my top and just stares. I squirm as he presses his thumbs to each side of my spine. “Dimples. Very cute. Wholesome, really. Ready to be defiled.”

“I’m really not feeling well.” “I know.” His nose nuzzles behind my ear. My heart could explode with joy. “You’ll be okay. I’ll make you okay.”

you definitely don’t need to stay away. You know what you need?” I shake my head. His cool lips press against my heated, blotchy cheek. “You need to be fucked, Serena.”

“You always smell like you were made specifically for me. To fuck. To be around. To worship. But right now, you smell like you’d give me anything I asked for.

“My good girl”

His hand slips to cup my head. He kisses my lips, gentle. “In a matter of days, you’re going to leave, and I’ll spend the rest of my life as your fucking servant. Whatever you ask me for, you’ll have.

“Again.”

“Again.” “I can’t,”

“Take it.” He shoves deeper. “Be good and take my knot.”

his “perfect mate” and her “perfect, tight cunt”