Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

That is…true, even though I’m not sure why I’m realizing it just now. Koen is not hitting on me. He’s not trying to cha-cha real smooth into my life.

“Koen?” I’m almost fully asleep, my lids too heavy to open. “Yeah?” “I think you owe me an apology.” “For what?” “The way you stared at my tits.” Silence. Then, instead of the I’m sorry or Go to fucking sleep I expect, he says, “I think you owe me an apology.” “For what?” “How spectacular your tits are.”

“She’s fine,” Koen orders, returning to the room with something in his hand. “Stop fussing.” It’s an odd thing to say, considering that it’s followed by him kneeling in front of me and taking the heel of one of my feet in his palm. He runs a damp washcloth all over the little abrasions the forest floor left on my skin, the ones that are already starting to heal. The warmth feels so indecently good, I swallow a moan. “You’re fine. Aren’t you, killer?” he asks, holding my eyes. I nod, a little breathless. “You need a bed and some rest,” Saul continues, undeterred. “And a hot meal,” Amanda adds. “Should I—” “She’s an adult Were who doesn’t require coddling,” Koen interrupts. Once again, a bit jarring to hear, especially as he rolls thick, soft socks up my shins. They reach just below my knees. I might just go to my deathbed wearing them.

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

“Why would I come with you?” “Because the idea of having you out of my sight makes me want to flip those cars one by one.”

“If I come back and something has happened to you, Serena, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.” I bite the inside of my lips. “That sounds like a you problem.” “Yeah. That it is.”

“Stop looking at them. Deep breaths.” “I can’t. What is happening?” “Don’t look at them.” Tears slide down my face. I’m about to explode. “But why are they—” Koen’s fist darts out to punch the mirror, shattering my reflection into a thousand small shards. “Here. Now they’re not doing that anymore.”

He glances at the almost-full tub. A second later I’m submerged in water. Distantly, I register some surprise. Because Koen gets in with me, clothes and all, and pulls me between his spread legs.

“If you were mine, it would. And clearly, you fucking should be.”

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.”

“Guess I’d have to spank you.”

“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.”

“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—” “Stop.” At the what of what? “I liked you better when you were a virgin.” “Yeah, well, Lowe didn’t. So.”

This is too much. I can’t process it, not tonight. “I should go to sleep,” I say. “Okay. Which room?” “Um, mine?” “Okay. We’ll sleep there.” “We?” “We.” My eyebrow lifts. “Uh-oh. Celibacy Threat Alert.”

“You know, your room might be better.” “Why?” “Comfier bed. Tub.” I blink a few times. Leave my eyes closed. “Smells like you.” He grumbles something low that I can’t make out. Before I can ask him to repeat himself, I’m already sound asleep.

But Koen commands “Stay still” and does something very weird. Swipes the hair away from the back of my neck. Angles my head down an inch or two. Bends to run the flat of his tongue against the first few vertebrae of my spine. And I fucking die. “Oh my God.”

“Fuck.”

“I get it. You don’t have to…Is there anyone else who could help me with…” It’s a stupid question, and the second I articulate it, I realize that the simple idea of someone else touching me makes me want to tear the flesh off my bones. But going by Koen’s deep, guttural, displeased grunt, he doesn’t know that. “You’re not going to—fuck it.” He carries me to bed, sits on the edge of the mattress, and pulls me down between his spread legs, facing away from him. Almost in his lap. When I try to grind backward, chasing his erection, he stops me with a hold that immobilizes my arms at my sides. It’s a little like a straitjacket, made of thick muscles and scent. Exactly what I need. I got you, it tells me. I no longer have to control myself, because he’s doing that for me. I have permission to beg and thrash in his arms. “That,” he growls in my ear, “is not the kind of stunt you pull with an Alpha. Not when you’re on the brink of a Heat.”

“I said I’m going to help you, didn’t I?” The help I need involves him bending me over and fucking me into the mattress, so I let out a whiny whimper when he takes my hand, braids our fingers together, and moves them to my lower stomach, where the elastic of my panties sticks to skin.

“Tell me, killer.” He nuzzles me. “What makes you think that this is a negotiation?” “Please, use your fingers. Why don’t you want to—” “You need to shut the fuck up about what you think I want. This is a mess, and you’re not in any condition to make any asks. 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.” I shove my hand down my underwear with no grace. “Oh my God.” It’s just…so much. Way too much. “Why am I so wet?” “It’s normal,” he says. “You’re going to need it.” “F-for what?” He exhales against my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Just touch yourself.”

“Do you need something inside you? To come?” I shake my head. Not usually. Right now, though, I want it. “Okay.” He inhales deep, like I smell as good to him as he does to me. “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. A little more. Yeah.” The last word is exhaled. A little choked. Like he’s savoring. Adding a file to his visual library. “I have no right to it, but fuck, I just want to see enough to imagine what’s happening.” His tongue runs a broad stroke across a spot on the side of my throat, and a fraction of a second later I’m on the verge of coming.

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. “Shit, you smell so good.” He sounds as shaken as I feel. “Fuck the covenant. I want to be so deep in your cunt, you’d be squirming to breathe—”

“Koen,” Layla says, and all of a sudden, she sounds less like a pack member and more like a friend. Someone who knew Koen when he was young—who was young with him. “You’re not going to like me doing it this way.” A merry, careless shrug. “Then I’ll have to be a fucking big boy about it, won’t I?”

“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?”

“Sure, sure. ’Tis but a scratch. You’ve proven your Alpha unflappability. Your pain threshold is so high, it’s wondering if the color blue you see is different from the color blue I see. I am adequately impressed—now take the shirt off.” “And if I’m deathly wounded?” His eyebrow twitches skeptically. “What are you going to do about it, doctor?”

Koen comes up behind me, hands bracketing my sides. I jolt. The glass slips from my hand, straight into the sink, but doesn’t break. His body barely touches mine; it’s such an inappropriately intimate, jarringly mundane gesture, my heart cracks. And then it breaks into a million pieces when his nose nuzzles the crown of my head. His voice is as rough as coffee grounds. “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.”

“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.”

“I’m going to make you come, however many times you need. And then I’m going elsewhere to make myself come.” “I can—” “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?” I nod again, which gives him a path to my throat. His mouth closes around my gland and it’s so sudden, so shocking, I scream. “Koen,” I gasp, moving my hips again. The pleasure is white-hot. “Feels so good.” The curve of a smile. “Feels better for me than for you.” “Impossible.” My breath tumbles out. “I…I tried.” “Hmm?” “Touching my glands. But it didn’t really—not like when you touch me.” “Sweetheart.” He nips at it.

My afterlife will just be me, watching you move around my house in nothing but my clothes. Knowing that you’re warm and fed and safe and so damn soft.”

“I can wash your clothes and—” His hand tightens around my scalp. Something between a mild threat and an invitation to back off. “I’m going to bury my face in them the second you go to bed, killer.”

“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.”

“They are ready to be of service, yes. 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.”

There is no pleading, nor an attempt to convince me that I’m overreacting. 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.

“And that’s when I would have told you how…” I take a deep, shaky breath. “I would have told you how vulnerable I’ve been feeling in the past year. Stripped of my life. My identity. My agency. My health. And now, of the most personal thing of all. A few hours from now, I’ll be out of my mind. I will be a creature made of need, beyond thought. And you will take care of me exemplarily, like always. You will…You will kiss me, and touch me, and fuck me, because it’s what I require, and those will be the memories I carry for the rest of my life: you, satisfying my needs. And I would have tried to make you understand that I…I want more. I would like some real memories of us. Not because we’ve been cornered into it by biology and circumstances, but because being together is what we both want. So, while I’m still in control, I would have asked you to…to kiss me, and…”

“Sweetheart.” “It’s just that I need—” “You need to do what I tell you.” His tone is gentle and firm all at once, commanding in the exact way I need. It quells my anxiety. Loosens my restlessness. Koen’s scent is so pleased, my body blooms in his arms. “See, killer? We can fix this.” He licks across the gland on my neck, and I slump against him. It’s bliss. “You don’t need to call Layla. And 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.”

“Is this what worries you?” he asks. “That you’re too wet?” I nod. Cannot bring myself to say anything. “You really have no idea, do you?” A moment later, his face is in my cunt.

“Wanted to wash this off, huh?” he growls against me.

“Hey,” he says, soothing. “I want to fuck you really, really bad. You know that, right?” I nod. “Good. I can’t rush this, killer, because if you become sore or hurt or God fucking forbid, torn, you’re not going to get a couple of days to recover. Once your Heat starts in earnest, you’re going to want me inside you, whether it’s painful or not. So I’m going to move slowly. And I need you to do what I say. Okay?” Another, more subdued nod. A “My good girl” brushed against my jaw helps his finger sink deep enough that he can slowly, relentlessly work another one inside, tucked next to the first.

“Can’t come like this, either, sweetheart? It’s okay, almost there. Take them a little deeper, and we can try again.” A few low encouragements—yes, good, look at you, just a little more—and then he’s on top of me again, biting my lower lip as he eases inside. This time, the first couple of inches slip right in.

“In a matter of days, you’re going to leave, and I’ll spend the rest of my life as your fucking servant.

He can’t say no to me.

He kisses me, deep. Lovely. He’s not really moving anymore, just grinding inside me, trying to find a perfect spot, and the feeling of fullness becomes unbearable. I feel a tinge of alarm. Stop, I should say. Stop. It’s not normal. It’s too much. But it’s not. And Koen knows it. “Take it.” He shoves deeper. “Be good and take my knot.” “I—I don’t—” “You do. You were made for it. How could I ever think of fucking anyone else, when you take it so well?”

“Spoiled,” he mumbles against my lips, but there’s a touch of a smile at the corners of his eyes, in the webs of wrinkles irradiating from them.

“Unbelievable, how fucking unreal you feel, soft and wet and warm and every good thing in the world, baby.”

It sends him into a frenzy. He pounds inside me, his cock deeper than ever, bottoming out. I feel him in the back of my throat.

The Heat mounts, but I let Koen get some rest and I go to the kitchen to grab a new bottle of water, trying not to dwell on how wrong it feels, being out of my nest. That’s where he finds me two minutes later, and he immediately crowds me against the fridge. The stainless-steel presses against the backs of my thighs, and I shiver. “Are you wearing fucking clothes?” “It’s just your sweater. I can—” “You’re not supposed to leave.” He’s not joking. He’s genuinely upset that I…walked twenty feet and put on a hoodie? Hormones, man. “I’m sorry,” I say, appeasing. He can’t help this any more than I can. “I didn’t mean to worry you. Let’s go back to bed.” But we don’t. He silently flips me around and bends me over the table, uncaring of the papers scattered all over or the bottle rolling into the living room. He maneuvers me until one of my knees is on the edge, and once I’m spread open, he pushes inside me so roughly, I come halfway through the first thrust.

“I didn’t mean to—” “You didn’t mean to wash away my come like it’s a bad thing?” He sucks on my clit so hard, I almost pass out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Koen, please, you said—” I sob. It’s too much. Too good. Is this what happens when people slowly descend into madness and despair? Is this the feeling? “You said that I can’t come from this.” “You can’t.” He leaves a bite on the tender strip where my thigh and my abdomen meet. I yelp, even though the pain is better than the constant, unbreakable tension. “Then why are you doing it?” “Because unlike you, I can.”

“Koen, no. You actually like being Alpha. You live to order people around.” He holds back a smile. “Guess from now on, you’re going to have to be people.”

“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 square my shoulders. Don’t cry. Don’t you fucking dare cry. “It was very good sex, and I—I made it up, Koen. In the heat of the moment.” His eyes are compassionate. “I read your letter.” “My…?” “The one on your desk. With my name on it. It changes everything, Serena.” The letter I wrote for him to read after I died. I shut my eyes tight, trying to block the memories of what’s in it. 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.

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