Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

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

“Breaking the covenant. I remain tragically unfucked.”

He wants to show her every corner of his territory. The deep blue lakes and the snow-capped peaks. Moss-draped trees and rock spires. He wants to be with her for each marveled intake of breath.

“I…” He shakes his head, at a loss for words, and in this moment—when he looks as confused as I feel, when he chooses to share his lack of understanding with me, I think I love him. Just a little bit.

“Do you want to come with me?” Yes, with every single cell of my body. “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.”

“Killer?” “Yeah?” There is a false start. Like the words are too foreign to flow out with ease. But then he says, “Before I leave, I think I need to hold you for a minute.”

“You’re burning up. This is not the first time, is it?” Yes. No. I don’t know. “Answer me.” “N-no.” “Good girl. Is it a fever?”

“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.”

Koen studies me at length, his eyes opaque. “If I weren’t Alpha,” he asks, eventually. “And you weren’t sick. What then, Serena?”

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.

“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.

“How perfect you are. I spent the last twenty years hoping that if there was a mate for me out there, I’d never come across them. And then I found you, and, Serena…there isn’t one thing I would change about you. Or one single thing I regret about knowing you.”

“You already own a knife. But let me reassure you that any Were in this pack who touches you without an express request from you is going to come into a windfall of pain. And then die.”

“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?

He side-eyes me when I make him lift me onto the counter to watch him wash the dishes.

I make tea. He makes me add several spoonfuls of sugar, and we drink it on the back porch, sitting on the steps, long after the sun has set. From the same mug. His lips touch the same water molecules as mine.

“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.”

Every single time he sets a hand to his cock, he will have this moment in his mind.

“The truth is, if you decide to spend your Heat with someone else, they’ll have to chain me at the bottom of a well and seal its mouth with concrete.”

“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.”

“Koen. Where is the line?” “The line is everywhere, Serena.” A hollow laugh. His hand travels up my spine. Cups my nape. Our lips are closer than ever, but never meet. “My entire life is made of fucking lines. And you’re blowing past all of them.”

“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.”

“Okay?” he asks, and I shake my head. “I’ll never be okay again.” “Yeah.” He is hoarse. Desperate but amused. “We’re both fucked.”

“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.”

Run my hand through his hair, trying not to sigh at the way he leans into it, like my skin is his North Star.

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.

“I won’t tell a soul. And neither will any of the seconds.”

“No one will ever know where he’ll spend the next few days. He’ll be yours for a while, Serena. But after, you must return him. So think of it as a loan.”

“Fine. I’m going to show you something. Come.” He follows me to my bedroom, but when my hand wraps around the doorknob, he grips my wrist to stop me. “Give me a second,” he orders. Trancelike. Foggy. “I— Why?” “Your scent is really intense here.”

“Let me make something very clear, Serena. I’m never going to regret any of this, okay?”

“I think…this is going to hurt, Koen.” “After, yeah. But not yet.” “Not yet.”

This is it, then. What he was born for.

“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.”

“So I just need to…?” “Be fucked, yes. I’ll be taking care of that. Okay?” “Please.” I nod, desperate, all brainstem.

“I feel like I smell…” “Fuckable. You smell ready. You smell transcendent and filthy and delicious. You smell like you’re this close to losing your mind, like you might hurt me if I don’t take care of you, and you know what that does to me, knowing that my mate needs me? You understand what this is for, right? What Heats are for?”

“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. If that’s the scent you’re planning to wash off…don’t do it on my account.”

“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. But here you are. Defenseless. Mine for a short time.”

’S good,” I say, meaning that it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life, bar none. “It’s good,” he agrees, looking like he means the exact same thing.

“Koen?” He’s too out of breath to reply, but he presses a kiss of acknowledgment against the crown of my hair.

I wonder if he’s storing every little touch for later. If he’s even aware of what he’s doing, staring at me with a faint half smile that is just… Lovesick.

“Do you think…After this is done, do you think it’ll be harder for you to go back to not having it?” “Serena,” he says, deliberate, level. “None of this is about sex.” “Then what—” “You. This, all of it, is purely about you.”

“You are my mate. I would have wanted you no matter what. I will want you no matter what. But you are also…” He licks his lips. “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.”

“There could never be disappointment, because there were never any comparisons, or expectations, or hopes, or standards to meet. There’s only…” He casts a glance around the room, searching. Then his eyes settle on me. “There is only you, Serena.”

He’s already moving inside me, shallow, staccato strokes that feel nothing like usual. I tilt the curve of my ass back to meet him, and his sharp inhale tells me that he wasn’t quite awake yet.

“This is it. How I want to wake up for the rest of my life.”

On the morning of the third day, the urgency subsides. Somewhat. “Is it over?” I ask Koen. He scoffs. Twenty minutes later, when I climb on top of him, desperate for relief, I understand why.

“I love you. And I’m never going to stop, no matter what.”

He never says that he loves me, but it’s written all over my skin.

“More importantly, you love me. And that’s why you have no authority over me.” I reach up to caress his face with the back of my hand.