Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“I see.” I clear my throat. “Well, this relationship sure escalated quickly.”

“That would make me your Alpha.”

“I want you to be scared shitless, Serena. I want you so fucking terrified of me, you won’t even dream of not doing what I say. I want you to feel like your soft little throat is in my hands, and I want you to be so afraid that I’ll tear into it that when I tell you to do something for your own fucking safety, you won’t consider saying anything but ‘Yes, Alpha.’ ”

Whoever intends to hurt her will have to crawl over my cold, rotting corpse. Literally, perhaps.

The mate thing has no bearing on our relationship. We’re not secretly in love with each other. We’re not even fucking.” “Oh, I know.” Her smile is strained. “Believe me, we all know.”

I laugh. “No offense, but…there has to be someone better suited to that.” “Fuck off,” he says mildly.

“He’s dead.” “Could reports of his passing have been greatly exaggerated?” “I ripped his heart out of his chest, chewed it for half a minute, and then spit it into the ocean.” I nod slowly. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

“If I come back and something has happened to you, Serena, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.”

to survive. “Please, Koen. I need you to leave.” “Where does it hurt?” He comes closer,

“Don’t be sorry—that’s not your job. Your fucking job is to cure ill people. Why do you have no idea how to do that?”

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.

“What if I’m doing all the work? What if you’re just my…Mine.”

This ain’t my first rodeo—and by rodeo, of course, I mean kidnapping.

“You are the heart of this pack, Koen.” He nods. Even as he says, “And you are mine, Serena.”

It tastes, Koen thinks, like forever should.