Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

Big Bad Murderous Wolf in Charge of Thousands Cannot Handle Girl Crying. What a headline.

He’s going to take her lies and peel them off one by one. Then he’ll force her to show him what’s underneath.

Cute, how she thinks he’d ever let her out of his sight.

Koen may want me, but he doesn’t want to want me.

“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.

After, 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 would throw away my pack, my life, and my entire world for you. Which is the exact reason I cannot have you.”

“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.”

You’re not the center of the fucking world. She is.