Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

But Lowe just looks at him like he did when he was twelve, already way too fucking serious for his age, like the pillars of Earth rest in his clenched sphincter, and Koen has never been able to stand it.

His laugh is a deep, warm chuckle that makes my heart stumble. “You have no idea, kid.” I cross my arms. “Should you be calling me ‘kid,’ given the situation?” “I’m not married to it. What would you prefer?” “Well, there’s always my actual name. But if you insist on a nickname, I’d prefer something with a bit more…” “More?” “More teeth.” His eyebrow rises. “Root canal?” “No. Come on, you know what I mean. Something that inspires fear.” “Real estate market crash.”

Koen is so diametrically opposed to the kind of men I prefer, a protractor must be involved.

“And you and the truth are particularly tight?” He assesses me for a beat. “I’m not going to lie to you, Serena.” “Well, I’m probably going to lie to you a lot.” “Yeah?” His smile is almost charmed. “What kind of lies do you tell?”

Lazily, I paw at Koen’s shoulder and stretch in his arms. “I can walk.” “Me too. Wanna start a club?” “Can I be president?” “Treasurer at most.”

There are only that many kidnapping and murder attempts a child can endure before developing serious issues and self-destructive behaviors. We wouldn’t want her to grow up and, say, go to grad school.”

Maybe I just didn’t want you looking down on me.” “I will never not look down on you, chiefly because of our height difference.

“Just…” I swallow. “The mate thing.” His face doesn’t move a millimeter. His biological predestination to want sex with me seems to interest him less than the favorite yogurt flavor of the fifteen-to-twenty-one demographic.

Misery and I have taken a lot of self-defense, and I have some moves tucked away. Not sure how they’ll play out after months of poor sleep hygiene, a diet mostly made of stomach acids, and my current condom full of chicken stock level of fitness, but I don’t care.

He shifts forward, aiming his words at the shell of my ear. A shiver travels through my spine. “Since you appear to need reminding, if some sketchy-looking cumduck pulls up in a white van and asks you to help him rescue his puppy—”

He can’t very well bust out his grandma’s silverware and fine dine with truffle risotto and densuke watermelon if 80 percent of the time he’s got paws and carnassial teeth.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he says with a lopsided smile. “I love watching asses being ridden. It’s my favorite kind of porn.”

That’s when my phone rings with an unknown number. In the past, I’d have eaten glass with gonorrhea smeared on it before picking up.

“He’s not,” I say distractedly. “He’s not…?” Anneke asks. “Breaking the covenant. I remain tragically unfucked.”

“If you come any closer, I will stab you.” I pointedly lower my eyes to his dick, which swings between his legs like the world’s wrinkliest Christmas ornament.

Fuck the rest of the world—it’s incapable of giving her the safety she so clearly deserves. He’ll fix that. He’ll make up for everything she has been put through.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. If anything happens to me, what do you do?” “Buy a black veil, pretend I’m a widow, cash in on your life insurance.”

Sitting up is difficult, because my limbs are pulled pork.

I think he might want to know everything that’s in my head. I think he could shake every thought I’ve ever had out of my skull, rummage through them for years, and still not be bored.

“Feel free to stop acting with reckless disregard for your life.” “Aw. Thank you. Anything else I’m allowed to do, Alpha?” His hand comes up to snatch my chin. “You could be fucking good, for once.” “I can try?” I smile. My lower lip pushes against his thumb.

“You’ll be okay,” he promises, breathing nearly as fast as me. “It’s going to pass. Are you in pain?” I’m far past lying. I look him in the eye and admit, “No, but I’m afraid that if you don’t…touch me right now, I’m going to start crying. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to beg. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to—to break into a million pieces and beg you some more, and I’ll do anything if—”

Whatever clarity broke through earlier, it’s rapidly dissipating. Something warm and syrupy builds up inside my abdomen, making me want to crawl out of my skin. Everything’s too tight. Too empty. “Whatever this is, it’s getting worse. And I dream about you all the time, and—” I hold his eyes and take his hand to drag it between my legs, certain that if he feels me there, the mess I’ve made of myself, the steady, dripping arousal, then he’ll get it. But my movements are sloppy and uncoordinated. What the hell am I doing? Am I out of my mind? I can’t make Koen touch me. I don’t want to make anyone touch me. Except, and I know this with bone-deep certainty, I need someone to touch me. “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...

“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.” I rub myself clumsily, slipping through my folds. I’ve done this enough times in my life, it should be easy. But it’s like there’s a balloon swelling inside me, and it won’t pop. My hips buck impatiently, and I circle, I rock, I grind, and…I nearly burst into tears. “Slowly,” Koen orders roughly. “Can you go slower?” I can. God, I can. And it’s already so much better. His scent is suddenly pleased with me, and I revel in it. Let my head fall back against his shoulder. “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 imag...

“Five?” “The inside of your wrists.” He brings my left hand to his mouth and nips the area at the base of my palm, making me shudder. “Each side of your throat.” He sucks on the right for far longer than would be necessary for a simple demonstration. By the end, I’m trembling so bad, my fingers can barely stay on my clit. “And then there’s the back of your neck.” Another slow, savoring lick. My eyes roll back in my head.

“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—”

God. It’s like being told that baby carrots are just regular ones peeled to be smaller: I should have realized what was going on a long time ago, but I didn’t, and now I feel stupid.

When two people fall in love, how many nights do they spend together, doing absolutely nothing, before they’ve had their fill?

“Hush,” he croons into my ear. “You’re all worked up. And wet. Just a handful of days from your first Heat.” His teeth scrape against my jaw. “It’s okay. I know how hard this is. I’m going to take care of you, okay?” I agree with a mindless nod. The need in my blood is rising. I will die without this. “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.”

“Listen,” Amanda says bluntly. “As much as we love setting our alarms one hour earlier to come visit with Mommy and Daddy, if we knew how to make pancakes, we would not be here.” I cock my head. “Am I Mommy in this scenario?” “Or Daddy,” Saul offers. “You get to pick first, since you provide the pancakes.” “Nice. I’ll take it.” Twenty minutes later, when Mommy steps out of his room freshly showered and cleanly shaven, they are in the middle of a bitter argument.

“The thing is, I grew up with very little control of my life, of my choices, of my body, and maybe because of that, I’ve thought about things like consent and agency a lot.

I make a vaguely neurochemical-imbalance-shaped gesture.

I’m hollow, and he’s going to fill me to the brim.

“The reason you are so wet is that your body has been preparing for what is about to happen. Believe me, you will need all the slick you can spare.” Slick. “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?

I nod, breathless, and fist the sheets as he eats me—wolflike, with teeth, feral, the rough flat of his tongue scraping against me over and over, teasing the fluttering rim of my hole until I’m puffy and pink and taut, a violin string begging to be snapped.

“It hurts,” I sigh. “Does it?” He kisses my cheek. “Are you too full? Or too empty?” “I want more.” I try to take it, too, thrusting my pelvis upward. Koen stops me so easily, it’s embarrassing. “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. I clench around him hard enough to make him grunt. The stretch burns so nicely, I cannot help but squirm. My fingernails dig into his arm, his wrist, searching for purchase, a counterpoint. My hips won’t stay still, my entire body twitches, I still need more, but I’m being good. I’m doing what he says.

“Don’t make me come too soon. Let me get you used to it.”

Index and middle dip in my mouth, slide over my tongue, the grip tight enough to stop me from moving my head again. Then his cock drives deeper inside me, sustained, unrelenting, long and fat and far too much. I beg for more of it around his fingers, even as every sinking inch has me pushing my palms against his shoulders to shove him away. My heels twist against the sheets. I try to make room that doesn’t exist. “Breathe,” he tells me. “Just breathe, Serena.”

He understands what I want: to be broken in. “It’s okay, Serena. Almost all in. Easy.” A little more. A little more. There’s no room, but he’ll make it. One tweak of my nipple, one kiss to my gland, one flick on my clit at a time.

We can start again after you have a strawberry, he tells me. One more sip of juice. Like that. Be good. Give me one more. Open up. No, not later—now. You have to drink. A kiss against the flushed skin of my throat. Girls in Heat only get what they ask for if they finish their water.

“Please,” I beg, not sure for what. But he knows. A low groan. He stuffs me so full, I wail at how good it hurts.

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. He knots me quickly, in a few unceremonious, glorious strokes. For him it seems to be more about locking me closer than about coming, but my thighs shake with my orgasm and the effort to stay upright. “Poor killer.” He hugs me and kisses my cheek. “She didn’t do as she was told, and now look.” It doesn’t feel like punishment, not when his knot grinds inside me. That little bit of friction, coupled with his hand strumming my clit, makes me come so many times, I don’t even remember making it back to the bed.

“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.” He can. And he does. A minute later I watch him, wide-eyed, as he comes just from eating me out. He growls his orgasm into my flesh, twitching with pleasure, kissing me throughout, and even though I’m left trembling and unsatisfied, even though I’m still in my twenties, I know that it’s the most erotic thing I’ll ever experience.

Whether it’s the position or the end of my Heat, taking him inside me is difficult again. Koen does nothing to help and stares, swallowing encouraging noises, fascinated by the way I have to stop and restart in increments. He’s too thick. Then there’s a sudden, wet give within me, and he’s not. His nostrils flare, and his fingers twitch in the sheets. It’s not until I have him right at the hilt, our hips flush, that I get rewarded with a pass of his thumb on my clit.

We make it last, hips angling, slow rise and slow fall, empty, then full. Our eyes keep wandering down, to the place where he’s stuffed inside me. Sweaty, tacky skin. Desperate grasping. Pleading, drugging kisses.

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

“Just a few days ago you listed several reasons why you had to choose the pack over me. What changed?” He roams the inside of his mouth with his tongue. Waits out the end of a particularly strong gust of breeze. “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 feel close to you. So much so, sometimes I wonder if fate really does exist. When you’re around, the universe feels more bearable.

“It’s kinda gross, how madly in love with her you are. But please, continue. Pitiful, twitterpated men are very entertaining.”

“Not that I’m unhappy about it, but why are you here?” She pouts. “Because my sister was on the brink of death?” “Was I, though?” “Well, critical condition. Interestingly, not because of the bullet. You hit your head hard when you slammed into Irene. Basically, you are responsible for the worst of your own injuries. Way to show agency.” She holds up her hand. With a sigh, I high-five her.

“Also, did you know that next week is Misha’s birthday and my present for her is a bouncy castle? Also, Sparkles says hi.” I glance at Misery, who slowly shakes her head. He doesn’t, she mouths at me. He cannot talk.