Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

She tore him apart and remade him. It took her less than a second.

“Can you, though?” A male voice interrupts him. It travels in our direction from some place in the thicket of trees. A rich, slow curl, at once vicious and detached. No answer exists that could faze this voice. “Can you really, buddy?”

No. He wouldn’t. He would never. “Koen?” I say. Half question, half plea. “In my defense, Serena…” Koen lifts his shoulders. “It’s always fucking something with you.”

“How’s your night been?” “Uneventful,” I rasp out. “Yeah? You look like shit.”

“What Misery is to Lowe, you are to me.” Oh. Oh? Oh. “Is this a, um…terminal diagnosis?” His lips twitch. “No cure, I’m afraid.” “I see.” I clear my throat. “Well, this relationship sure escalated quickly.”

“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.” “Okay, maybe less fear and more…awe. Warrior-like.” His once-over is skeptical. “You’re what? Five feet?” “I’m two and a half inches over that. And for your information, the other day these stubby little legs butchered several Vampyres.” “Look at you go, killer.”

“I hope I don’t sound conceited, but…how is it different from the reaction of most Human men I’ve met?” I cringe the instant the words are out. “God. I do sound conceited. I’m sorry. I promise I don’t walk around thinking that my face launches a thousand erections—”

“What I meant is, you’re clearly a catch. But I know very little about you. I have no clue about your age, your last name, your favorite color…” I study him. “It’s probably black. It’s black, isn’t it?” “I’m actually partial to red.” “Like Human blood?” He does not deny it.

So maybe we could be, you know, friends.” “What about polite acquaintances?” he counters. I cannot tell whether he’s serious, so I nod. “Deal. And you may quietly pine after me, if you must.”

“Serena, you’re a half-Human Were who admits to being a serial liar, doesn’t know how electricity works, and is undoubtedly swimming in complex PTSD. Believe me, a toddler can say it.”

“Not to kill your buzz, but I doubt you get to claim a Mass Murderer commemorative coin if it was in self-defense.”

“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.”

An out-of-body experience, that’s what this is. My soul is up on the ceiling, dangling monkey-bar-style from a truss, staring down at my unresponsive body as it learns that it might not be able to have children. For the first time. In front of dozens of people.

Pete, an engineer I went on three dates with, sold his story to a tabloid. I always suspected there was something wrong about her. She didn’t seem to enjoy what most women do. His dick, he meant. I can’t believe I’m getting internationally dragged for refusing to screw a guy who told me that I looked just like his mother.

I’d say he didn’t get the memo, but knowing Koen, he sent it back with I do whatever the fuck I want scribbled all over it. In blood, most likely.

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.”

I decide to ignore the question, and ask, “Do you know what a man bun is?” “A what?” “Hmm. Must not have made it to the Weres. I was just wondering whether the lumbersexual vibes were on purpose?”

“Shut up. Acknowledge me as your Alpha!” “Love, we’ve been over this,” Lowe murmurs, patting her knee. “It’s not how it works.” “And bring me gifts of gold, frankincense, and peanut butter!” “Misery, I’ve seen you flick boogers at passersby.” “I was a child.” “You were seventeen.”

Why were you keeping it a secret?” “I don’t know. I…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. When did it start?”

But Koen is not a Human orphan, let alone one whose claim to fame is being useless in therapy because of an overgrown case of infantile amnesia.

“What is your preferred morning upper?” Amanda asks with a wide smile when I find the kitchen after some wandering. “Coffee? Tea? Methamphetamine?” I lift my eyebrows. “Is that a common breakfast option in Were B and Bs?” “I could synthesize some real quick.”

She and Lowe would frequently disappear to do newlywed things that, in my humble experience, should have taken no longer than fifteen minutes.

Nice, though, and the flowchart I use to decide whether to consider someone a friend is made up of a single question: Have they tried to kill me or Misery? No? Fantastic. Let’s have a spa day. Go zip-lining. Overshare about recurring UTIs.

I frown. “Pretty sure being Alpha of this pack doesn’t give you a pass to eavesdrop on people.” “Pretty sure being Alpha of this pack gives me a pass to run people through the paper shredder and make dinosaur-shaped nuggies out of what’s left.”

“I might be part of your pack.” He stares, unreadable, until I continue. “We could be related. I could be your cousin.” He scoffs, unimpressed. “You’re not.” “How do you know?” “I have a cousin. Looking at her does not feel like looking at you.”

“It’s important to me,” I continue weakly. “What? You don’t believe that a family can be a girl and her pink stuffed penguin?” “I emphatically do not.” “You’re so bigoted.”

Koen’s decor style of choice seems to be I was going to hang a picture or two but got distracted, my bad.

Her laughter adjusts the spin of his atoms.

Two men walk inside like they were just handed the deed to the place. They’re both tall, both well muscled, and both completely naked. “Oh, Serena. What’s up?” the first says. The second just grins, waves at me, and bends over to stretch his hamstrings, giving me a thorough view of his butthole. “I slept wrong last night,” he moans. “Everything hurts.”

I’m even getting used to your junk just…dangling there.” Colin cocks his head. “Is it not supposed to?” “Maybe Human genitals are usually retracted?” Pavel suggests. “Ah, yes. In those cloacal openings.” Colin nods knowingly. “Like koalas and alligators.” “Precisely. Now that I think about it, I remember reading somewhere that Humans shit and piss from the same ho—”

“Did you cook for my seconds?” Koen sounds less than enthused. “Yeah. Isn’t that why you brought me here? To keep your home?” His face has me snorting out a laugh.

But more people are trickling in, and he’s too busy telling them that “Serena doesn’t want to see your sad, wrinkly scrotum, and neither do I, so stop being a turd and put on some goddamn clothes” to spend time in the kitchen. “It’s a Human thing,” Colin explains to every newcomer. “They have cloacas.”

The woman and the twin toddlers? Pavel’s family.” “Disappointing.” “Why?” “Was hoping the babies would be involved in pack leadership.” Jorma looks at me like the concept of humor slashed his tires and shat in his rose bed,

“You want her, but you are not worthy of her.” “Man, you don’t know me. I think I bring a lot to the table.” “Like several moldy unicorn waffles,” I mutter. In response, Koen playfully drums his fingertips over my stomach.

Because it’s obvious that Koen tasked them with making sure that I’m not left alone. Still, I act like I don’t notice the way they sit next to me, on the second-highest porch step. In ten-minute shifts.

Then, just a few feet from me, he turns around. “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.”

“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.”

Funnily enough, when I thought I was a Human orphan, the idea of having a child was magic: someone who might share my DNA. Someone to take care of. I used to picture it like a do-over of sorts: my child would not be traumatized into forgetting the first six years of its life.

“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?

Dear Koen: Roses are red Violets are blue I’m about to undergo a period of enhanced sexual receptivity in which I will require the assistance of a compatible partner Could that perhaps be you?

“Serena. If you’re not going to let me bullshit an answer, just stop asking questions.”

“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.”

He is so handsome, I have to close my eyes against it. And I like him so much, I’m going to have to close my heart, too. But not yet.

It was hard to imagine that you could find a person, and they’d instantly become everything. That they’d take up all the space inside you and leave no room for doubt. Of course, now…” He shrugs.

Irene chuckles. “Your father would have enjoyed you. This humor of yours, you get it from our side of the family.” “Actually, I get it from the need to proactively cope with a staggering amount of unprocessed trauma. Back to Fiona, please.”

Our mouths are touching. I feel as though we’re made of the same stuff. Me and him, set apart from the remaining matter of the universe.

He groans against my right asscheek. Then bites into it like it’s a piece of fruit. “Koen!” “Sorry,” he says. Before doing it again. “Koen!” “I said sorry.”

“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?”

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.”

Surely, it’s unfair. Surely, a love this deep should be reserved for the universe as a whole. But what if, to me, he’s the linchpin? What if he’s the stitch that keeps it all together?