Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“You…We talked about this.” I sound shrill. “The pack is too important to you. And you are necessary to the pack.” “Things have changed.” “Things—nothing has changed. You love the Northwest more than anything.” “Not more than anything, Serena.”

Can I just say—I’ve had a lot of time to consider recent revelations, and I’m not at all surprised that you come from a long line of cult leaders. You’ve talked me into so much weird shit through the years, and I always wondered why I kept falling for it.”

want to step off a cliff. “Is that what you think?” she whispers. “That I’m too…too functioning for you? That I wouldn’t want to be with you because…” “It’s just…,” I start. But anything I can think of saying feels so profoundly myopic. “You have many people who love you now. You’re not alone anymore. And I want you to be able to enjoy it without having to worry about your loser hybrid unemployed maybe-terminal friend who now has weird mating cycles and is a liability for everyone because of the undiagnosed narcissism in her family tree.”

“I’m not. At my best. And I…I feel alone and insecure and lost all the time. I wonder whether people’s lives are worse because of me all the time. Having a Vampyre mate doesn’t buy Lowe any favors. And Ana? I have this fucking child who looks at me like I’m a role model. Serena, she’s so fucking small, basically held together with spit and duct tape, and one of these days she’s going to join a biker gang or ask me how children are made—” “You’re probably good for a while.” “—and I’m ruining her, because I forget that I’m not supposed to swear around her.

“I know!” She shoots up, too. “Can you believe that Juno won’t let me go suck their fucking pets dry in front of their fucking useless eyes?” “I can, actually. The pets did nothing wrong. But we could shank the classmates themselves—”

“Just like Koen or Amanda are never going to get it. They’ll get other things. They’ll get other moments—they’ll get their own exclusives. But they won’t get this.”

“What? No. We’ll still see each other all the time. I mean, look at Lowe and Koen. They are just as codependent as we are.”

“Should we cut each other’s toenails and talk about the knot thing?” I think about how little I want to do it. How overdue we are. “Are there clippers in the bathroom?” She stands and goes to look for some.

The closet would be a spectacular hiding place. I can picture myself calmly talking this through with Koen. I could live under your bed. Have you heard of the concept of “dirty little secret”? Let’s be real, it’s not as though I love hanging out with people lately.

Koen keeps expecting to see betrayal in the beast’s eyes, but he seems genuinely happy to have been domesticated and bedazzled. Koen can relate.

To him, it feels like an adventure. This. Them. Waking up every morning wondering if he’ll survive the intensity of his feelings for her. Seems unlikely, and yet. He always makes it to the night.

“Did you tell her what a mating bite is?” Amanda asks, as obnoxiously shrewd as always. “Or did you tell her that you specifically want to bite her to finally seal the mating ritual, and that restraining yourself is driving you banana pants?”

He refuses to become the kind of person who sends little heart emoji texts every ten minutes, but by God, can’t Serena shoulder the burden of being the needy one? Can’t she blow up his fucking phone?

Instead, he’ll beg her for another one. On the wrist, maybe, so that he can look at it every second of every day. On both wrists. Why not? How many mating scars is too many? Frankly, whoever said that less is more was—