Mate (Bride, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“Is this the way you talk to your beloved mate?” A single eyebrow lifts. “I said you were my mate. Not that I loved you.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen,” he says simply.

“You’re my closest friend’s husb—mate’s closest friend. And I’d love to get along with you. 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.”

“I meant what I said, killer. This mate thing is about fucking. The part of me that matters isn’t interested in you. Like me, or don’t,” he says kindly. “I really couldn’t care less.”

She expects little and is not easily offended. It makes pushing her away frustratingly hard.

“That the Alpha with responsibility over thousands of pack members would take on this super-risky endeavor, while the random unemployed hybrid watches at a safe distance. My life is totally worth more than yours,” I say sweetly. He pretends to ponder the matter. “You’re right. I should just off you myself and get it over with.” I bite back a smile

Look at her. Just—look at her.

Because every single thing I glanced at, grazed, examined, eyed, or even considered when we were at the grocery store, every single thing I decided to walk past, every single thing I told myself I didn’t need—every single thing has somehow made it here, inside Koen’s house.

Her laughter adjusts the spin of his atoms.

His teeth clench. There’s a flicker of something unreadable in his face. “If I come back and something has happened to you, Serena, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.” I bite the inside of my lips. “That sounds like a you problem.” “Yeah. That it is.”

He bends further, and there isn’t a single trace of doubt on his face. He’s an immovable object and an unstoppable force. And he says, slowly, “If you think I’m going to let you die, Serena, you know fuck all.”

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“Things—nothing has changed. You love the Northwest more than anything.” “Not more than anything, Serena.”

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