Bride

His heat is scorching. The scratch of his cheek against the crook of my neck, deliciously coarse.

I hear him breathe in again, this time without restraint. “My feelings. My wishes. My desires . . . They’re mine, Misery. Not yours to deal with.”

I try to twist in his grip, furious. “Of course they are. What the hell does that even mean—”

“It means that I don’t want you to make decisions based on my needs. I don’t want you to be with me because you have to, because you’re worried that otherwise I’ll be miserable.” I wish I could see his eyes. His voice is at once thick and rough and low, as if someone stuffed as much emotion in it as possible and then tried to erase it. “At the wedding, when you were near me for the first time, I was angry. I was furious that for some joke of fate I had found my mate, and they were someone I could never really love. I wanted you more than anything else, and yet I felt trapped by you. And then I began spending time with you. I began knowing you, and you made me happy. You made me better. You made me want to be every part of myself, even the ones I thought I’d left behind. And one day I woke up and realized that if you didn’t smell like the best thing in the world, I still wouldn’t want you any less.”

“Lowe—”

“But I can survive without you, Misery. All I need to do is . . .” He exhales a warm, soundless laugh. “Be without you. All I need to do is bear it. And it won’t be good. But I think it would still be better than watching you become unhappy. Than letting my love for you bind you to me when you would rather—”

“What about my love for you?” I turn around in his arms, and this time he lets me. “Can that bind me to you? Do I have your permission to reciprocate what you feel?”

His lips part.

“No. No. You don’t get to be surprised about what I feel for you. Not when I’ve been nothing but honest about it, and you know what?” My hands are starting to shake, and I fist them against his chest. “No. If I want to be in love with my stupid Were husband, I’m going to be in love with my stupid Were husband, whether he wants to admit that he loves me back or not. And there’s more—I’m going to be living here, so you can unpack those boxes right now. I’m going to be in Ana’s life, because she likes me and I somehow like her, okay? And I’m going to stick around Were territory, because my best friend is one of you, and for once in my life people have actually been pretty fucking nice to me, and I like living on a lake, and I wouldn’t mind being the bloodsucking weirdo of this pack, and—” I could sputter my way through more threats, but he interrupts me.

“The windows. I’m changing them.”

“How does that even—”

“I saw the ones you have at the Nest. Owen explained how they work. I wasn’t moving you out, I just didn’t want your stuff to get damaged.”

“Oh.” It doesn’t compute. “That’s very, ah . . . thoughtful. And expensive?”

He doesn’t seem to care. Instead his forehead comes down against mine, and his hand engulfs my cheek. His voice is a broken whisper. “I’m afraid, Misery. I’m terrified.”

“Of what?”

“That there is no world, no scenario, no reality in which I’ll gracefully allow you to leave me. That if I don’t let you go now, five years, five months, five days down the line, I won’t be able to. Every second, I want you too much, and every second, I’m on the verge of wanting you more. Every second is my last chance to do the decent thing. To let you live your life without taking up all of it—”

I tip my chin up to press my mouth to his. We’ve exchanged many kisses, and this is probably the most restrained of all of them. But there is something desperate and frantic about the way his lips cling to mine, something utterly lost.

I pull back. Smile. Say, “Shut up, Lowe.”

He laughs, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Not the appropriate way to speak to the Alpha of the pack you claim to want to join.”

“Right. Shut up, Alpha.” I kiss him again, lingering this time. He holds me tight, bruising, like I’ll bolt the second he stops. “You’ve seen me with Serena,” I murmur against his lips. “I’m not the type to change my mind.”

“No. You’re not.”

“I get it, feeling pi

He shakes his head, eyes burning into mine. “You’re not a problem, Misery. You’re a privilege.”

My heart slows to a thud just as Lowe’s picks up, three beats of his for every one of mine. Our bodies, screaming how different we are at the most basic, fundamental level.

I don’t care, though. He doesn’t, either. “We’ll try, then. Isn’t that what any relationship is, in the end? Meeting someone and wanting to be with that person more than with anyone else, and trying to make it work. And I . . . maybe I don’t have the hardware, but the software is here, and I get to program it. Maybe you’re not meant for me the way I’m meant for you, but I’m going to choose you anyway, over and over and over again. I don’t need a special genetic permit to feel sure that you are my—”

I don’t get to finish the sentence. Because he’s kissing me ravenously, like he’s never going to stop, and I’m kissing him back in the same way. The intensity, this time, is spiked with relief.

“You’re here,” he says against my neck, pushing me backward. It’s not a question, and not for me. His strong hands cup the back of my head and won’t let me nod. “You’re staying.” I feel the matter settle inside him, the certainty of us.

A different part of Lowe takes over, and he pushes me back into the wall.

“Mate. My mate,” he groans, like he hasn’t allowed himself to think of the word in relation to himself before this moment. When he picks me up and carries me to the bed, the air rushes out of me. “My mate,” he says again, voice deeper than usual, so rough that I tie my arms around his neck and pull him down, hoping it’ll soothe the urgency in him, the frantic trembling in his hands. His breath is staggered in my hair, so I push against his broad shoulders until he flips us around. Then I’m the one setting the pace, with languid, savoring kisses, and that vibrant tension inside him slowly melts.

I inhale the scent of his blood, heady and potent. “I love this,” I say. “I love you.”

He sucks in an incredulous breath. Warmth crawls into my stomach, up my backbone. I pull off my shirt, and he follows me eagerly with his hands and his mouth. He nips at my collarbone, sucks at my nipples, nibbles at my breasts. With every touch I feel like we’re slowly being welded together—until he stops.

His long fingers flex around my hips, impossibly tight, then go limp.

When he pulls back to look at me, his lips are dark red, eyes stark and clear.

“We might need to stop.”

I laugh, already out of breath. “Is this another bout of Alpha Were guilt?”

“Misery.” He stops. Licks his lips. “I’m really wound up. We’ve been apart, and you smell so damn good, and you said some . . . intoxicating things, like that you’re here to stay, and I’m closer to the edge than—”

I laugh against the edge of his jaw. “Okay. Before you devolve into more self-loathing, let me just say, I’m going to drink your blood again. Okay, Lowe?”

He hisses a low “Fuck,” and nods eagerly.

“And we’re going to have sex.”

His hips press against mine. Our breaths hitch. “Okay. Okay,” he repeats, suddenly determined. Gathering his self-control. “I can stop. I’m going to stop when—”

“You’re not going to stop.” I kiss his cheek, tighten my arms around his neck, and then whisper in his ear. “When your . . . knot happens, you’re going to . . .” Tie? Hitch? Bind? I will need a better vocabulary. “Do that inside me.”