Bride

He’s been picturing her during her baths. He’s been having filthy, unspeakable thoughts. He’s too tired to keep them at bay.

The following day, Lowe disappears to do Were things. I wake up in the late afternoon with only vague memories of having crawled into the built-in closet, and find a note tucked under the doors. It’s a piece of white paper, folded once and then again.

On a run, it says.

And, on a new line: Be good.

Followed by: L. J. Moreland.

I snort. For unclear reasons, I don’t toss it in the trash bin, but slip it in the external pocket of my suitcase.

I draw a bath and lower myself into the tepid water. Holding on to garbage is dumb, but I come by it honestly: it’s what Serena used to do with wrappers of rare import candy bars. A maniac-worthy move, in my humble opinion, the way she’d pin them to the wall. A surefire method to spot a future serial murderer, together with pyromania and torturing small animals. When I look at the wrappers, I remember the taste, she told me when we were thirteen and I tried to throw them away. It led to me rolling my eyes, which led to us not talking for two days, which led to me passive-aggressively littering our shared spaces with used blood bags, which led to flies, which led to an explosive showdown in which she couldn’t decide whether to call me a leech or a bitch and blurted out “Bleetch,” which led to us cracking up and remembering that we liked each other.

“Misery?” Lowe’s voice pulls me back. I’m staring vacantly at the stained windows, a faint smile on my lips. “Where are you?”

“Bathroom!”

“Are you dressed?”

I look down and shift the foam around strategically. “Yup.” The door opens a moment later.

Lowe and I regard each other from across the room—him blinking, me staring—with similarly dumbfounded expressions. He clears his throat, twice. Then remembers that looking away is an option. “You said you were dressed.”

“I’m wearing my modesty froth. You, on the other hand.”

He frowns. “I’m wearing jeans.”

Plus a healthy layer of sweat, and nothing else. The curtains are pulled, but sheer. The incoming light is warm, and tints Lowe’s skin a pretty gold—his wide shoulders, his broad, heavily muscled chest. He’s still glowing with the flush of being outside, in nature, and he looks healthy, even with more scars than anyone his age should have—narrow, thin stripes and knotty twists. So I like looking at my husband who’s a different species and fated to be someone else’s mate. Whatever. Take me to court. Impound my nonexistent assets.

“I’ll overlook your nudity if you overlook mine,” I offer.

Lowe’s hand comes up to rub his nape. “I took off my shirt before shifting and lost it. Lemme find a clean one.”

“I don’t care. Plus, you’re sweaty and gross.”

His eyebrow cocks. “Gross?”

I shrug, which maybe misplaces the foam. I’m not sure, nor am I going to check, as the answer could be mortifying. “So, you went frolicking in the mud with Emery?”

He snorts. “With Koen. He arrived early this morning.”

“That sounds fun.” He got to hang out for a couple of hours with someone he clearly loves and trusts. Let his guard down.

“It was.”

It must be why his eyes are dancing, at once boyish and animated. Why he seems younger than last night. Why, when he walks inside and sits by my feet, on the edge of the tub, he looks like he’s been smiling.

“You know,” I muse, relaxing into the water, “I think I want to see you.”

He looks down at his body. “You want to see me.”

“No, not naked.”

His head tilts in confusion.

“As a wolf.”

His “Ah” is soft and amused.

“Can you quickly shift? Right now? But keep your distance, please. Animals tend to hate me.”

“Nope.”

“Why?” I sit upright, covering my breasts with my arms. “Oh my God, does it hurt, shifting?”

“No.” He seems offended.

“Phew. How long does it take?”

“Depends.”

“How long does it take for you, on average?”

“A few seconds.”

“Is it another Alpha thing? And your motor proteins are suuuuper dominant?”

His glare tells me I’m on the right track. “Shifting is not a party trick, Misery.”

“Clearly it’s not a supersecret deal, either, because I’ve seen Cal as a—” I gasp. “I got it.”

“Got what?”

I smile. Fangs out. “You don’t want to show me because your wolfy coat is hot pink.”

“Not wolfy coat, just coat.”

I splash him with my foot. “Is it purple?”

He flinches and screws his eyes shut.

“Is it glittery?” I splash some more. “You have to tell me if it’s glittery—”

His fingers close around my ankle, vise tight. “You done?” He wipes his eyes with the back of his free hand, and it comes away wet.

My calf is pale against Lowe’s skin, slick with water and soap suds. When his grip slips, he turns his wrist to adjust it, and it transitions into something that’s more in the realm of a caress.

Okay.

So.

We’ve been touching a lot, since yesterday.

We are touching a lot.

“About tonight,” he starts. New topic, but his hand stays firmly in place. “I talked to Koen. He’ll buy us some time. Distract Emery.”

“How?”

“We’ll see. Koen’s a creative thinker.”

“Does he know what we’re planning?”

“Not yet.” He lowers my trapped foot under the water but doesn’t let go of my ankle, as though he doesn’t trust me to behave. Or as though he doesn’t want to. “He might suspect, but he knows better than to ask. Plausible deniability.”

“Wise. Hey, why is Koen here?”

“Emery is his mother’s sister.”

“His aunt?”

“Correct. She was originally in the Northwest pack, then moved when she met Roscoe. That’s why I was sent to him.”

“Wow. And he’s still going to help you?”

“He is no fan of Roscoe. Or his own family.”

So relatable. “After dinner, then.”

“You’re going to say you need to feed.”

“And you’ll come with me because you’re my worried and possessively protective Alpha husband, and I have terrible orientation skills. All we need to do is get to the office, plant the devices, and get out.” I bite into my lower lip. “I could also do it on my own.”

“I’m not sending you out there on your own.”

I think—I’m not positive, because of the water, and the foam, and the sheer improbability of it—but I think Lowe might be brushing his fingertips against the arch of my sole.

A tactile hallucination.

“You’re a Vampyre. If Emery’s guards find you, they’ll attack first, ask questions later.” He presses his lips together. “Stick close, okay?”

“I can fight,” I say. To give him an out. To avoid thinking about what’s going on underwater.

“I don’t care. I’m not taking the chance, not with you.”

I’m not sure whether to be flattered or indignant. So I opt for a flat “Okay.”

He nods and finally lets go of me. I watch the play of his shoulder blades as he walks away and savor the glow his skin left on mine for a long time after he’s gone.

Koen is an asshole, in the most delicious and entertaining of ways. He seems to have distinct preferences, strong opinions, and little interest in keeping either to himself.

“Let’s all thank Lowe for the opportunity to not have to tune out one of Roscoe’s deranged rants tonight,” he proclaims loudly while taking a seat at the dinner table. I nearly choke on my spit, but no one else appears concerned that a brawl might be on the verge of erupting, not even Emery.

I’m relieved that he doesn’t hate me. The opposite, actually: when we meet, he clasps my shoulder and pulls me in for a bear hug that has me wondering whether he’s aware that I’m a Vampyre, or that Lowe and I are not actually married. He must be around ten years older than us, somewhere between a big brother and a father figure for Lowe. But before dinner, when I watched them talk—two tall men wearing identical button-downs and exchanging hushed, comfortable words—the mutual affection and respect was obvious.

And yet, they’re as different as night and day. Lowe might be aloof at times, but there is something fundamentally kind about him, selfless and patient. Koen is brash. Cocksure. A little vicious. He’s indeed no fan of Emery’s, and willing to declare it as forcefully as possible.

Other guests are more relatives, and a few former seconds of Roscoe’s who decided to stay neutral during the change in leadership. Most seem to have realized that Lowe is their best bet, or maybe they’re simply beguiled by whatever his Alpha magic is, and act deferentially, but one of them—John—is wearing a necklace with a vial of something purple that looks a lot like Vampyre blood. Lowe stares at him for a long time when he notices, long enough that I’m certain a fight will break out, and I find myself reaching for one of the meat knives, just in case. After a beat, John lowers his eyes—a show of submissiveness if I’ve ever seen one—and the tension in the room seems to deflate.

When I next see him, the necklace is gone.

The topic of new alliances with the Vampyres and the Humans comes up at the table, and the only person to bring up objections is Emery. “I hear you and that new Human governor-elect have been . . . meeting,” she tells Lowe.

“Maddie Garcia, yes.”

“Do you really mean to establish an alliance with—”

“It’s done,” he says, eyes holding hers. “There are details to iron out, but the Weres and the Humans are going to be allies as soon as her term begins.”

Emery composes herself. “Of course. But is it not offensive to the memory of the Weres who fought and died in the wars against the other species?” she asks, with the tone of someone who’s merely asking an innocent question.

Amanda, a young woman who came with Koen and is sitting across from me, theatrically rolls her dark eyes. When she smiles at me, I smile back.

“That’s not my intention, but if it were, it still seems preferable to more of my pack dying.” Lowe stresses the word my, a not-so-subtle reminder.

“I understand the push for a ceasefire, I suppose.” Her eyes flicker to me. “Are you not worried about what this might mean for your pack, Koen? The Humans border your territory.”

“No.” Koen takes a bite of his steak. He and Lowe bickered like an old married couple over who’d get to eat mine, so I decided to give it to Amanda. Look, Serena, I’m making friends. “Not all of us live to stir up shit with other species, Emery.”

“Indeed. Some of you even have Vampyre spouses.” Her tone is chilly. Here I was, thinking she approved of our love.

“Some of us are lucky,” Lowe says, sincere-sounding, like our marriage is one of his proudest accomplishments, the culmination of years of deeply harbored love. Good actor. “Do you need to feed?” he asks, turning to me, voice instantly more intimate, and yep.

Great actor, great timing.

“Please.” I smile adoringly at my nurturing partner, pretending not to notice the gagging looks around us.

He holds my eyes and murmurs, “Let’s go, then.” We step out of the dining room just as Koen calls John a fuckwaffle.

“Does he like to make enemies? Start fights? Watch the world burn?”

“Koen’s big on . . .” Lowe searches for the right words. “Unfiltered honesty.”

No shit. “Who did he challenge? To become Alpha, I mean.”

“No one. His mother was Alpha before him. When she passed, Koen just ascended.”

“How delightfully monarchic. And the pack was just okay with it?”

“Not all of them.”

“And?”

His hand presses on my lower back, wordlessly asking me to take a right. “There were challengers.”

“And?”

“He’s been Alpha for well over a decade, has he not?”

“Mmm. True. Are he and Amanda doing it?”

“She’s his second.”

“Well, are they?”

A brief pause. “Traditionally, the Alpha of the Northwest pack takes a vow of celibacy.”

Oh, God. “Did you?”

Lowe shakes his head. “Feels like it, though,” he murmurs, just as we reach the office. I immediately unhook a pin from my nape and drop on my knees in front of the lock, letting my dress bunch up my thighs. A few seconds later I open the door with a butler-like flourish.

“What?” I whisper, noticing the upturned corner of Lowe’s mouth.

He slips in first, scans the room, then gestures me inside. “Just picturing you doing the same . . .” He closes the door behind him and turns on the light. I see a fireplace so large it could comfortably sleep a midsize family—and a suspicious amount of antlered wall decor. “To break into my room.”

“Ah. Right.” I flinch. “About that, I am sorry that . . .”

“You went through my underwear?”

“Yeah, that.”

He points at the computer on the desk with a small smile, and I dart there, giving the antlers a wide berth, glad to have something else to focus on. “I’ll hide your scent, but make sure you touch as little as possible,” he reminds me.

We don’t have much time, so I nod and hurry. Lowe already bugged several spots in the house, but what I’m doing will allow us to track and rifle through any communication from all of Emery’s devices. And since she doesn’t have an Alex, she’ll never realize.

“Need anything from me?” Lowe asks while I slip into the network, voice pitched low.

I nod between keystrokes. “Set up the Ubertooth and hand me the LAN Turtle.” I snort at his wide-eyed I-didn’t-know-the-essay-was-due-today-and-my-dog-ate-it-anyway expression. “I was kidding. Just keep guard.”

“Thank fuck.” His relief could jump-start a truck’s battery. “How long do you need?”

“Six minutes, tops. Too long?”

“No. I doubt they know how little time it takes you to feed.”

I beam up at him. “Why, thank you.”

“Was that a compliment?” His head tilts in confusion.

“Wasn’t it?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Weren’t you trying to say how low-maintenance I am?”

“No.”

“Bummer.” I bend my head and quickly type the code. “Well, I rescind my warm acceptance of your non-compliment.”

“If you think that’s what it was, you need better ones.”

“Better what?”

“Compliments.”

I look up once more. He’s staring, his eyes halfway between unreadable and indecipherable. “What do you mean?”

“You need to be told the right things.” He shrugs casually, but the movement feels the opposite of casual. “That you’re intelligent, and incredibly skilled at what you do, and brave. That despite your weird belief that you’re heartless, you’re more genuinely caring than anyone I’ve ever met. That you’re so resilient, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. That you’re very . . .” He pauses. Wets his lips. My heartbeat skips. “Very beautiful to look at. Always so beautiful. And that—”

He pauses abruptly, lifting his palm. His shoulders tense, shifting to acute vigilance.

“Someone is coming,” he whispers.

“Emery?” I mouth. I can’t make out any noises, but Were hearing is better than mine.

Lowe shakes his head, and two seconds later I hear them, too. Voices. Two voices. Two men, coming down the stairs.

“Emery’s guards,” he says, barely audible.

The possibility of being caught freezes me. Then the image of Ana pops into my head—the way Emery tried to take her, how terribly she might have hurt her, and fear, real fear drives through me like a spear. We can’t go back home empty-handed.

“Don’t,” I whisper when Lowe is about to turn off the computer. The steps sound terrifyingly closer. “It just needs a couple more minutes.”

“If they come in and find us—”

“They won’t.” I turn off the monitor. “And we’ll—”

I have an idea, but it’s easier shown than explained, so I grasp Lowe’s hand and tug him closer, walking backward until I hit one of the square columns on the sides of the fireplace. The cliché almost makes my teeth hurt, and if Emery’s guards are media literate even just at a third-grade level, they’re not going to fall for it. But it might buy us a couple of minutes, and that’s all that matters.

“Kiss me,” I order, pulling him farther into me. He needs to be inside my space, towering over me.

“What?” Lowe’s brow is one deep furrow.

“Let’s just pretend we got—we’re newly married and got, I don’t know, horny, and—” And ended up in a random office. Maybe we’re kinky. Maybe we’re idiots. Maybe we’re pathetic.

Shit, the guards are never gonna fall for it. And they’re coming.

“They think you’re feeding,” Lowe hisses from above me. If I could devote any brain cells to not panicking, I would roll my eyes.

“I know, but since we’re here, and they are basically here—”

“Feed. From me.” He looks dead serious.

“What?”

“Pretend that’s what we came here for.”

“No! It’s—”

Actually, a pretty good idea. A really good idea, even. Still doesn’t explain why we’re in here. We could say we got lost and it was the first unlocked door we found.

“Okay.” I nod. The steps are getting closer. “Tilt your neck, I’ll pretend I’m drinking from your vein.”

“Misery.” His eyes drill into mine. “You have to bite me.”

“Why?”

“They’re Weres. They’re going to be able to smell it if you’re not really drinking.”

“What? What? I’ve never—”

“Misery,” Lowe orders, or maybe it’s a plea, or maybe my name is just a word he likes to say, a word he likes to think of.

A second later, my fangs sink into the vein at the base of his neck.

Two seconds later, the door to the office opens.