Bride

It could have been anyone who was sent to him. Any Vampyre. And yet, it was her.

A roll of the dice.

The luck of the draw.

I don’t see Lowe for the following three days.

Or: I do see Lowe. Several times. Constantly, even. But it’s never Lowe, the guy who hung out with me on the roof and drew me baths and once pulled back my hair to stare at the tips of my ears and then mouthed pretty to himself. It’s always Lowe the Alpha. Discussing urgent matters. Shuttling between Were and Vampyre territory with Cal and another gaggle of seconds in tow. Conferring with Owen and Maddie Garcia in closed-door meetings I don’t care to be part of, but find myself wishing I were.

Serena and I are attached at the hip, surgically, like we’re twelve again and figuring out trigonometry together. We go on long, comfortably silent walks at dusk. We make jokes about the fact that she can grow fur on her elbow at will. We hang out in my room, Serena reading up on everything that’s happened while she was cut off from the world, me blinking sleepily at the black dots on the ceiling, trying to figure out whether they’re tiny bugs or specks of dirt.

Somehow, I’m always wrong.

“We have good genetic testing registries,” Juno tells us when she comes over to chat with Serena. “We can work on figuring out who your Were parent was. At the very least, what pack and huddle they came from.”

Serena looks at me, searching, and my first instinct is to encourage her. Then I see her throat jerking fitfully, once and then again. “Maybe you should take some time to think it through,” I say, and she nods in relief, like she needed my permission to even consider it.

It’s not like her, the indecision. Then again, Serena is not like her anymore. Serena was held alone in a windowless attic for months, and that’s after she started getting an inkling that maybe she was another species. Serena falls asleep at odd hours and then tosses and turns, and I’ve caught her weeping more times in the past week than in the previous decade of our acquaintance. Serena seems . . . not diminished, but distracted. Insubstantial. Transitioning.

Later that evening, while she absentmindedly braids her hair and stares out the window, she murmurs, “I wonder whether it’d be okay to spend some time with the Weres. Just to see how they are.” It occurs to me that Juno is the first of Serena’s people who hasn’t abducted her, imprisoned her, or abandoned her.

“I need to ask Lowe something,” I tell Owen the following day, when I catch him between council meetings. He’s staring at the touch screen in Father’s office with a deep frown. The bloodstains haven’t been taken care of—or maybe they have, and the near black marks are permanent mementos. “Where is he?”

“In his home, I assume.”

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know.” He looks stressed, like he’s been running a hand through his hair. Power does not become him—not yet, at least. “The negotiations are over for now, so not for a while.”

“Oh.” My eyes widen, and Owen finally looks up.

“What?”

“Nothing. I guess I thought I’d go back with him? Since I live there.”

“Do you want to?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t have to live there if you don’t want to.”

“What about the alliance?”

He shrugs. “Next week the council will take a formal vote on the parameters of our alliance with the Weres. In the meantime, Lowe and I see eye to eye, and neither of us is going to ask you or Gabi to serve as Collateral any longer.”

“I doubt the council will approve of—”

“The council has enabled Father to do a bunch of very illegal things, which they are now scrambling to pretend they knew nothing about, and even if they weren’t intent on covering their asses, I’m bringing them a conditional alliance with the Weres and the Humans. So yes, they’ll approve whatever I tell them to.” Okay, maybe I was wrong. Power does become him. “Gabi’s already back in Were territory. You’re free to live wherever you like, so let me ask you again: Do you want to live with Lowe?”

It’s such a baring, direct question, I can only deflect with another. “Has he said anything?”

“Like what?”

“Like, does he want me to—does he expect me to . . . Has he said anything?”

He gives me a merciless look. “I am not an agony aunt.”

I tilt my head. “You look like it, though.”

“Get the fuck out of my office.”

I step out to avoid the paperweight he’s eyeing. Then I realize I never got what I came for. I make an executive decision: retrace my steps, steal Owen’s car keys, and a few minutes later Serena and I are on the road, crossing the bridge as a pallid sun sets behind the oaks. I don’t have any diplomatic paperwork on me, but when I declare my name the Were at the checkpoint puts me through the face scanner and lets me through.

I drop Serena off at Juno’s and smile as I watch them prance into the woods in wolf form, the wind weaving ripples through their soft fur. Were company is what Serena needs right now, and I’m happy to facilitate that. Also, I’m staggeringly relieved that she’s asking for help and not shutting me out.

“Text me when you’re done chasing moles, or smelling each other’s buttholes, or whatever,” I yell after them. “I’m going to Lowe’s!”

His home is unlocked, as usual, but uncharacteristically empty. I toe off my shoes and pad up the wooden stairs, wondering if blood bags are still being automatically delivered for me. When I’ll get to see Ana again. Whether Serena and Sparkles/Sylvester will ever be reunited.

My stomach drops as I enter my room. The place looks uninhabited, more than when I first moved in. My knickknacks, books, movies, and even some clothes have been put back inside boxes.

I’m not welcome here anymore. I am being evicted.

There’s probably a reason. Lowe wouldn’t just kick you out.

But I can’t twist myself into not caring. There is a shrinking pull in my heart, and if I’m not being thrown out, I’m still being inched away. I have served my purpose, and—

“Misery?”

I turn around and my heart flips.

Lowe. Staring at me in the warm glow of the ceiling lights. Not smiling per se, but radiating happiness at seeing me. He’s wearing a leather jacket and his hands are at his sides, a bit stiff. Like he’s consciously keeping them there. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I smile. He smiles back. Then we’re silent for long enough for me to remember our last conversation alone.

Too long.

“I wasn’t sure if I could . . . I hope I’m not trespassing.”

“Trespassing?” His delight at seeing me fades into confusion, which morphs into a stern sort of understanding. “You live here.”

I don’t ask, Do I? because that would sound insecure and whiny and maybe a little passive-aggressive, and I just remembered that I’m none of these things. Not with Lowe, at least.

“I dropped Serena off, and I think it would be great if she and Ana were able to meet. It could do Serena some good, and vice versa. I doubt they’re the only two half Weres out there, but . . .”

“As far as we know.”

I nod. “Would that be okay?”

He scratches his jaw. His beard is the longest it’s ever been since I met him. What have the last few days been like for him? “I’m planning to tell Ana about her parents once Koen brings her back. I was going to save that conversation for later, but there are simply too many people who know, and I don’t want her to find out from someone else. After that, I’d love for her to meet Serena. And of course, Serena is always welcome among us. She is part of our pack, if she wants to be. I tasked Juno with checking in with her while I was gone, but I’ll arrange a meeting to explain everything now that I’m back.”

“Back?”

“We were dealing with Emery.”

My eyes widen. “Yikes?”

He lets out a soft chuckle and leans a shoulder against the door. “Indeed.”

“We kinda suspected the wrong Were, didn’t we?”

“When it came to Ana. We finally have enough evidence to hold Emery accountable for the activities of the Loyals, including an explosion at a school that happened three months ago. I went to inform her that there will be a tribunal. But when it comes to my sister . . .” His expression darkens. “It’s not her fault if I chose to believe Mick.”

“Did you find his son?”

“Yes. They’re together, heavily guarded. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do.” He presses his lips together.

“I’m really sorry, Lowe,” I say heavily. “I know how much you trusted him.”

“Any other Were, I’d have realized that they were lying to me. But Mick . . . his scent had changed drastically. It was sour and bitter and overpowering, but I figured it was grief. That losing one’s mate and son would do that to someone.”

I take a step closer, wanting to comfort him, not quite sure how. Eventually I just repeat an utterly inadequate “I’m sorry.” I try to continue, to unspool that ball of words that weighs on my stomach so densely, but the sound dies on my lips. I’m stunted, incapable of being coherent.

“It’s not like you,” he says with a slim smile.

“What isn’t?”

“Not saying exactly what you think.”

“Right. Yeah.” A gust of irritation sweeps over me. I bounce my foot to stave it off. “It was easier, being honest with you, when I thought you were being honest with me.”

He frowns. “You can speak honestly with me, Misery. Always.”

I let out an impatient breath, then march to him, ready to attack. I only stop when I’m so close, he has to bend his neck to look me in the eye. “Why would I, though? So you can use my deepest wounds and what you know about my past to hurt me when you decide that you should push me away?”

He looks crestfallen at the memory of the things he told me, as though they hurt him as much as me. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“You lied,” I accuse. “You said all of that—and it was all a lie.”

He doesn’t deny it, which makes me angrier. Instead he inhales, deep and slow until his lungs are full.

“Why?” I prod. When no answers come, I lift my hand to his face. “I could force you to tell me the truth.” The flat of my thumb presses between his brows. “I could thrall you.”

His smile looks sad. “You already have, Misery.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Then open them to ask, “Am I your mate?”

“I meant what I said,” he says calmly. “You should not use Were words you cannot comprehend.”

“Right.” I spin on my heels angrily and stalk away. Fuck this. If he didn’t want me to use Were words, then he shouldn’t have given them to me.

“Misery.” Lowe’s hand closes against my wrist, stopping me in my tracks. When I try to wriggle out, his arm wraps around my waist to haul me back into him.

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 pinned down by the mate thing.” I take a hurried step back, suddenly wondering whether this conversation requires physical distance. “It has to be hard, to feel like you couldn’t walk away even if you wanted to. Like someone is going to be your problem forever—”

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.”

Lowe squeezes me to his chest. “If I hurt you—”

“Then you’ll hurt me a bit. Like I hurt you when I feed from you, since I’m ripping your skin. And then after a few minutes it gets really good for me, and I think it does for you, too.”

His only answer is a deep grunt. It seems involuntary, and I kiss his lower lip to avoid laughing.

“It’s going to be okay. If it’s not, we’ll talk about it. We are different species, but this is long-term, and we should be honest about our wants and needs, and it’s clear that you want this, and probably even need it—”

He closes his eyes. Like he really does need it.

But most importantly: “And the thing is, I want you to. It’s different, I won’t deny that, and maybe it won’t work great, but the idea of it is kind of . . .”

“Weird?”

“Actually, I was going to say . . .” My mouth is dry. “Hot.”

I see his pupils widen, and then it’s a done deal. Lowe’s self-control snaps, and I’m underneath him. My clothes come off with frenzied tugs, then his follow, and I remember the first time we did anything that approached this. His restrained hesitation in the bathtub. I can barely recognize it in the way he touches me, the way his hand shapes my lower back to arch my body into his like an offering.

We both mean to ease into this, but he’s harder than I thought and I’m wetter than he expected. It takes very little, just a few thrusts through my folds, but we’re on the brink. The blunt head of his cock is bumping against my clit, and when he pulls back, it’s caught against my entrance, ready to slide in.

“You’re so warm inside. So wet, just for my knot.” He presses a kiss at my temple and whispers something that could be soft. Then he pushes deep inside me. He’s big in a stretching, satisfying way that rings faint alarm bells in my head. I squirm, feeling pinned, impaled, and it’s the readjustment we both need.

He slides in to the hilt.

I arch up, slapping my palms against the mattress.

Our hearts stop at the same time, and then resume. Mine with lagging thuds. His, a beating drum.

“Misery. I want to live inside you.”

He gathers me in his arms. I lift my chin to kiss the corner of his mouth, and we don’t ease into the sex. Lowe pulls all the way out and then thrusts back inside in an uneven, pounding rhythm, without pacing himself. Last time, he tried to make it last. This time he’s hurtling headfirst into what’s coming, and my body might not understand, but it responds enthusiastically. His gaze holds mine as he fucks me, the pressure of his hips spreads me open, and when my eyes flutter closed I surrender to the pleasure. He pants into my ear, things like good and okay, garbled talk that doesn’t make sense, because he’s well beyond thought. My internal muscles tighten to keep him inside longer, squeezing around his cock, and that liquid heat I’m now familiar with climbs within me.

And then something changes. Lowe pumps once, twice, so hard that my hands slip over his sweaty shoulders. The crescendo of heavy breathing stops abruptly, and my eyes open.

I expect to find him worried again, to have to reassure him, but his control has unraveled past that. He commands, “Eyes on mine,” and there is no uncertainty in his voice, just the knowledge that this is how it’s supposed to be. I cannot speak, so I nod. He nods back and rasps, “It’s starting.”

A moment later I feel an impression of immense pressure. He fills me slowly, thrusting languidly once, twice, until the swelling at the base of his cock is too big to slide back out. Then he’s shaking, grunting from deep inside him. I run my teeth down his neck, and he moans, cradling my face to his throat and my hips to his groin. The bulge of his knot grows larger and larger.

I feel strange. Full. Nice. I might even feel . . .

“I’m going to do it, Misery. I’m going to come where I’m supposed to.” His voice is barely comprehensible. “I’m going to pop a knot in your tight little—” A sudden shift, and the pressure increases. Lowe is coming, his orgasm a powerful thing that neither of us is ready for. He tries to get deeper, even when there’s nowhere to go, even past the moment where I think his pleasure should have ended. I make myself pliant and welcoming, until he seems to recover enough presence of mind to say, “My beautiful mate. Taking it so well.” Another wave of pleasure crashes over him as he spurts inside me, and his neck strains back, eyes glazed.

I circle my hips, testing, tugging, and find that he’s lodged into me, and we’re tethered together, and yes, it feels . . .

“Good,” I say. Just on the edge of pain. But also, I’m a being made of heat and sensation. My muscles twitch, and he exhales, still shuddering inside me. The spasms of his climax contracting his big body. “This is so good. I just . . .”

It feels so nice, I need more contact. More friction. I need him to move even if he can’t. I try to fuck myself over his knot, but there is no give. I try to squeeze around him, and Lowe lets out a breathless laugh. He seems to recover himself from the daze of his orgasm, just enough to shush me and reach between us.

It takes so little, just a brush of his thumb, and then I’m coming, too. My eyes roll in the back of my head, and I’ve never felt anything so violently, madly, painfully good—

“Lowe.” I’m scared of how intense it is. But he lets out a wordless groan, bites my collarbone, and I know he feels exactly like I do, the pleasure brutal, pulsating, impossible to stop.

“My beautiful mate, coming all over my knot. We’re going to do this every day,” he husks in my ear. “And when you’re ready, I’ll bite you where it counts. I’ll leave a scar, and I’ll lick it every morning and every night. Okay?”

I nod. Wild, bottomless ecstasy pulses sweetly inside me. It works, I think. We work. But I don’t bother saying it, because it’s obvious. Instead I ask, “What—what now?”

He shudders and flips us until I’m draped on top of him. His hands shake slightly as he traces the swell of my back. His nails feel . . . no. I must be imagining. “Now . . .” He closes his eyes and arches his hips, as if trying to get deeper inside me. I’m not certain it works, but the knot drags beautifully against my walls. It rides an exquisite line between pleasure and pain, and triggers more spasms on my end. Then on his. “Fuck,” he mutters briefly. And once he can speak again, he growls, “Now, everything is how it should be. I have you where I want you.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.” He kisses my temple. “A long time, I hope.”

“So, if I really needed to leave to make an important phone call . . .”

His grip tightens on my hips so suddenly, I nearly laugh. Lowe moves down to my lips, kissing me deeply for a moment. “Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”

“No. It’s . . .” Extraordinary. Fantastic. Oddly beautiful. “I think I like Were sex.”

“Not Were sex.” His eyes hold mine for a long beat. “Mate sex.”

I feel myself smile at the word. “Is this going to happen every time?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats, hand coming up to push my sweaty strands back. “The way I feel, I can’t imagine that it won’t.”

“Because we—” I stop when I notice his hand. Most of it is still in Human form, but his nails are halfway to turning into claws.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish. I watch him make a concerted effort to retract them, amazed by his body. The way it feels inside mine. The things it can do. “I’m not as in control as I should be. It’s all really . . .”

“New?”

“Good. Like nothing else, ever.”

“Is there something Weres usually do? Something I should be doing?”

He laughs in silent astonishment and shakes his head. “If there were, I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t want it. You are perfect, and I . . .” His fingers slide between us, past the sweat of our bellies, making me twitch with more pleasure. My muscles flutter around him, and in response, I feel more liquid flood inside me. And when the new wave of pleasure is over, and I’m gasping on top of him, I realize that Lowe is touching me where we’re joined. Where his cock has locked inside me. Like he needs tactile proof that this is really happening.

When he turns us on our sides, one of my long legs hiked on top of his, I can feel his come drip outside of me even past the seal of our bodies. The mess we’re making, of the bed and of each other. Somehow, it seems like a good thing.

Outside, the waves crash against the lakeshore. Lowe’s fingers wrap around my cheek. I feel the pleasure rise inside me once more, and I settle in for the long haul.

It’s still the middle of the night when I wake up. I’m lying face down on the bed, my cheek buried in a pillow, feeling limp and wrung out, as though a lifetime’s worth of sensation has been crammed into and then squeezed out of my body.

It’s surprisingly lovely.

Lowe is next to me, propped on one elbow, touching me all over in a way that seems half distracted, half compulsive. Traveling the dip that joins my shoulder blades. Following the round contours of my ass. Combing his fingers through my hair and tracing the tip of my ear. Cupping right between my legs, uncaring, or maybe excited by the slick mess he left there, eager to push his spend back inside me.

I let my eyelids flutter open and observe him observing every curve and angle and slope of my body, entranced by the entranced look in his eyes. He is focused, lost in the simple touch, and several minutes pass before he glances up at my face and finds me awake. His smile is at once reserved and hesitant and proud and luminous.

I want him—I want this with him—so much, so forcefully, it’s equal parts terrifying and soaring.

“Hi.”

I smile back. With fangs. “How long did it take for it to . . . ?”

“About thirty minutes.” He leans over to trail open-mouthed kisses across the line of my shoulder. His hand curves around my ass as he murmurs into my ear, “You did so good, Misery. It can’t have been easy, but you took me so well. Like you were made for it.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks. I shift, savoring the rich soreness within my body. “Considering how busy you are with Ana and your pack, we might have to schedule sex.”

It’s meant as a joke, but he nods solemnly. “Pencil me into your calendar.”

“What about early Sunday mornings? Before ten a.m. though, or I’m going to crash on you.”

“Fuck that. Save two hours, every day.”

I laugh and stare at the green flush that lingers on his sharp cheekbones, marveling. Mine, I think, happy, covetous, greedy. It’s a new feeling, belonging. Owning.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks softly, and I laugh once more.

“Do I look like I hurt?”

He hesitates. “It lasted a long time, and it worked . . . maybe it worked a little too well for me. I nearly blacked out for a while there, and I doubt I was at my most observant.”

“No, I do not hurt, Lowe.” I hold his eyes and ask evenly, “What about you?”

His look is withering, and I feel like laughing again. He and I. Together. The greatest thing of all time that never should have happened.

“Serena might come looking for me,” I say. “I don’t want her recently traumatized self to stumble upon an interspecies sex moment and get even more traumatized, so—”

“She’s half Were and half Human,” Lowe says. I watch him curiously until he continues to make his point. “Unless a whole lot of hybrids pop out of the woodwork, she’s only ever going to have interspecies relationships.”

“Oh.” I try to think through the implications of it, but I have to give up. My brain is mushy, mellow with remainders of pleasure, and a loud sort of quiet, and the scent of Lowe’s blood. “Either way, I should shower.”

“No,” he commands brusquely, in his Alpha voice. His muscles coil, like he’s getting ready for a fight. Then he must realize the ridiculousness of his reaction, because he scrunches his eyes shut, throat working.

I tilt my head. “You used to be okay with me taking baths.”

“It’s different. There is a lot going on.” He points at his head, but then looks down at his body. A lot going on inside me, he means. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to let you out of my sight for a couple of days. Or weeks.” He sounds unapologetic and remorseful—a combination I did not think was possible. “And right now, you smell like me. Like you wouldn’t believe it, Misery. You smell like me from the inside, and every damn cell is screaming at me that making you that way is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, maybe the only good thing, and I can’t let you—”

“Lowe.” I shift up to my elbows and lean forward to kiss him on the mouth, stopping the torrent of words. “Will you come take a shower with me?” I pull back and smile. “That way, you can replace the scent right away, and you don’t need to let me out of your sight?”

The tension instantly leaves his body. His eyes soften. “That, I can do.”

He carries me to his bathroom, and the warm jet of water soothes me as much as his hands following every drop’s journey on my body. I close my eyes, tip my head back, and let him touch me in that compelled, absorbed manner that appears to be his new normal. He seems to have accepted this—us—effortlessly, unconditionally, but I cannot help but wonder.

“Lowe?”

“Mmm?”

“Since I’m your mate, and since I don’t really plan to, you know, let go of you . . . you’ll never be able to do this with a Were,” I say without opening my eyes. “You’ll never get the hardware experience.”

His soapy palms lather my skin, lingering too long on my breasts. “Any idea of doing any of this with a Were died the night I met you.” I hear the dismissal in his words. What he adds is a murmur, more for himself than for me. “There wouldn’t be anyone else, anyway. Even if you didn’t want me, I couldn’t.”

“But the fact remains that I have way more limitations than you. Is it going to be weird, that we’re never going to go for a run in wolf form together? That we’ll never take a walk in the sun? Have a meal together? We’ll even have to figure out a sleep schedule that fits for both of us.”

His thumb and forefinger close around my chin and raise it, gentle but determined, until I’m forced to meet his eyes. “No,” he simply says. It’s a more potent reassurance than any long speech or vehement denial. Then he pushes a strand of hair behind my ears, and leans forward to suck at one of those spots on my neck that seem to be his magnetic north. He hums and softly begins to scrape over it with his teeth.

“You can go ahead, then,” I tell him.

He nips softly. “Mmm?”

“Bite me, if you want.” I feel his broad chest stiffen against mine. “Like all the mate scars I’ve seen.”

A deep, resonating rumble rises from his chest. For a brief moment, his grip tightens on my waist almost painfully. Then he lets go, looking as though he’s made of steel and restraint. “No.”

“If you think I’ll change my mind—”

“I don’t. But not now.”

“Not now.”

“There are rituals. Customs. Things that mean something to us. To me,” he adds. “I want to see you in those obscene ceremonial marks again. I want to put them on you. Alone, this time—I don’t fucking need anyone around to see you like that and get any ideas. And when I finally bite you, it won’t be on your neck.” He lets out a rueful laugh. “Nothing as dignified for us, Misery.”

Oh. “Where?”

His palm rounds my throat. Cups my nape. The pad of his thumb traces down my spine, just one or two vertebrae. “Here. I think I’ll bite you here.” He says it like it’s a secret, filthy plan he’s been working on for a while, and then lets out a rueful, frustrated sound. “You’ll wear your hair up, and people will see it, and they will know that I took my beautiful Vampyre bride the way wolves do, and that she loved it. And you will be good for me and let me, won’t you?”

I would let you right this moment, I think, but don’t bother saying it. I know Lowe by now, and the things he’s accustomed to denying himself.

“I look forward to that.” His pupils widen as though I just promised him riches beyond all comprehension. He deserves the world. He deserves everything he’s ever wished for. “In the meantime, would you like me to bite you?”

He swears softly when my mouth reaches for one of the glands at the base of his throat, and then whispers “Fuck, yes,” when my teeth pierce into it. I run my thumb over the gland on the other side, feeling his shudders and hearing the echoes of please and more and take all you need. Lowe was hard before, but now I can taste his impatience in the copper of his blood, and when he slides his fingers deep inside me, when his breath becomes erratic and he orders me to come, come right now so he can fuck me again, I can only let my pleasure roll through my body in subsuming waves. After, he picks me up and presses me against the tiled wall. I wrap my legs around his hips and welcome him between my thighs.

He pushes inside, and this time it’s as easy as in a dream. I feel the burning stretch and let my nails draw half moons on his solid back. I can’t believe you once thought this wouldn’t work, I almost say, almost laugh, but his blood tastes too good to stop drinking, and I’m mindless from the sensation of him deep inside me, even deeper than before.

“You like this, don’t you?” he whispers into my skin, and my responding squeeze around his cock has his mouth falling open against my shoulder. “Fuck. I can feel it already. I can feel it swelling again already— Misery, can you—?”

I’m too busy feasting on his blood to tell him how much I can, how much I want it. I can show him, though. I suck harder at his gland and he groans and pounds into me so hard and so deep, for a moment neither of us can breathe.

Then I feel the first flutters of pleasure coursing through my body, feel Lowe’s knot quickly expand inside me and tie me to him, and under the balmy jet of the water, I smile into his vein.