Page 13 of Mate

It’s not the only secret she’s been keeping. It’s not even the worst one. For now, though, he’ll play. The alternative is unacceptable.

K OEN TAKES HIS SWEET, SWEET TIME TO TURN TO ME. HIS SURPRISE at my confession couldn’t fill a puddle. “Was that so hard?”

I clench my fist. “Since you obviously already knew, why did you make me say it?”

“Hearing you verbally acknowledge your limitations brings flavor and spice to my life. Why were you keeping it a secret?”

“I don’t know. I . . . Maybe I just didn’t want you looking down on me.”

“I will never not look down on you, chiefly because of our height difference. When did it start?”

“A while ago.”

“Was it before or after I allowed you to be alone at the cabin— ”

“You allowed me ?”

“— under repeated reassurances that you could take care of yourself, killer ?”

“I . . . Before. I already couldn’t shift.”

His jaw tics. “Here’s the deal: you’re not an idiot.”

“Wow. What a compliment.”

“Sure. Keep that in mind when I ask you why the fuck you are acting like one. How. Long?”

“It’s genuinely hard to tell. A few days after I moved to the Southwest?”

“How many?”

I try to recall. “Maybe a week or so? The first time I tried and wasn’t able to was the day after . . . after Ana returned.” The day after Koen and I met. “I also started feeling poorly, and— ”

“Feeling poorly?”

Tell him , I order myself. Tell him. Tell him everything. It’ll make things so much easier.

But it wouldn’t. It would be incredibly selfish.

Things would be easier for me and significantly more complicated for everyone else.

“Nothing bad. You’re right, my appetite has been low.

Nausea. Issues sleeping. One of the Southwest physicians, Dr. Henshaw, said it’s stress from .

. .” I shrug and smile. Artfully, if I say so myself.

When it comes to my recent past, the ratio of what went wrong to what could have gone wrong is so high, it’s objectively funny.

“Take your pick. Basically, I just need to wait it out and chill. Hence the cabin.”

“Are you in pain?”

I shake my head, instinctively. His expression looks so dubious, I wince. “It’s more like discomfort.”

Koen doesn’t want to believe it, but it’s obvious that he’s not sure where the lie’s at. “For someone juggling this many secrets, you’re pretty terrible at keeping them.”

“I’ll try to do better, Alpha.” I bat my eyes at him, which makes his scowl deepen by a factor of ten. “Could you please not tell Misery and Lowe?”

“Oh, you’re hiding shit from them, too?”

“I’m an equal opportunity liar. And really, it would just give them one more thing to worry about, when Ana should be their— ”

“Priority, yeah. You’ve mentioned her.” My craning neck weeps in gratitude when Koen takes a seat on the edge of the mattress. His posture is lazy, but his eyes stay sharp. “Under Were custom, I cannot keep this from Lowe. He’s your Alpha.”

“Is he, though? I didn’t, like, go to the DMV to sign paperwork— ”

“To the what, now?”

“— and I didn’t take a blood oath. You said it yourself, that I have no pack— ”

“You are not an official member of any pack. You are, however, affiliated with the Southwest. The alternative is for Were society to deal with you as a rogue Were, and you do not want that.”

“I don’t understand, why does it matter— ”

“Correct. You don’t understand. Were packs are not chummy extended families, killer. To safely set foot in a pack’s territory, you’ll need to be affiliated with that pack or with their allies.”

“And if I’m not?”

He gives me a flat look that— Okay. Got that loud and clear. “Can I change? If I were affiliated with the Northwest, then it would be okay for Lowe not to know, right?”

“That would make me your Alpha.”

“Would you mind that?”

He stares like I’m trying to sell him a pouch of magic beans. “To be clear, I know that I’m being played. I’m just allowing it because I love the idea of telling you what to do that much.”

I cannot help my smile. “Very well. Deal. Now that I’m officially a Northwesterner— ”

“Not a name we go by.”

“— in the name of Alpha-member confidentiality— ”

“Which doesn’t exist.”

“— I ask you to please not tell Misery that I’m . . . I don’t know, regressing to my Human self? She already has plenty to be nervous about.” I chew on my lower lip for a moment. “Will you take me in, then? It’ll ease the pressure off the Southwest. And . . . I feel safer when I’m with you.”

His tongue prods at the inside of his cheek. “You do?”

I nod, wondering why it’s the truth. I’m sure Lowe and his seconds are just as capable. They may even have more of an incentive to protect me, since . . . well. Lowe has never felt the need to remind me that the part of him that matters could never be interested in me. “Yeah. I do.”

“Well, that’s too bad. Because I don’t want you to feel safe.”

“You . . . don’t?”

Glaring, he leans toward me, full of something vicious that I cannot name.

“I want you to be scared shitless, Serena. I want you so fucking terrified of me, you won’t even dream of not doing what I say.

I want you to feel like your soft little throat is in my hands, and I want you to be so afraid that I’ll tear into it that when I tell you to do something for your own fucking safety, you won’t consider saying anything but ‘Yes, Alpha.’?”

The last words are hissed just inches from my face, the puff of his breath hot against my cheek, and the thing is— he is terrifying.

He could carve me open like an overripe pomegranate.

And he’s definitely capable of forcing me to do whatever he wants.

I’ve seen the way even his seconds look at him, love and trust and respect mixed with circumspection.

I’ve heard Lowe and Misery whisper their worries.

I am aware that there is an edge of unpredictability to Koen.

And yet the only response I can muster to his threats is a small, apologetic smile.

He didn’t ask for me to be his mate. I didn’t ask to be a hybrid. And yet here we both are.

I cannot help myself. I lift my hand, and with the backs of my fingers I stroke the skin of his cheek. It’s the lightest touch, barely anything. But it sends currents trembling down my arm, clamoring for more.

Koen’s muscles tense, and he flinches from my touch. With a roll of his eyes, he unfolds away from me, and cold seeps back into my bones.

“You’re such a fucking nuisance,” he murmurs, almost softly.

“I know.” I press my lips together. “Thank you again for— ”

“Serena.”

“I know, but I have to say it, and— ”

“Just mulch Saul’s rose beds, and we can be even.” He spins on his heel. Is he leaving?

“Are you going to bed?” I ask after him.

“After I’m done.” He doesn’t specify with what.

“Where will you be sleeping?”

“There are half a dozen beds in this cabin.”

What a nonanswer. And on top of thank you , he must also not be big into good night , because he opens the door and—

“Koen?”

He stops. Turns to me with an expression that’s equally patient, insulting, and dismissive. The quintessential Alpha has shit to do look.

“Just . . .” I swallow. “The mate thing.”

His face doesn’t move a millimeter. His biological predestination to want sex with me seems to interest him less than the favorite yogurt flavor of the fifteen- to- twenty-one demographic.

“The rest of your pack, do they know?”

He shrugs, one shouldered. Truly, he does not give a shit about the stuff I spend my nights overthinking. “Everyone does.”

“You didn’t . . . It’s not a secret?”

“We made sure every Were knew, Serena.”

“Oh. Why?”

“No sane Were will touch you if they think you’re important to me.”

If they think .

I scratch the back of my head. “Do they think we . . . ?”

“No. We made that clear, too.”

“So they know that I’m your mate but we’re not together?”

“Correct.”

“And doesn’t it bother you?”

“Why would it?”

“I don’t know. Just . . . big bad Alpha. Everyone’s boss. I thought you might want to . . .”

“Spare myself the humiliation of having been rejected?” He huffs a laugh. “Serena, there are much worse things than that.”

Are there? I’m not so sure. The good and the bad of my life correlate strongly with feelings of being wanted— or not. But Koen is not a Human orphan, let alone one whose claim to fame is being useless in therapy because of an overgrown case of infantile amnesia.

Like me, or don’t. I really couldn’t care less.

God, how many times do I have to make him tell me before I turn it into a long-term memory? “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked. I’m just tired.”

“Right. If only you had a bed to sleep in.”

His sarcasm is a jolt of electricity. “I hate you,” I say mildly.

“You need me to check the closet for monsters?”

“Nope.” I already know where those are.

“Glass of water? Brush your hair one hundred strokes? The fucking chamber pot?”

I let out a small laugh and shake my head, and before I can force my “Good night” upon him, Koen is gone.

My heart feels cavern hollow. I ignore it, spend five minutes punching my pillows into shape, and fall into a deep sleep.

IT STARTS LIKE IT ALWAYS DOES. THAT IS TO SAY, NICELY ENOUGH.

I wonder how universal a truth it is that the closer to the end we get, the more mundane our oneiric activities become. Mine used to be ridiculous, equally fun and horrifying, but lately they’re about only one thing: sex.

It just seems so . . . unambitious. I could be dreaming of castles, or deer with Jell- O antlers, or pizza pies in the sky.

Instead, it’s all work-rough palms wrapped around my kneecap, and bare, sweat-slick skin.

Outdoor scents. Sticky, dripping, hazy warmth.

Bites into unyielding muscles. Rolling murmurs, whispers of something dark and good I can never make out, and laughter pressing into my throat.

Red cheeks, a hot olive flush, heavy, lingering touches, aches that don’t hurt.

Twitches of pleasure, a white-knuckled grip, the pulse of something hungry and needy.

A hitch of breath. A sharp inhale. Low bass, vibrating through me.

A quiet exhale. Hard and soft, muted swallows, a sloppy, lazy rhythm.

It’s not even sex . At least, not as far as I can tell. Just the components of it, the pieces and not the whole, cluttering my mind, taking up every corner. Like I said, it’s nice enough— until I wake up.

An agonized moan slips out of my throat, and I press my palm to my mouth.

I don’t waste time. I know by now that hoping for the rippling pain to subside is no use.

My temperature would spike even higher, and the heat would probably kill me.

Fisting the edge of the mattress, I manage to roll out of bed and crawl to the bathroom.

Once I’m a heap of perspiration and tears and shivers on the soft shower mat, that’s when the fun starts.

Some nights, I only deal with the fever.

Others— more and more frequent— my stomach demands its due.

Luckily, when the first bout pours out of me, I’m standing right by the toilet bowl.

It smells like acid and sickness and rot, and I gag even more, but once that’s done, the pain recedes long enough for me to catch my breath.

So I focus on the real issue: I’m about to burst into flames.

It could be an exaggeration— or not. Will my organs melt out of my orifices if I skip the next step? It sure feels like it. So I elbow myself into the bathtub and flick on the cold water.

The first cool splash against my sizzling skin always has me sighing in relief, but it’s ludicrously short-lived.

It’ll get better, though. Once I’m neck deep, I’ll stop feeling like a small, violent mammal has crawled inside my abdomen and is gnawing at my flesh while breathing fire.

For now, though, my heart hammers against my rib cage, my body arches and contracts, and I swallow the pain of a hundred bones crumbling.

And since it’s all I can do, I sit, bury my face in my knees, and wait.