Page 51 of Mate

She is meant for him, but they couldn’t be more impossible.

I HOLD MY brEATH. STAY PERFECTLY STILL. MY MUSCLES COIL, AS if to keep my body from breaking open, stop my organs and blood from pouring onto the floor.

Then Koen says, “I’ve been suspecting it for a few days,” and I fall apart.

“What?” I sound reedy. Maybe that’s why Koen ignores my question. Doesn’t look at me. Continues his conversation with Irene, composed, detached, like the topic is only mildly diverting. Broken boilers. The weather. Him, killing my mother.

“And yet you didn’t tell her. How self-serving of you.”

“I wanted to be certain, before informing her that one or more of her parents were high-profile figures in a cult with a sky-high body count.”

Irene sneers. “Now you know for sure.” She points at me with a flourish. “Tell her what happened that night. The Favored would like to know, too, wouldn’t we, friends? All we had to go by were the rotting corpses.”

“Very well.” Koen takes a deep breath. Turns to me. Lifts his bound hands onto the table, leaning over his elbows, and locks eyes with me dispassionately.

Then he starts.

“Every raid that was launched against the cult, every search for those who had played a part in attacks against the Northwest, I led. And yes, I was the one who killed Constantine. But you knew that.” He inches closer.

“We found him in a ramshackle cottage up north. He knew that we had him surrounded, and sent his companions ahead to buy time. We worked our way through them. When I reached him, he was in wolf form. I forced him to shift back to human and later brought his corpse back to Northwest territory. I extracted his heart. The rest was left on a cliff for the vultures and other scavengers to feed on. This is the story— no more and no less.”

My vision is blurry, whether from tears or the fever, I’m not sure. “I don’t care about him. He deserved it. But what about . . .” I can’t think over the blood pounding in my ears. I hate it, that I feel grateful toward Irene for asking what I can’t bring myself to.

“What about Fiona, her mother? Did you kill her, too?”

At last, a flicker of hesitation. Koen’s jaw works. After a moment, he says, “I won’t lie to you. It’s possible.”

Irene scoffs. “Have you killed so many Human women that you can no longer recall them?”

“I don’t know. Did you shield Constantine with so many Human women that I lost track?”

“What— what do you mean?” I ask.

He meets my eyes again. Any trace of the anger he showed when discussing Constantine is gone. “When I said that he sent his companions ahead to buy time, Serena, I mean it. If you are certain that your mother was with Constantine that night . . .”

“We are,” Irene says.

“Then yes. I killed her.” Koen is sorry but not repentant. It’s clear in his eyes that he would go back and do it all over again. Then be sad about it all over again.

Irene nods, a bitter, satisfied smile curving her lips.

“Was it you?” I ask, trembling. “Or Jorma? Or Amanda? Or— ”

“It was me, Serena.” His voice is precise.

Cutting. “I am the Alpha of the Northwest. Every move, every action, every killing is sanctioned by me. My seconds are an extension of my hand. Whether I tore into your mother’s throat myself or not, I’m still her killer.

Do you really need me to explain this? Do you understand your people so little? What did I tell you?”

We are not Human.

My insides twist. “What about me? Why didn’t you kill me ?”

“You were not standing between me and Constantine, Serena.” For a moment, his expression flickers.

Like he’s scanning my features. Cataloging them.

Comparing them against an image in his head.

His tone loses some of its ice. He’s remembering something, something that was lost until now. “You were hiding.”

“What?”

“In a closet. There was a Human girl with dark hair. She was skeletal and refused to talk.” He searches my features. Sandpapers the years off my face.

“W- what happened to her?”

He swallows. “I brought her to the Human social worker.”

“Was she . . . me?” I whisper.

Hesitation. “When Lowe first told me about hybrids, we immediately got in touch with Human Child Services to track down children of the cult. We were told that they were all accounted for.”

“Then how— ”

“A lie. Most likely, someone examined you, realized that you were a hybrid, and alerted Governor Davenport. And after that . . . you appeared in Paris when you were about six. But the girl I turned in to Human Child Services was at least a couple of years younger than that.”

“Then, if I’m her . . . where was I during those years?”

His jaw shifts side to side. “I don’t know,” he says.

My lips tremble. It’s hard to shape the words. “How— how can you not remember whether you killed my mother? Whether you met me when I was a child?”

“Serena.” He huffs a laugh but seems as shaken as I am. “I killed so many people. I made so many orphans.”

It feels like he’s killing me, now. Like he’s carving my heart out of my chest.

“Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe they were better off among us than with Humans who would never care for them as we could?” Irene asks sharply.

Silence. Did he? He might not remember that, either.

“So you killed both my parents. And then you found me. And then you l- left me alone.”

He doesn’t flinch away or deflect. Just nods. Admits, “I did, Serena.”

I shake my head. Try to wipe at my cheeks, but it doesn’t work. There are too many tears coming.

“How do you feel, Eva?” Irene asks, odiously kind.

“I don’t know. I . . . I . . .” I cannot look at Koen. Don’t want to. “I’m sad. And I’m . . . I’m so angry, and you don’t even— She was my mother , the only person who ever cared about me, and you don’t even remember if you fucking killed her — ”

I stop at the noise of something sliding across the mahogany. Blink through the tears. Watch it, incongruously pink and cutesy against the paper of my mother’s letter.

It’s the knife. My knife. The one Koen gave me to protect myself. The one I used against Jess. How did it end up here?

“How angry are you, Serena?” Irene asks.

“At this man who murdered your family in cold blood? He took away your childhood and your home and didn’t even stick around long enough to make sure that you were taken care of.

If he hadn’t killed Fiona, the three of us could have been together.

There would have been no orphanage. No Vampyres.

No Northwest. You could have been happy.

But Koen took that away from you. So let me ask you one more time . . . How angry are you?”

“I’m not— ” I start, shaking my head— and then stop.

Slowly, I let my eyes settle on Koen. His quiet expression betrays none of the turmoil I’m feeling. How angry am I?

A lot. A lot .

“Here.” The knife makes its way into my hand, already unfolded. “This man was angry, and he hurt you and your family. Now that you are angry, what will you do, Eva?”

This is a dream. A nightmare. I can’t be awake as I clutch the plastic handle and walk around Irene’s chair, dazed but determined. But I know what I must do.

I know that it’s right.

Someone drags Koen’s chair to the side to give me better access to him.

Four hands keep him still, pinned to the chair, but there’s no need.

Koen isn’t thrashing or wriggling away. There is no pleading, nor an attempt to convince me that I’m overreacting.

He sits quietly, looking up at me like I’m a queen.

His life and death are but my decision. He wouldn’t dream of objecting.

If I want to carve his heart out of his chest, he’ll crack his rib cage open and lie prone for me.

My hands tremble, but not too much. I can do this. I can.

“You can do this,” Irene reminds me. “You are owed.”

I nod. This is my right. “I’m sorry,” I whisper at Koen, letting the tip of the blade graze the soft spot on the side of his neck. I’ve kissed that spot. Licked it. Buried my face in it.

I adjust my grip. I’m sorry , I think.

With a firm swipe, I slice the ropes that tie his wrists together.