Page 5 of Mate
Koen considers the matter as he steps closer, near enough that I can feel his heat, and I bare my teeth at him as I squirm in the Vampyre’s clutch. This can’t be for real.Alpha protects, says a calm Were voice that lives inside my bones.Alpha is home. Koen is not like that.
Except, I’m not so sure.
Koen stops in front of me, staring like I’m at his disposal, and yeah. He isexactlylike that.
“Would she?” he wonders, voice low and rich, eyes caressing my face and lingering on my bare breast. Closer still, and his presence envelops me like a warm blanket. His scent blooms in my nostrils, safe, grounding, so breathtakingly perfect that for a moment I forget about the Vampyre behind me, the pine needles jabbed into the soles of my feet.
“Please,” I mouth softly, but I don’t think Koen hears me. His hand comes up to my face. Wraps around my cheek, thumb pressing into my lower lip.
“Would you, Serena? Enjoy it?”
Panic bursts anew in my chest. I shake my head violently. No.No.
“Well, then.” His eyes soften, and he lets out a half-resigned, half-amused sigh. “Better make use of that rock in your hand, killer.”
It takes me a beat to understand his meaning, and to realize that the Vampyre’s hold on my wrist has loosened. Twisting my arm free and stabbing the jagged edge of the rock into his stomach takes so little effort, it’s almost anticlimactic.
“What the— ” The Vampyre doubles over. I’m about to hit him again, but he bounces back and slams me to the ground. He lifts his knife above his head, aiming for my throat. “You fuckingbitch— ”
He stops with an abrupt gasp, as though in the grip of a sudden illuminating revelation. He stares down at me, eyes bulging, mouth wide open, and I almost expect him to . . . apologize? Then, after coughing up a small rivulet of mulberry-colored blood, he loses his balance. I observe his descent, horrified, as he collapses right by my side, face-first into a patch of moss.
He doesnotmove again.
Neither do I. I don’t know what it says about me, but I’m incapable ofnotstaring as blood gurgles out of the deep claw-shaped parallel wounds on his back, iron blending with the earthy smell of the soil.
It’s a long while before I’m able to glance down at my body— miraculously intact, if mostly naked— and then up at Koen— glibly unimpressed. Anyone else would be helping me up, but not the Alpha of the Northwest pack. Instead, he slowly shakes his head, wiping the hand he just used to kill a man across his flannel. The deep-violet strokes create an oddly pretty painting over the black-and-white canvas.
It takes him a while to remember that I exist. “Evening, Serena.” The intensity of a few moments ago has dissolved, and he sounds indifferent. Maybe he knows that a single ounce of sympathy would knock me over. Maybe he truly does not, and has never, given a fuck about anything. “How’s your night been?”
“Uneventful,” I rasp out.
“Yeah? You look like shit.”
“Do I.” Gelid sweat slides down my temple and between my breasts, which I hurry to cover as best as I can. “Is this the way you talk to your beloved mate?”
A single eyebrow lifts. “I said you were my mate. Not that I loved you.”
I gasp out a single, outraged laugh, but at least I’m not crying. It’s nice to keep what little dignity I have left as Koen gives me a cool, appraising look and crouches next to me.
“We have to go,” he tells me.
“Where?”
“To the Den.” He picks me up with his arms under my back and knees. The chill becomes a distant memory. “Woodland retreat’s over, killer.”
CHAPTER 2
“Absolutely fucking no.”
“If you don’t tell her, Koen, she’ll find out anyway.”
“How? Will she steal my diary? Is she able to read minds?”
Lowe, in his defense, has the grace to look vaguely self-conscious. “I won’t hide it from Misery. And Misery won’t hide it from her.”
“Oh, fuck off. I liked it better when you were lonely and sad and depressed. Listen, I tell Serena, and then what? Nothing could ever come of it, even if she’s interested.”
“If we made it publicly known . . . If she’s the mate of the Alpha of the Northwest, no Were will harm her. Hybrid or not.”
