Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            I hope one day the three of us will be able to laugh about this moment. I hope this is not the end. I hope that even if I’m not around, the two of them will be there for each other. I hope, I hope, I hope.

            Serena nods.

            Lowe nods.

            Understanding runs through them like a current.

            “Now,” Lowe whispers.

            All of a sudden, Owen steps forward. In a lightning-quick moment, Lowe’s restraints are undone, and his body begins to shift. Contort. Merge and turn and transform. I turn to look at Serena and find that she’s doing the same—the perfect, blindsiding distraction that none of the guards saw coming. Nor Vania. Nor Father.

            “What are you—” he only has the time to say.

            Because two large, majestic white wolves fill the room. The noise of tearing flesh rises above the screams, and I watch the two people I love the most hold absolutely nothing back.





CHAPTER 29




                             There are many matters to settle, and his pack needs him more than ever, but he cannot concentrate on anything but her. He understands why some Alphas take vows of celibacy and renounce love.

                She distracts him. His feelings for her, they distract him.





There is something I’ll never, ever let myself live down, not until the day I kick the bucket, not until the moment I vanish into the nothingness of matter: in my weeks of living with the Weres, it never occurred to me to wonder where their clothes went when they shifted to wolf form.

            It’s so, so stupid of me.

            And in the aftermath of the scariest night of my life, sitting in the Nest’s stairwell, with Gabi treating the puncture wound Father’s knife cut into the flesh of my collarbone, I simply cannot let go of it.

            “Did you think they’d transform with us? Sartorially?” Alex leans against the handrail. He’s sticking around for no reason other than to mock me. Or maybe he’s genuinely interested—I cannot tell. All I know is, I miss when he was terrified of me. “You thought that the end result would be a wolf in a little sweater vest and a bow tie? Just to be clear, is that what you expected?”

            “I don’t know what I expected. But Serena’s top was all tattered and stuck around her neck, and I’m just saying that it was disturbing to watch a pink shirt dangle from her while her teeth sank into Vania’s throat.” I rub my face with my palms, hoping to unsee the past two hours. When I look up again, Ludwig and Cal and another handful of seconds are walking down the hallway to Father’s office. They stop in front of us, and . . .

            We all know they were interrogating Mick. I wonder if it still looks like the Aster in there: purple and green blood splattered all over the walls. The most gruesome of flowers, finger-painted by the world’s creepiest child.

            “Is she still talking about the clothes?” Ludwig asks.

            Alex nods with a deep sigh. Gabi bites back a smile.

            “I just want to know what the hell she was thinking would happen to them,” Cal mutters.

            “I didn’t think,” I say. Defensively.

            “Obviously,” Alex mutters.

            “Shouldn’t you be intimidated by me? Also, what are you doing here?” This must be the most Weres in Vampyre territory ever.

            “It was determined that an IT expert might be of use, and frankly, you lost all of your intimidation points.”

            “I can still drink you dry, nerd.”

            Owen arrives to interrupt our bickering. “Are you done here, Misery? I need you with me for a moment.”

            I follow him down the staircase with one last glare at Alex, mostly in silence. Owen got a bit beaten up during the fight: his black eye is courtesy of Vania, or maybe that auburn-haired guard who escorted him in. From the way he carries himself, I suspect his entire right side is bruised, too. When we turn into a dark hallway and are out of earshot, I ask quietly, “Are you okay?”

            “I should ask you that.”

            I mull it. “I’d feel better if I could speak to Serena.”