Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            His voice is all hard consonants and narrow eyes, and a shiver runs up my spine, cold and electric. My mind jumps back to Alex’s words: Even his scent was right. Everyone knew that he had the making of an Alpha. I’m no Were, and if I inhale, all I can smell is clean sweat and strong blood, but I think I know what he meant. Somehow I feel it, the compulsion to nod, agree. To do as Lowe wants.

            I have to actively stop myself. And shiver in the process.

            “At least you are clever enough to be afraid,” he murmurs.

            I grit my teeth. “Just cold. You keep the temperature far too low.”

            His nostrils flare. “Do as I fucking tell you, Misery.”

            “But of course.” My voice is steady, but he knows how rattled I am. Just as I know I’m rattling him. “May I be excused?”

            He nods brusquely, and I dart for the door. But then I remember something important I’ve been meaning to ask.

            I turn back to him. “Can my cat—”

            I stop, because Lowe’s eyes are closed. He’s inhaling deeply, as though gathering every possible air molecule within the room inside his lungs. And he looks . . .

            Tormented. In pure, absolute agony. He straightens his expression when he notices that I’m looking, but it’s too late.

            My stomach twists with something slimy and unpleasant. Guilt. “I took a bath. Did that not make it better?”

            His stare is blank. “Make what better?”

            “My scent.”

            He swallows visibly. His tone is sharp. “The situation hasn’t improved for me.”

            “But how—”

            “What were you going to ask, Misery?”

            Oh. Right. “I have a cat.”

            He scowls like I told him I keep pet centipedes. “You have a cat.”

            “Yup.” I stop at that, because Lowe hasn’t earned the right to any explanation for my life choices. Not that anything about Serena’s damn fucking cat was a choice. “He’s currently locked in my room, if your sister didn’t let him out with her pilfered key. Can I let him roam around the house, or will Max try to frame him for racketeering?”

            “Your cat is welcome among us,” Lowe says. If that’s not a jab, nothing else is.

            “Wonder how that feels,” I say breezily, and slip out of the room without glancing at him again.





CHAPTER 6




                             Being gone is a relief. And sheer agony.





All in all, it’s not the most auspicious of starts.

            In the week following my arrival, I spend an unhealthy amount of time mentally slapping myself over the way I handled the kerfuffle with Max. I don’t care whether the Weres think I’m a deranged monster, but I do mind that whatever crumb of freedom they might have been inclined to give me has been swiftly vacuumed up.

            I’m escorted everywhere: as I take a stroll by the lake; to grab a blood bag from the fridge; when I sit in the garden at dusk, just to experience something that’s not my en suite. I am but a cornucopia of regret. Because we’re all bad bitches—till a scowling Were stands outside the bathroom door while we’re washing our hair.

            Till we lose our chance to snoop around.

            So much time on my hands, and so little to spend it on. It’s the Collateral life I’m familiar with, just with significantly fewer Serenas to keep me busy. I should be bored to death, but the truth is, this is not too different from my routine in the Human world. I have no friends, no hobbies, and no real purpose aside from earning enough money to pay rent in order to . . . exist, I guess.

            It’s like you’re—I don’t know, suspended. Untethered from everything around you. I just need to see you go toward something, Misery.

            There might be something stunted about me. After the Collateral term was over, Serena and I were free to venture into the outside world, to be with people who weren’t our tutors or our caregivers, to fall in love and make friends. Serena jumped right into that, but I could never bring myself to. Partly because the closer I’d let someone get to me, the harder it’d be to hide who I was. Or maybe spending the first eighteen years of my life becoming acquainted with the cruelty of all species didn’t quite set me up for a bright future.