Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            My blood sings. My ears roar. I’m melting.

            “Fuck,” he mouths. He runs his tongue over the knob at the top of my spine one last time, as if to soothe the sting of his bite, and suddenly I’m cold. Shivering. When I turn, he’s standing several feet away from me, eyes pitch-black.

            The roar in my ears is getting louder—because it wasn’t in my ears at all. A car is driving across the tarmac, toward our plane.

            Emery.

            “I’m sorry.” Lowe sounds like a rake has run through his vocal box. His fingers twitch at his side, a reflex. Like my hand lingering on the damp spot at the base of my throat.

            “I . . .” My hand shifts to massage my nape. I can still feel his touch. “That was . . .”

            “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

            My fangs ache, itch, want like never before. I trace them with my tongue to ensure they aren’t on fire, and Lowe watches me do it, every second of it, lips parting. He takes a small, involuntary step toward me, then retreats again, appalled at his lack of control.

            This might be new to me, and I may not be a Were, but whatever just happened between us went beyond let me disguise you real quick and straight into something different.

            Something sexual.

            And if I know it, there is no way he doesn’t.

            “Lowe.” We should talk about this. Or never mention it again.

            The way he’s looking, he’s opting for the latter. “I’m done,” he says to himself, eyes glassy. “It’s done.”

            “Is it better?”

            His lips press together. As though there is a flavor he wants to hold in his mouth a moment longer. “Better?”

            “My smell. Do I smell like . . . ?”

            “Mine.” It’s a rumble in his throat. “You smell like you’re mine, Misery.”

            Something charged shimmers through my body.

            It is, after all, exactly what we were going for.





CHAPTER 15




                             She’s not like he imagined. He won’t admit to picturing how she’d be while he was growing up, but there was always something in the back of his head, a faint hope that maybe, one day.

                She’s not like he imagined. She’s more, in every possible way.





Emery Messner is petrifying. Mostly because she looks really nice.

            I expected unhinged, rabid-looking, bloodthirsty greetings. Unpredictability. Threats of violence. What I find is a sweet woman in her fifties, wearing a Hope Love Courage pin on her cardigan. I’m no great judge of character, but she seems kind, and friendly, and sincerely personable. Her heartbeat is faint, almost reticent. I could picture her baking peanut-free treats to pass around after her children’s soccer practice, but not abducting and murdering people.

            “Lowe.” She stops a few feet away from us, hanging her head in salute. When she looks up, her nostrils twitch, undoubtedly smelling what happened between me and Lowe on the plane.

            I want to disappear into the ether.

            “Welcome to you and your Vampyre bride.” She faces my husband. Who killed her mate. This is so messed up. “Congratulations on your alliance.”

            “Emery.” He does not smile. “Thank you for welcoming us to your home.”

            “Nonsense. This is your territory, Alpha.” She waves a hand like a gal at brunch. Her eyes flicker back to me, and for a fraction of a second the polite facade crumbles, and I see myself reflected in her eyes.

            I’m a Vampyre.

            I’m the enemy.

            In the current century, my people have been among the top five causes of death for her people. I’m as welcome as a piece of gum stuck under the sole of her pumps.

            However, I’m Lowe’s gum, and he’s making it abundantly clear: his hand lingers possessively on the curve of my lower back, and I know enough about self-defense to understand that he positioned himself strategically, and that he plans to shove me behind himself at the slightest sign of intimidation. There’s no way Emery’s guards—all eight of them, evenly split between wolf and Human form—cannot see that. Judging from their tense expressions, they seem to believe that Lowe offers a considerable threat, even this starkly outnumbered.