Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            As his fake wife, I find it flattering.

            But Lowe was right, and Emery doesn’t want a fight, at least not now. She forces a strained smile just for me. “Misery Lark.” Her voice oozes civility. “I haven’t seen any of your people in my territory in decades.”

            Not alive, for sure. “Thank you for having me.”

            “Perhaps it’s time to bury the hatchet. Perhaps new alliances can be formed, now that the old ones are burning to ashes.”

            “Perhaps.” I bite the Seems unlikely, though, off my tongue.

            “Very well.” Her eyes flicker to my hand. Because, I abruptly realize, Lowe wrapped his own around it. “Follow me, if you please.” She turns her back to us with one last smile. Her guard trickles behind her, flanking her like an armor made of flesh.

            Lowe’s fingers squeeze mine. “That was civil of you,” he says under his breath. “Thank you for not causing a diplomatic incident.”

            “As if.”

            His eyebrows quirk.

            “Come on. I wouldn’t.”

            The look he gives me telegraphs: You absolutely would.

            “I’m not going to piss off the lady who tried to kidnap Ana,” I say, outraged. Then clarify, “I might stab her. But I’m not going to sass her.”

            His mouth twitches. “There you are.”

            He tugs me toward a black sedan, his hand still holding on to mine.



* * *





            Dinner is a weird affair, not in the least because I’m served a plate of cavatelli and a glass of red wine that looks enticingly like blood.

            It’s standard for the mate and children of the former Alpha to maintain formal relationships with the current leadership, and several Weres have been invited for the weekend. Tonight, though, it’s just the three of us at the table, and I’m too clueless regarding Were affairs to participate in the conversation. I try to follow as they talk about borders, alliances, other packs, but it’s like starting a triple-timeline TV show from season four. Too many plot points, characters, world-building details. What I can do is appreciate the complex dynamics at play during the meal, and the expert way Lowe navigates them. No one mentions that he killed Roscoe, and I’m grateful for that.

            We’re escorted to our room early in the morning. There is one bed, which will luckily not lead to any weird sharing situation, because I’ll disappear into the closet the second the sun is up. I gesture at Lowe to sit and lift a finger to my lips. He gives me a confused look but complies without argument, even as I reach for his jeans pocket and take out his phone. For an Alpha, he’s surprisingly good at doing as I say.

            I spend several minutes sweeping the place for bugs and cameras, and checking for strong Wi-Fi networks under Lowe’s increasingly amused gaze. When I find none, I catch his pitiful must-be-hard-to-live-subsumed-by-this-level-of-paranoia look, and I’m tempted to scrape a lint ball from my pocket and tell him that it’s state-of-the-art spyware, just to be right for once.

            He probably wouldn’t know better.

            “Can I speak? Or would you like to espionage more?”

            I glare. “Your golden boy Alex told me to do this.”

            He shakes his head with a small smile. “Emery knows better.”

            “So we’re not going to entertain the possibility that she’s going to slit our throats in our sleep?”

            “For the time being.”

            “Hmm.” I go through his phone to make sure it’s not being tracked. It’s an interesting, vaguely wistful window into Lowe’s life. Not that I expected to find it chock-full of MILF porn, but his most visited websites are European sports news and fancy architectural magazines that look as entertaining as a traffic jam.

            “Sorry your baseball team is doing so poorly,” I offer.

            “It’s doing fine,” he mutters, offended.

            “Uh-huh, sure.”

            “And it’s rugby.” He stands to retrieve my blood cooler.