Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            “Anyway. Emery doesn’t seem that bad.”

            “No, she doesn’t.” Lowe opens the cooler, and then the secret compartment where we stowed the tools Alex gave me. “Mick has been collecting intel on the attacks and sabotages in Were territory, and it overwhelmingly suggests that she’s behind them. But she also knows that if she were to openly challenge me, she wouldn’t stand a chance. And it’s possible that several of the Loyals aren’t even aware of the kidnapping attempt. They might not know they’re on the bad side of this war.”

            I stand by him, checking that all the equipment is accounted for. “Father used to say that there are no good or bad sides in a war.”

            Lowe chews on his lower lip, pensively staring at the bags of blood. “Maybe. But there are sides I want to be part of, and others that I do not.” He looks up, pale eyes just inches from mine. “Do you need to feed?”

            “I can do it in the bathroom, since we’re sharing this”—I glance around at the flowery wallpaper, canopy bed, landscape-based art—“marriage chamber.”

            “Why would you use the bathroom?”

            “I’m assuming you’ll find it gross?” Serena always said that there’s something repulsive about hearing blood being swallowed, though she eventually got used to it. I get it: I might be a (shamefully enthusiastic) peanut butter consumer, but I find most human foods gag-worthy. Anything that requires chewing should be launched into space via a self-destroying capsule.

            “I doubt I’ll care,” Lowe says, and I shrug. I won’t babyproof his environment. He’s a big boy who knows what he can take.

            “Okay.”

            I grab the bag and make quick work of it. Blood is too expensive—and too hard to clean up—to risk spillage, which is why I use straws. The process takes less than two minutes, and by the time I’m done, I’m smiling to myself, thinking of the three-hour dinner I’ve just been subjected to and feeling superior.

            Weres and Humans are weird.

            “Misery.”

            Lowe’s voice is gravelly. I dispose of the bag, and when I glance at him, he’s sitting on the bed again. I have the impression that his eyes have been on me for the entire time. “Yes?”

            “You look different.”

            “Oh, yeah.” I turn to the mirror, but I know what he’s seeing. Rosy cheeks. Blown-up pupils with a thin lilac rim. Lips stained with red. “It’s a thing.”

            “A thing.”

            “Heat and blood, you know?”

            “I don’t.”

            I shrug. “We get blood-hungry when we’re hot, and we get hot after we feed. It won’t last long.”

            He clears his throat. “What else does it entail?”

            I’m not sure what to make of this line of questioning on Vampyre physiology, but he was forthcoming when I asked the same about the Weres. “Mostly just that. Some senses are heightened, too.” The scent of Lowe’s blood, but also everything else that makes him him, is sharper in my nostrils. It has me wondering if I still smell like him.

            Which has me thinking of what happened earlier.

            Not that it was ever far from my mind. “In the plane. When you were marking me.” I expect him to act embarrassed, or dismissive. He just holds my gaze. “Not to make a weird situation even weirder, but it seemed like it was . . .”

            “It was.” He briefly closes his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take advantage.”

            “I— Me neither.” I was as much into it as he was. More, probably.

            “It’s the act of it. It’s something that usually happens between mates, or in serious romantic relationships. It’s intrinsically sexually charged.”

            Oh. “Right.” I’m a bit mortified to have assumed he was attracted to me. Not because I don’t think I’m attractive—I’m hot, and fuck you, Mr. Lumiere, for saying that I looked like a spider—but because Lowe has Gabi. Someone he’s biologically hardwired to focus the entirety of his attraction on.