Bride (Ali Hazelwood) by Ali Hazelwood

            And then something soft and damp pokes me in the hip. I crack one eyelid open, and there it is: a muzzle, pressing against my skin. Pushing gently, but firmly. Like he’s herding me. Back inside the room.

            “You want me to . . . ?” He doesn’t reply, but he radiates satisfaction when I take a few steps back, and when I stop, he nudges me again, even more insistent. “Okay. I’m going.”

            I march back where I came from. The wolf follows at my heels, and once we’re both in the room, angles his body and closes the door with more ease than anyone without opposable thumbs should display.

            “Lowe?” I just want to be sure. The eyes seem proof enough, but . . . God, I’m exhausted. “It is you, right?”

            He pads to me.

            “You’re not Juno? Or Mick. Please, tell me you’re not Ken Doll.”

            A soft, rumbly noise rises from the back of his throat.

            “I guess I expected your fur would be dark. Because your hair is.” I let him prod me toward the bed. “Yes, I’m going back to sleep. I feel like total shit, but not the bed, please. The closet.”

            He understands, because he closes his very impressive jaws around a pillow and carries it to the closet. And then does the same with a blanket, under my bemused stare.

            “God, you’re just so fluffy. And . . . sorry, but you’re kinda cute. I know you could murder me in less time than it takes to stick a straw in a blood bag. But you’re soft. And your coat is not even sparkly pink. I don’t know what you were embarrassed about, you majestic fluffball—yes, fine, I’m going.”

            He all but drags me to the closet, and doesn’t stop bossing me around until I’m lying down in my favorite spot. I wonder how he managed to find it. Might be a scent thing.

            “FYI, your Alpha tendencies are even worse in this form.”

            His tongue darts out and licks at my neck.

            “Ew, gross,” I giggle. His teeth close around my arm. A joking, playful warning that could shatter my ulna. But won’t.

            “Can I pet you?”

            His head turns to butt under my hand. Yes, please.

            “Well, then,” I half laugh, half yawn, scratching him behind the ears, luxuriating in the beautiful, comforting feeling of his coat. It’s not hard to ask, not when he’s in this form, a fierce hunter who loves a cuddle: “Do you want to stay? Sleep with me?”

            Apparently, it’s not hard to say yes, either. Lowe doesn’t hesitate before curling right next to me.

            And when I inhale deeply, the smell of his heartbeat is all it’s always been: familiar, spicy, rich.

            I fall asleep twined with him, feeling safer than ever before.





CHAPTER 21




                             She told him Vampyres do not dream. And yet, once her midday rest is over and the evening approaches, her sleep becomes fitful, agitated. His touch seems to comfort her, and the thought fills him with pride and purpose.





Serena arrived at the Collateral residence at the end of a pleasantly mild January, many months after I first moved in, and came of age at the beginning of an unpleasantly wet April, spent crunching numbers to see how long the transitional sum of money allotted to her by the Human-Vampyre Bureau would stretch in the real world. The rain ticked and ticked, incessant against the windowpanes. We packed our bags and tried to decide what pieces of the past decade to bring into our new lives, sifting through memories, splitting apart the ones we hated from the ones we still hated but could not bear to let go.

            That’s when he arrived: a child of eight, the new Collateral, sent from the Vampyres for his official vesting ceremony. He was escorted by Dr. Averill and several other councilors I recalled meeting at various diplomatic relations. A sea of lilac eyes. Conspicuously, not the boy’s parents’.

            It was a sign that we were taking too long to vacate the premises, but we didn’t speed up. Instead, Serena stared at the child roaming the spotless hallways in which we’d skinned our knees, fought over hide-and-seek rules, practiced less-than-video-worthy choreographies, ranted about the casual cruelty of our caregivers, wondered if we’d ever fit in somewhere, panicked over how to keep in touch after the end of our time together.