Текст книги "Mate"
Автор книги: Ali Hazelwood
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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
CHAPTER 38
“You pathetic asshole.” The Vampyre voice jostles him awake. He’s asleep beside Serena’s bed– has been for . . . He doesn’t care. “It’s kinda gross, how madly in love with her you are. But please, continue. Pitiful, twitterpated men are very entertaining.”
ITHINK IT WAS ALL A DREAM.
Not just the fight and the fire and the abduction. Not just Koen, me being a Were, and my time at The Herald. I think I’m still in college, wondering who the hell is getting kickbacks for putting a chemistry requirement in a finance degree. I think I’m at the Collateral house, wondering whether the new landscaper’s resting asshole face means that he’s secretly an anti-Vampyre activist.
The last six or seven years were all a nightmare. Nothing else could explain that the first thing I hear when I regain consciousness is Misery’s cackle. “Oh, boy. He’s gonna be so pissed.”
“Who?” I wheeze out. My palate feels coated in kelp. When a straw is thrust into my mouth, I latch on to it and take about twelve gulps.
“Who what?” Misery asks.
I am, obviously, in a hospital bed. She is, obviously, in the chair next to it. Judging by how my bedside table is covered in electronic devices, an empty blood bag, and even the last installment of the Were mystery series we both swore we’d stop hate-reading, she’s been here for a while. “Who’s gonna be pissed?”
“Koen. You’ve been out for four days, and he literally just agreed to leave this morning.”
“Where did he go?”
“Something something pack. I think he’s getting yelled at by . . . Is it possible that Amanda mentioned an Assembly?”
Yup. “Am I . . . Is this the Southwest?”
“What? No. Look out the window. It rains here. There are trees and shit. We’re in the Den.” She leans back in the chair, kicks off her shoes, and stretches her long legs at the foot of my bed. Her pretty, fay-like face curves into a happy smile. “Anyway. I’m sure you’re very confused. And have questions. I’ll be happy to fill you in,” she offers, magnanimously.
When is Koen coming back? seems like a shitty thing to ask my best friend, who’s clearly been watching over my sickbed. So I go with “Did she shoot me?”
“Irene? Yup, but only in the arm. Leg? I don’t know. You were in wolf form.”
“Where is she?”
“Um, so. Koen was, um, mad.”
“Ah.”
“You have been de– aunted, I fear.”
“How tragic,” I say, not giving a single fuck. “The girl?”
“The redhead? The one they put your tracker in? She’s fully recovered. I met her sister, by the way. She has a crush on both you and Koen. It’s kinda cute, honestly.”
“She’s sixteen.”
“I think it’s a platonic crush. But also, when you were sixteen, you wanted to pork Mr. Lumiere in the mudroom.”
“Did I?” I groan. Yeah, I did. “What about everyone else? Anything I should know?”
“Let’s see . . . The cult members are either in custody or with Irene. Which, I am sure, will delight them. The fire was put out. No one from the Northwest died, though there were minor injuries. Can I just say– I’ve had a lot of time to consider recent revelations, and I’m not at all surprised that you come from a long line of cult leaders. You’ve talked me into so much weird shit through the years, and I always wondered why I kept falling for it.”
“I’m glad we figured it out.” I sit up. It’s a pleasantly easy and painless process. “Not that I’m unhappy about it, but why are you here?”
She pouts. “Because my sister was on the brink of death?”
“Was I, though?”
“Well, critical condition. Interestingly, not because of the bullet. You hit your head hard when you slammed into Irene. Basically, you are responsible for the worst of your own injuries. Way to show agency.” She holds up her hand. With a sigh, I high-five her. “Lowe flew in with me. He left yesterday, when they cleared you. Today I had to drink fridge blood, and it’s like going from gourmet peanut butter to diarrhea.”
“Such vivid imagery– ”
The door opens. “Misery! Look at this frog that I . . .” A gasp. “Serena is awake?” A second later, the frog is leaping away, and a soft, bony weight lands on me with all the grace of a flying squirrel. I return Ana’s boa constrictor hug, trying not to burst into tears at how much she’s grown in the last few months. “Hey, baby.”
“Your hair is so long,” she says. “Can I braid it?”
“Sure.”
“Misery and I got matching tattoos!” The back of Ana’s right hand is suddenly in front of my eyes.
“Is that a . . . narwhal?”
Misery nods proudly and lifts her arm to show me hers.
“Also, did you know that next week is Misha’s birthday and my present for her is a bouncy castle? Also, Sparkles says hi.” I glance at Misery, who slowly shakes her head. He doesn’t, she mouths at me. He cannot talk.
Ana chatters in my lap for a few more minutes– Lowe is gone on pack business but he’ll come back soon, Uncle Koen bought her unicorn waffles, what’s my favorite cheese, there’s a kid at her school she totally does not have a crush on but will marry as soon as she’s of age, I’m still her favorite because we’re the only two “hybrids” in the world, but Nele is her new best friend.
“Nele?”
“They’ve been getting on,” Misery tells me. “You and Ana might have to split custody. Hey, pest, why don’t you go tell Nele where you are before she worries?”
Ana blinks at her. “Are you trying to get rid of me so you can have a grown– up conversation with Serena?”
“See? I told Lowe that you’re too smart to fall for this crap.” Misery rolls her eyes.
“What are you two going to talk about?”
“I’m going to rip Serena a new one.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know how right now she only has one butthole? I’m going to– ”
“Ana,” I interrupt, “why don’t you go find, um . . . another frog? To keep this one company?”
Ana leaves in a peal of giggles, and I shake my head. “Wow. She learned to pronounce your name.”
“It’s tragic,” she says mournfully. “Every day I do my best to delay her cognitive development and keep her a child forever, and that’s how she repays me.”
“My condolences.”
“Anyhoodles, how do you feel?”
Honestly, not bad. There is no smoke. Not much hurts. Everyone I love seems to have survived the week. “If I say fine, will you be yelling at me?”
“I’ll yell at you either way.”
I frown. “Why? You would have done the same. You did do the same– you married some dude you didn’t know to come look for me in enemy territory. How is that less irresponsible than a calculated bait plan to– ”
“You think that’s why I’m mad at you?” She lowers her legs and leans forward, showing me her fangs. Which means that she is very angry. “Miss Girl, I don’t give a shit about that.”
“Then what– ”
“Why do I have to find out from Lowe what a Heat is?”
I freeze. Did she just say . . . ?
“Yup, I know. And I will be reminding you that I know every day for the rest of your natural life. Which, as it turns out, you thought was going to end soon? Not that I would have known if other people hadn’t told me.”
Shit. Shit, shit. This is bad. “It turned out to be nothing. And the Heat, I would have told you the second I came back to live in the Southwest. And– ”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, you should, because– ”
“No, Serena, I’m talking. Remember when you didn’t tell me you were a Were? And we agreed that you should have? Clearly you learned nothing. You acted selfishly again. And you know what? I’m sick of this. I’m sick of you shouldering everything like you’re the fucking guy with the stone.”
“Sisyphus?”
“No– the other guy.”
“King Arthur?”
“No, the asshole who carries the planet.”
“Atlas!”
“Yes!” Her victorious smile mirrors mine. Then she remembers herself, and her expression becomes disheartened. “Serena, I can’t keep wondering what you’re not telling me. I can’t keep finding out that you’re facing enormous problems alone.”
“Misery, it’s not . . .” I have no right to cry. So I try very hard not to. “I just don’t want you to have to worry– ”
“I worry anyway. I worry more, because I don’t know whether you’ll reach out to me when you’re in need. Listen, you’ve seen me stuff my bra with math homework. I’ve seen you with your eyebrows shaved. There’s no dignity left between us. We’ve been with each other at our worst– ”
“And now you are at your best,” I blurt out. “And I don’t want to drag you back down with me.”
It’s what I feel. Really. Genuinely. I didn’t fully know it until the words slipped out, and now I’m looking at Misery, my beautiful, beloved sister, and the hurt in her eyes makes me want to step off a cliff.
“Is that what you think?” she whispers. “That I’m too . . . too functioning for you? That I wouldn’t want to be with you because . . .”
“It’s just . . . ,” I start. But anything I can think of saying feels so profoundly myopic. “You have many people who love you now. You’re not alone anymore. And I want you to be able to enjoy it without having to worry about your loser hybrid unemployed maybe-terminal friend who now has weird mating cycles and is a liability for everyone because of the undiagnosed narcissism in her family tree.” I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand. And Misery is silent for so long, I wonder if this is it.
She’s had enough.
But then she says, “I’m not. At my best. And I . . . I feel alone and insecure and lost all the time. I wonder whether people’s lives are worse because of me all the time. Having a Vampyre mate doesn’t buy Lowe any favors. And Ana? I have this fucking child who looks at me like I’m a role model. Serena, she’s so fucking small, basically held together with spit and duct tape, and one of these days she’s going to join a biker gang or ask me how children are made– ”
“You’re probably good for a while.”
“– and I’m ruining her, because I forget that I’m not supposed to swear around her. And some classmates at school have been making fun of her for not being able to shift– ”
“What?” I pull back the sheets and jump to my feet. “Those cunts!”
“I know!” She shoots up, too. “Can you believe that Juno won’t let me go suck their fucking pets dry in front of their fucking useless eyes?”
“I can, actually. The pets did nothing wrong. But we could shank the classmates themselves– ”
“Juno forbade that, too! No violence against minors,” she singsongs, in the worst imitation of Juno I’ve had the pleasure to witness. I’m still pondering avenues for revenge, but Misery continues. “It sucks. I constantly feel like I’m not equipped for this. And the reason it hurts so much is that . . . I want to be. I adore her. But would she be better off if I went away? And Lowe, his life would be so much easier with a Were mate. I should leave him, right? But I love him so much. Almost as much as he loves me.”
I laugh, and some gross snot comes out.
“But, Serena, the thing about Ana and Lowe and Juno and every other person I’ll meet for the rest of my life is . . . they’re not you. They don’t get it. They’re never going to get it.” I think– I know that if she could cry, she would. I certainly am. “Just like Koen or Amanda are never going to get it. They’ll get other things. They’ll get other moments– they’ll get their own exclusives. But they won’t get this.”
What a shameless abuse of the verb “to get.” And yet. “I can’t believe I know exactly what you mean.”
“It’s because you– ”
“Get it. Yes.”
Two normal friends would exchange a hug. We just sit back in our respective places and stare at each other, fondly amused by our very own idiocy. “Ribbit,” the frog says, and we both nod in agreement.
“You haven’t even told me that you’re in love with Koen,” she whines.
“How do you– ”
“Come on, Serena.”
I shrug. “He can’t be with me, anyway.”
“Yeah. It’s just . . .”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Koen’s not the kind of guy who lets himself be limited by stuff like people saying no.”
“And yet.”
“Yeah. What else have you been hiding? Don’t bother saying ‘nothing,’ because– ”
“I might want to stay here,” I blurt out.
“Oh.” Misery looks around, like she doesn’t quite know what to say. Honestly, it’s endearing as fuck. “In the . . . hospital?”
“No, I . . . I love this place. The Northwest. I don’t know if it’s because part of me remembers being here when I was a kid, but it feels like home. And I think I might want to live here, even if I can’t be with Koen. This is such a large territory, and I could be out of his way, and . . . Would you hate me?”
“What? No. We’ll still see each other all the time. I mean, look at Lowe and Koen. They are just as codependent as we are.”
“Are they?”
“Oh, come on. Koen is Lowe’s . . . If I said father figure, would that make things weird?”
“So weird.”
“Okay, then let’s say, the older brother Lowe always needed. He basically saved his life when he took him in, and I think Koen is proud of Lowe. I once overheard him say that ‘raising the kid’ was the best thing he’d ever done. If they can make it work, so can we. I don’t care if we’re close geographically. I just want to feel like I know what’s going on with your life.”
I nod gratefully. “Since we’re being honest: Deep down, aren’t you glad you had to skip through the whole death false alarm thing?”
“Yes, but that’s beside the point. And you deprived me of the pleasure of making fun of you for having a three-day compulsory fuckfest.” She sighs. “Serena?”
“Mmm?”
“Should we cut each other’s toenails and talk about the knot thing?”
I think about how little I want to do it. How overdue we are. “Are there clippers in the bathroom?”
She stands and goes to look for some.
CHAPTER 39
“I know it might seem like a difficult decision, but it’s for the best, Koen,” Xabier tells him. The rest of the Assembly nods with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
He feels as though the ground beneath his feet is no longer solid.
IDON’T KNOW,” AMANDA TELLS ME WHEN I ASK HER IF KOEN WILL be forced to step down.
“It’s not that simple,” Saul adds, sticking closer to her than he has in the last few weeks. They entered Koen’s cabin holding hands, or maybe it was an optical illusion. “They can’t demand that he steps down. They don’t have that kind of power. They’re not, like, our real fathers.”
Amanda stabs him with her eyes. “What they could say is that they are unwilling to stick with the Northwest.”
“Was it Anneke who told them? Is it because he kissed me in front of her?”
“It’s not just that,” Jorma explains, looking up from a ream of paperwork that’s thicker than my wrist. “Anneke, Xabier, and Conan were there when you were hurt. It left little doubt that Koen is emotionally compromised. This is less of a controlling body sanctioning a misbehaved child, and more of a conversation between adults regarding the future of the pack. Most likely, they’ll give him an ultimatum and ask that you leave the core.”
“I’m sorry. I– ”
“Serena. Honey.” Saul gives me a square look. “You literally took a bullet for the Alpha of this pack. I’m going to need you to never apologize again. And yes, I’ll have another slice of that coffee cake.”
I feel obscenely guilty. I think about it for the rest of the day, through the steady stream of visitors whose names I barely remember, and hardly sleep overnight. “That’s ideal,” Misery says, exchanging a mutually distrustful look with Twinkles. Ana decided that if he wants, he should be allowed indoors, and who was I to tell her no? Hopefully, Koen won’t mind that he’s fully moved into his room. “Since I’m here. We can spend our time making fun of Were Alphas and the sticks up their asses together.”
Koen doesn’t return until the following afternoon, when Ana is at the local airport with Amanda, waiting for Lowe to land. Misery is asleep in Koen’s closet, and I almost step on her when I go to steal another one of his hoodies. Clearly, it wasn’t just the Heat that made me partial to them.
Then, as I make toast to satisfy my newfound, ravenous appetite, a brilliant idea occurs to me.
The closet would be a spectacular hiding place. I can picture myself calmly talking this through with Koen. I could live under your bed. Have you heard of the concept of “dirty little secret”? Let’s be real, it’s not as though I love hanging out with people lately.
I press the toaster’s lever. Which won’t stay down.
I could hide in there with Twinkles. We could share some tasty bones.
Push.
Read. Sleep. Find some remote finance job and pull my weight.
Push.
I can’t be used against you if no one knows that I exist. So really, this is the best solution for all of us.
Push, push, push, push—
Two things happen in rapid succession. First, the spring mechanism in the toaster gives out. Then the door opens. When I whirl around, Koen is at the entrance. His eyes linger on my face for a moment, then flick to my fingers.
Which are still grasping the lever.
Which has fallen off.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I blurt out, feeling caught red-handed, even more than when Misery saw me draw hearts around Mr. Lumiere’s name.
Koen nods, closing the door behind him. He looks . . .
I want to throw myself at him. I want to bite his neck and squeeze him and inhale his scent so deep, it’ll never leave my lungs. Instead I take in his long-suffering expression and try not to flinch.
“I think your toaster is broken,” I inform him.
“You don’t say.”
“No, I mean– it was broken before.”
“Was it?” His gaze travels to a spot on the counter. I follow it, and . . .
Okay. Fine. The damn toaster wasn’t plugged in, and I have learned nothing. Cool. “You, um, might need a new one,” I say, with all the dignity I can muster. Which is appallingly little. “Because I’m a generous person, I will pay for it.”
“Will you.”
“Yeah. I’ll even go buy it at the store.” I hold out my hand. Why am I close to tears? “Give me the keys to your car.”
“You want to break that, too?”
I wince but stubbornly don’t retract my arm. Koen never gives over his car keys, but he does reach for my hand and pull me into him.
He has held me many times, but never like this– so close, it almost hurts, like he’s trying to swallow me inside his body. “There’s always something with you, huh,” he mumbles, for the fifth or millionth time. And for the fifth or millionth time, I melt into him and forget that there’s a whole shitty world out there.
“I’m sorry,” I say. It comes out muffled against his flannel.
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Everything?”
“Hmm.” The sound reverberates through me. “The thing is, I don’t think any of what happened is for you to feel sorry for. Aside from the toaster.” He picks me up, one arm under my knees, and carries me outside to sit us on a chair on his porch. My head fits perfectly under his chin, my legs drape across his thighs, and this is a terrible idea. Anyone could see us.
But I’ll be gone in what, twenty-four hours? If it’s all going to shit anyway, let it go to shit while I’m in his lap.
“Can I tell you something?” I force myself to say before I lose the courage. “And it’s not . . . I’m not asking for anything. I just want you to know, because . . . I just think that maybe you’d enjoy knowing?”
His chin bumps against the crown of my head. A nod.
“I was wrong. When I said that you weren’t my mate, even if I was yours. And I know what you’re thinking: ‘No, you idiot, you just fell in love with me like any regular person would, that’s what happens when two people who like each other spend time together,’ but this is . . . more. I liked you from the very start, in a way that had never happened to me, and all these feelings . . . I don’t think I have the words to explain, but I . . .”
His chest bounces under my ear. I pull back to find that he’s laughing silently.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m just glad you figured it out.”
“You mean, you knew?”
“Not for sure. But there were signs.”
“Oh.” I blink. “Really?”
“Serena, our first meeting sent you into Heat.”
I flush. “Well, we don’t know that. It could have been a coincidence.” He looks doubtful. “Seriously. Maybe Alex the IT guy sent me into Heat.”
“Yeah. Except, you couldn’t bear to be touched by anyone but me.” A smile plays at the corners of his eyes. “People without mates are much less discerning when they’re in that situation, believe me.”
“Oh.” I stare into the distance, then back at him. “So . . . you are my mate?”
“We might never know, since your biology is different from a full Were’s. I don’t care very much, because . . .”
“Because?”
“Because you’re perfect.”
I lower my eyes, feeling too full of . . . of everything to hold Koen’s gaze. “Well. I guess it doesn’t matter much. I didn’t tell you, because . . . I wasn’t trying to give you a reason to step down.”
“Good. Because I’m not stepping down.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. It’s fine. Better than fine, it’s exactly what I wanted. Koen, staying with the Northwest. The right thing to do. “Good,” I echo. I need to change the topic, before I beg him to do something he really shouldn’t. “Were the huddle leaders fuckwaffles about . . . stuff?”
“No more than usual. They said that I’m emotionally compromised over you. Which is true.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “Has been true for a while, really.”
“Maybe. So you have– so you have feelings. Big deal.” I might be indignant on his behalf, which is ridiculous. Koen doesn’t need me to protect him or advocate for him, and yet here I am. “It changes nothing. Every single decision you have ever made has taken into consideration the good of the pack.”
“Yeah. They would agree with that.”
“Good. Because it’s bullshit. You can– you can be in love with someone and still be a fantastic Alpha. The thing is, I love you, and mate or not, I wouldn’t love you half as much if you weren’t the kind of person who deserves it. And one of the reasons you deserve it is that you care.” My stupid eyes are leaking. And Koen . . .
Koen is failing, abysmally, to bite back a smile. “Everybody agrees with you, killer. Including the Assembly.”
“Good. They fucking better.”
“That’s why they rescinded the covenant.”
I don’t get it. Not at first. “What?”
“They know what happened. They know how you stood up to me. They know that I let you be our bait. They know that you saved my life. They said exactly what you said.” His hand runs through my hair. His eyes follow its path. “That your presence doesn’t influence my ability to do my job. But I think they’re wrong.”
“Wrong?”
He nods. “I think it does affect me. I think you make me a better leader.” His smile widens. “You make my world better, for sure. And mate or not, I wouldn’t love you half as much if you weren’t the kind of person who deserves it.”
My own words, thrown back at me, and it’s like my entire life reorients. The breeze, the trees, the grass, the moss, the seals, the waves– they stop, immobile, for a fraction of a moment. Then they resume blowing, rustling, swishing, whispering, splashing, lapping, but in a slightly, enormously different way.
“Does it mean that . . . ?”
He nods.
“We can . . . ?”
“If you want to.”
“If I– ” My laugh is thick. Watery. “If I want to? Do you want to?”
He laughs, too. “Let me think about it.”
I lean forward and bite him on the jaw, hard. I feel his smile grow between my teeth. “So we can just . . . stay here? In this cabin? And I’ll find some job? And you’ll do your Alpha stuff? And we’ll . . . we’ll go for runs together? And be boring?”
“That sounds like a dream, actually.”
“And I’ll cook? And we’ll see Misery and Lowe? And you’ll build me more chairs and let me decorate the cabin?”
“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
“And we’ll have Twinkles as our wolf dog who sometimes sleeps on our bed?”
“Is that why I nearly walked into a water bowl earlier?”
I nod. Burrow into him.
He sighs. Tightens his hold on me. “Such a fucking nuisance.”
I wonder why it took me until this very moment to realize that it’s been his way of saying I love you all along.
