Mate - 27

He never thought the world was a particularly fair place. Still, it’s a startlingly vile brand of cruelty on fate’s part, to show him her— what he could have had, if only he’d made different choices.

I N THEORY,” LAYLA SAYS CAREFULLY, “WITH A HIGH DOSE OF PROGESTERONE , we should be able to prevent Estrus.”

“Perfect. Then— ”

“But we don’t know how an injection would interact with your biology.” Her eyes fall on the lab results strewn over the desk, and she starts ticking off her fingers. “Your Estrus started manifesting much earlier than in any other patient I’ve heard of, your hormone levels are still off, and your body doesn’t always respond to medication. When Dr. Henshaw gave you steroid blockers, they were ineffective, just like antipyretic drugs. You could even get a paradoxical reaction— ”

“We can try , though. Right?”

She pauses. “Serena, I will be happy to help you find a suitable partner— ”

“That’s not it.”

“What is it, then?”

“What if . . .” I close my eyes. “What if my body is set on Koen?” What if my soul is, too. What if the idea of doing any of this with someone who isn’t him makes my stomach turn and my heart shrivel?

Out of everything I’ve said, this takes her aback the most. Her eyes widen, and she leans forward over the desk, as if to better reassure me, “I understand that you and Koen have grown close. Heat is a turbulent time, and it’s natural to want to spend it with someone you trust. We are not Human, after all, and we communicate through nonverbal signals like touch or scent, and it’s normal to want to be with someone who reads you well. But you can still find someone else who qualifies— ”

“Maybe it’s not about can .” I swallow. “Maybe it’s about want .” Honestly, I no longer know if there’s a difference between the two.

Her lips flatten. “Serena, it’s forbidden. To help you through your heat, Koen would be required to step down, which would inevitably lead to a succession war. Even worse, the Assembly might decide to— ”

“Secede again. Yes.” It’s my turn to lean forward. Make sure she understands. “I have no intention of putting Koen, or the Northwest, in that position. And that’s why I need you to help me not go into Heat.”

A flicker passes through her eyes, and I know that she’ll do what I’m asking for.

I STEP OUTSIDE SEM’S OFFICE TO FIND KOEN GONE AND BRENNA rolling her eyes. “You know what my favorite pastime is?”

“Um . . . no?”

“Waking up at ass o’clock in the morning because my Alpha wants me to babysit a halfling who can’t take care of herself, and noticing her poorly hidden, crushing disappointment when she sees me. So delightfully flattering.”

I blush. “I’m sorry. It’s lovely to see you, I just didn’t expect— ”

“Yeah, sure. Yap, yap, yap. Come on.” She lifts herself out of one of the plush chairs in the waiting room. “Let’s go. Koen wants me to take you home.”

I last about four seconds before asking, “Where did he— ”

“There was a situation at the border.” Her tone is bored.

“Was it the cult?”

“No. Still related to you, though.”

“Who was it, then?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Brenna, who?” I hate begging her for little snippets of information. Almost as much as she loves leaving me in limbo for the two minutes we walk to her car.

“Vampyres,” she admits once she’s behind the wheel. “A lot of them, split in two groups, trying to get to you from the north. Their plan was to have the first team distract our patrols while the second entered the territory to abduct you. Didn’t work out.”

“Who sent them?”

“See, there is some devious shit going on here. The Vampyres in the first group, the ones we were obviously supposed to catch, were wearing jewelry that would tie them to a councilmember who has historically been pro Were alliances, which . . .”

“Would be incredibly stupid.”

“And say what you want about leeches, but they’re not. Unless they are, because they think we’d fall for false flags. Food for thought. The second group was harder to identify, so . . .”

“Did they contact Owen?”

“Yup. He was able to recognize a couple of them and believes it’s proof that Councilwoman Selamio called the bounty on you. But he needs incontrovertible evidence and possibly a confession, which in turn requires the presence of someone who can be very . . . persuasive. Hence, Koen.”

Who’s nothing if not persuasive. “Are you planning to return them alive?”

She gives me a pitying glance. “That ship has long sailed for most of them.”

“Oh. Right.” I clear my throat. “Do you know what the councilwoman wanted with me?”

“To study you. Run a whole assay on your lymph nodes. Cut you up in cubes and slap you on microscope slides. That kind of stuff.” She grins at me. It transforms the usually dour lines of her face into something so stunning, I have no problem picturing Koen’s crush on her when they were younger.

Last night . . . What he and I did. What he did to me— he didn’t seem clumsy. Or new at it. Or even out of practice. And since Brenna and Koen used to—

“Are you okay?” Brenna asks me.

“Yeah. Just thinking.”

“No, I mean . . . You were seeing Sem first thing in the morning. You’re not dying or something, are you?”

I blink at her, and all at once I’m not quite sure how to breathe, or speak, or interact with the world surrounding me. It’s like I’ve been locked in a cupboard for months. But its door has been ripped open, and now there’s light. There’s air. There’s a fucking future .

I don’t have CSD. Which means that I have more than just months left. I can make choices. I can go back to the Southwest, see Ana grow up, watch Misery be the worst parent on the planet. I can be a journalist again, or a financial advisor, or dedicate the next ten years to learning how to solve Rubik’s Cubes. I can apply for a loan, buy a cabin close to the Pacific Coast, and spend my mornings exploring the shoreline. I can annoy Koen ad infinitum.

The joy of it sings so loudly in my blood, the car is too small to contain it. I have to trap it within my body and let go of it little by little, in slow puffs of air.

“No,” I say at last. Because for the first time in months, I can. “As it turns out, I’m not dying.”

“’Kay. Good.”

“I . . . Brenna, could we stop by the store?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I . . .” A tear slides down my cheek. I cover my smile with the palm of my hand. “I just realized that I’m going to need some sunscreen.”

I SPEND THE DAY ALONE IN THE CABIN, WITH FREQUENT VISITS from the Weres patrolling the surrounding area. A couple of them I know. Several introduce themselves. All of them are naked. I must be adapting well to the Northwest lifestyle, because I barely notice.

They check in, see if I need anything. Ask the same questions, in the same order, with the same wording, which may take away some of the spontaneity but makes them feel even more like the proxies of the man who sent them.

I talk on the phone with Ana, then Ana and Misery, then just Misery. It’s hard not to share that I’m not yet headed for the mushroom suit. Can’t tell them about the sequel if you didn’t let them watch the original.

I putter around the house. Clean the sheets. I’m not hungry, but I open the fridge anyway, just to glance affectionately at the still prominently placed unicorn waffles. I play the piano, sure it’s silently cringing at how ghostly I pale in comparison to its owner. I try not to think about Koen’s hands. I nap, hoping I won’t wake up in flames. Or uncontrollably horny.

Heat spotting , Layla called it. They are surges that happen before Heat itself. Not long lasting, but can be intense. I suspect that your high fevers may have been surges left unattended.

Koen returns a little before sunset, while I’m going to town on a seven-year-old half-completed crossword I found under his bed. I have a whole speech ready— about what happened last night, about my lifespan’s sudden growth spurt, about how I never meant to force him to break his covenant. About how sorry I am that he spent his day dealing with Vampyre commandos who are after me, and the fact that yes, I’m absolutely judging him for letting nearly a decade pass without filling in seven across: diminishing marginal utility . But he walks inside, dark circles under his eyes and tousled hair, caught at a rare unguarded time, and all I can squawk out is “I made dinner.”

He turns. Stares. Sucks in his cheek. “Did you.” He sounds suspicious.

“Yup.”

“Saul said you’ve been asleep for the past four hours.”

“I lied. I’m good at it, as you know. Plus, by the fourth person who knocked to ask if I needed anything, I kinda knew the— What happened to your side?” A large stain seeps into the dark gray of his cotton Henley. He glances at it like he’d forgotten about it.

“I’m going to get changed.”

The closer I get, the easier it is to smell it— the coppery tinge of fresh Were blood, so different from the iron of mine. “Sure, sure. ’Tis but a scratch . You’ve proven your Alpha unflappability. Your pain threshold is so high, it’s wondering if the color blue you see is different from the color blue I see. I am adequately impressed— now take the shirt off.”

“And if I’m deathly wounded?” His eyebrow twitches skeptically. “What are you going to do about it, doctor ?”

I gasp. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to pretend I know Were anatomy, loudly debate whether you need stitches, decide that you don’t, because I have no idea what stitches even are, and clean the general area of the wound with a cotton swab while ignoring the grosser bits. Most importantly, I will not pass Go before retrieving my physician assistant diploma. Any objections?”

He hides a smile, but I spot it anyway, even as he reaches over his shoulder, grabs the upper back of the shirt, and pulls it off.

The wound is not a scratch, but neither is it as bad as the pooling blood suggested.

“Alpha,” he murmurs from above my head. “We heal quickly.”

And yet just last night, he was whole. That very spot beneath his ribs was unbroken and smooth. Except, what do I know? I didn’t get to touch him. I touched myself while no one took care of him . So unfair, I could scream. “What happened?”

“Vampyre.”

“I thought they were all . . .”

“Dead?”

I nod.

“We kept a couple for questioning. One’s restraints were a bit loose.”

“And then?”

“Then he wasn’t alive anymore. No big deal.” He disappears into his room, and I shiver, picturing blood the same color as Misery’s. I busy myself warming up dinner, setting the table with the few plates he owns, rinsing the—

Koen comes up behind me, hands bracketing my sides. I jolt. The glass slips from my hand, straight into the sink, but doesn’t break. His body barely touches mine; it’s such an inappropriately intimate, jarringly mundane gesture, my heart cracks.

And then it breaks into a million pieces when his nose nuzzles the crown of my head. His voice is as rough as coffee grounds. “Why does it feel like you’re playing house again, killer?”

Because I am. “Playing” being the key word. “I’m sorry.” My mouth is dry. “I didn’t mean to— ”

“C’mon. I didn’t say stop.”

I kill the faucet and turn in his arms. He showered off the blood and put on jeans and a flannel, which hangs open over his bare chest. The look we exchange is worth a million unspoken words but could be condensed to fewer than ten.

It’s wrong. Let’s do it anyway, though.

I reach up. Fasten the buttons of his shirt. Each one feels like a choice, like whittling the rest of the world away to carve out this night just for us. Excising a moment in time. It’s just me and him. And the face he makes a couple of minutes later, when he puts the first bite of dinner in his mouth. “Fuck me .”

I beam . “You are such a better audience than Misery.” I don’t care if Vampyres don’t eat. I’ll take her refusal of my cooking personally till the day I die.

“Holy fuck.” He continues shoveling pasta with meat sauce in his mouth, and I consider taking a picture of it and scrapbooking it. I’ve written an award-winning exposé on the largest embezzlement scandals in The City and covered one of the most abstruse monopoly trials ever recorded, but . . .

Okay, I’m still prouder of those. But it’s satisfying, watching him inhale something I made. Why do I care about some dude’s opinion?

Because he’s not some dude.

“At the Collateral mansion we weren’t allowed to prepare our food, so cooking feels like an insurrectionary action that doesn’t require me to put on clothes and go outside.”

He says “Please, insurge away” over another mouthful, and I decide to just let myself enjoy this. I ask him if he can cook. He says not well, but I tell him that I don’t believe him, not after the piano stunt, and he shakes his head, which I’ve learned is his way of laughing when he doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of having amused him.

“I can’t believe you let me teach you the C major chord. Why are you that good, by the way?”

“My dad taught music.”

“And you lied to me, because . . .”

“You didn’t ask if I could play. You asked if I played. And before this week, I hadn’t. Not in years.”

“God, I hate you.”

“Sure.”

He side-eyes me when I make him lift me onto the counter to watch him wash the dishes. “I do have some furniture.” He points at the two chairs he brought in from the porch.

“I like it better here,” I say, tapping the stone countertop.

“Can you Humans just not sit normally?”

“Can you Weres just not mind your business?”

He splashes me with soap suds, and I grin as I cover my face.

After, I make tea. He makes me add several spoonfuls of sugar, and we drink it on the back porch, sitting on the steps, long after the sun has set. From the same mug. His lips touch the same water molecules as mine.

“I can’t believe you take your coffee black but sweeten your tea,” I say.

“I don’t drink black coffee.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since I started drinking it, during the High Middle Ages.”

“But . . . I’ve been giving you black coffee.”

“And I have been hating it.”

I frown. “Are you sure you don’t take it black? Like a real man ?”

His eyebrow lifts. “I wasn’t aware of the proven correlation between virility and coffee intake.”

“Oh, there isn’t one. But you’re supposed to be warped by toxic masculinity and not know that. And I’m supposed to be the one who enlightens you.”

His stare feels like a kiss. More than any kiss I’ve experienced ever did. “You’re really a nuisance, aren’t you?”

I grin so hard, my cheeks hurt. “What do you even do when I’m not here?”

“It’s a good question. When you’re not around, the entire pack just sits around and thumb-twiddles— ”

“Oh, come on.” I elbow his biceps. “You know what I mean. What’s your corporate mission? What’s an Alpha’s routine? You wake up and the first thing you do is . . . ?”

“Chase that squirrel we discussed.”

“Koen. Don’t force me to break into your diary.”

He shrugs. Takes another sip, as if thinking about it. “It changes. For the most part, a well-functioning pack is a well-oiled machine. Everyone has their skillset, and everyone has their job. There’s lots of delegating, but as the Alpha, the buck stops with you. Which means that when something isn’t going great, when there is a decision to be made, that’s where I need to be.”

I look at him. His strong nose. The set of his eyes. How is it possible that I find him even more handsome than I did the first time I met him? “Do you ever consider . . . you know?”

“I don’t know, no.”

I scoot closer. Conspiratorial. “Do you ever consider going full dictator? I’m talking thirty-foot bronze Koen statue. Koen stamps. Koen as every child’s middle name. Senior prom theme: Koen. Mandatory Koen parades with Koen floats every week .”

“You done?”

I sigh. “Those who have the means never have the vision. Want some?”

I found monster cookies in his cupboard— another Ana souvenir. They’re a bit stale but still good. I eat most of one, then talk him into a bite by holding what’s left to his face and pouting. His mouth brushes my fingertips, and the memory of it imprints against the pad of my thumb. The scrape of his teeth. An impression of heat.

I pull away. Listen as he lists all the places he wants to show me, here in his territory, and clench my fist to hoard the warmth of his touch. It’s getting late, and the ocean breeze has me shivering, but I don’t want to go inside. I’m afraid that it’ll be over, two doors and a hallway between us, so I lift my closed fists. “Choose one.”

“No.”

“Pleeeease.” He picks the right. “I’m excited to inform you that we’ll be solving a crossword puzzle together.”

He groans. “What was the other one?”

“You give me a tour of your shop.”

“Why do I always pick the less fun one?” He sighs, but we move to the couch and start a new puzzle. His ability to solve it hasn’t improved, which delights me.

“This must be so embarrassing for you.” I pat his back.

“What shall I do without this valuable life skill?”

I press my toes into the hard muscle of his thigh. Lay my head on his shoulder. Scribble, on twelve down, Rosicrucianism . I think about having this, but times twenty. Times one hundred. Times tens of thousands. When two people fall in love, how many nights do they spend together, doing absolutely nothing, before they’ve had their fill? How many silences and crosswords and mugs of tea do they share? What can Koen and I do, to get as many as—

“Don’t,” he murmurs into my hair, not even bothering to pretend to read the clues. Yanking me back to our agreement.

A moment out of time.

No before. No after. Just during.

“Don’t . . . show you up with my amazing vocabulary and language expertise?”

“Precisely.” He inhales deeply from the hollow at the curve of my neck, arms looping around me. He does it again as I pull new words out of the page. Litigation . Boulevard . Deck. Yorkshire. He touches me, and yet he doesn’t. As close as possible, without breaking the one rule we abide by.

It’s nice.

I would give anything for a million more nights of this. Or one.

But I’m getting sleepy.

And he is, too.

And then the fever starts.