Mate (Bride, #2) (50)

I try to stand again, and at last Koen lets go of me. I rise to my feet and take a step away, not hasty but determined.

What the hell was I doing?

“Bedtime is still your favorite part of the day, huh?” Koen asks breezily, and the man lets out a low, pain-filled groan. It’s like nothing just happened.

Because nothing happened, I remind myself. He just said that he’s not interested. And it wasn’t the first time. “Mai, this is Serena. Serena, Mai is in charge of our northeast borders. You’ve been keeping him busy.”

“Me?”

Mai nods. “We stopped eleven Vampyres from entering our borders in the last two days.”

I gasp. “Eleven? Is that a real number?”

“Would you like to see their bodies?” Koen asks.

“No.”

“Good.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “They’re not in great shape.”

I swallow. “Did you figure out which councilmember sent them?”

“Nope. They were all independent agents interested in the bounty and didn’t know much. But I bet whoever’s behind the reward is getting impatient. They’ll make a stupid move soon enough.”

“Good. Well, not good, but . . .” I wince. My heartbeat seems to have stabilized. “Thank you, Mai, for . . . keeping me safe. And I’m sorry that you got stuck with the Vampyre-killing job.”

“Are you kidding? I love it.”

“Do you?”

“Mai is my eldest second,” Koen explains. “He gets his pick of assignments.”

We chat for a while. Mai pulls out his phone to show us a few pictures of John, who looks adorable, and a menace, and wants to be Koen when he grows up— like most children in the pack, apparently. But something needling and confusing sticks to the walls of my head, a thought that won’t let go, not even hours later, when I’m alone in bed under the covers, surrounded by home-decor-store quantities of pillows.

Mai is my eldest second, Koen said. The problem is, Mai looks half a decade older than Koen, tops. Which would put him around only forty. Not eldest material.

Unable to sleep despite my exhaustion, I retrace the last few days. Every step I’ve taken since entering Northwest territory. Every person I met. And when the realization hits me, I want to take my lack of observational skills and drown it in the nearby river. I can’t believe it took me so long to notice how young everyone is.

This is not the typical age distribution for a pack. I’ve now met most of Lowe’s seconds, and a third of them looked old enough to be his parents.

Not to mention that Lowe’s house was somewhat of a revolving door of Weres of all ages seeking audience for all sorts of problems.

So it’s something else. I turn inward, gears spinning. When it comes to the Northwest, I have a lot of pieces, but I’m not sure how they fit together.

Yet.

On impulse, I reach for my phone on the nightstand and type a text.

U up?

Misery: I’m a Vampyre and it’s the middle of the night.

I roll my eyes. Can you ask Lowe how long Koen has been Alpha?

The reply comes in seconds. I won’t.

Serena: Why?

Misery: Because I already know the answer.

I roll my eyes harder. Misery, how long has Koen been Alpha?

Misery: So nice of you to ask! Twenty-one years. Why?

I set the phone aside.

Koen was fifteen when he became Alpha. Fifteen. And around the same time, something big happened— something that killed Brenna’s family, destroyed pack records, and gave the Northwest a reason to reunite.

I’m not sure what the age of majority is among Weres, but I’ve seen the way young Were members are treated in packs, and I can’t imagine anyone would be happy with a fifteen-year-old becoming Alpha, least of all the fifteen-year-old in question.

Unless . . .

Unless there were no alternatives. Unless there were no dominant older members to take over. Because everyone who was past their late teens left, or was . . . eliminated. Some kind of accident? An attack? But how does that happen? What slices a pack with such surgical precision? Who does?

I grab my phone again. Ask Lowe how a boy of fifteen managed to unify an entire pack.

I fall asleep several minutes later, still waiting for the answer.





CHAPTER 15

The cabin smells like . . .

Impossible. He must be losing his mind.

THE NIGHT BRINGS SPANKING NEW LEVELS OF PAIN AND MORTIFICATION.

The recollections do not abound, but as far as I can tell: I wake up a few hours after going to bed, gasping like a rhino with sleep apnea, and make my way to the bathroom as my body works through spasms, cramps, and the fire taking over every layer of my epidermis. I sit in the shower as cold water flows over my head and beg my soon-to- be corpse to pipe the fuck down. I picture Koen walking in to find what’s left of me, a beached manta ray lifeless on the bathroom floor, deflated after puking up her internal organs.

That’s when it all gets fuzzy. I don’t recall getting up or leaving the bathroom. I definitely don’t recall crawling into Koen’s bed. And yet it’s where I wake up. Could be a Were evolutionary trait: in the face of probable death, seek refuge close to Alpha. I might be onto something. I should ask Koen, if I’m ever able to face him after what I’ve done to his room.