50 pages • 1-hour read
Mate
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Chapter 34-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, graphic violence, and death.
Chapter 34 Summary
Serena and Koen share a postcoital conversation. Knowing they’ll have to part after Estrus, they wonder if it’ll be harder to separate now that they know what it’s like to be together. They discuss how good the sex was and fall asleep.
Serena and Koen spend the following days together, having sex, talking, and eating. Serena’s condition gradually improves. She has fewer fevers and a better appetite. Meanwhile, she falls more in love with Koen. Each passing day is bliss, but it also reminds Serena that her and Koen’s time together is drawing to a close.
Finally, the Heat ends. Serena feels good physically, but she is sad that she and Koen have to part. They hold each other and have sex one more time. Serena professes her love. Koen doesn’t verbally reciprocate, but Serena can tell he loves her.
Chapter 35 Summary
After Estrus, Serena emerges from the cabin. Whe is overwhelmed by the beauty of the Northwest and wishes she didn’t have to leave.
Later, Serena reconvenes with Koen. He reveals that he is stepping down as Alpha to be with her. Serena protests, afraid for the pack and Koen’s future; he loves his leadership position. He explains that he made the decision after finding a note Serena wrote and planned to give him after her anticipated death. It made him realize how hard it would be for her if he left her. A distraught Serena blames herself for ruining Koen’s life.
Suddenly, Amanda interrupts, revealing that Nele needs to speak with Serena and Koen about Irene’s plans. Nele informs Serena and Koen that Irene is gathering forces to attack the Northwest.
Chapter 36 Summary
Serena and Koen meet with the Assembly and council about the Favored. They guess that Irene is planning to do the same thing as Constantine: attack the Alpha and other leaders to bring down the pack. Serena insists that they use her to get to Irene. Irene will want Serena to lure Koen and his seconds to her, and meanwhile, the Northwest can plan an ambush against her. Koen vehemently protests. Serena insists that because Koen loves her, he can’t control her.
Serena, Koen, and the Weres fine-tune their plan. Before parting ways, Koen makes Serena promise that she’ll come to him for help.
Serena heads out with Anneke to find Irene. They plan to ambush her at Serena’s late grandfather’s house. In the meantime, Serena asks Anneke about Koen’s future. Anneke assures Serena that Koen is fine and thanks her for not taking him from the pack.
Serena arranges to end up in Irene’s captivity. Irene demands that Serena swear loyalty to the Favored; if not, she will kill her. Serena notices the amassed weapons in the space and fears that she has underestimated Irene.
Chapter 37 Summary
Serena wakes up bound and gagged. She begs her Favored guards to let her use the bathroom. When they help her with her pants, Serena shifts into a Were and fights them.
The pack takes her signal and attacks the Favored. In Were form, Serena is almost unaffected by the violence. She sees Koen and calls to him to leave the fight. Irene appears, moving to attack Serena. A scuffle ensues, and Serena loses consciousness.
Chapter 38 Summary
Serena wakes up in the hospital, confused as to what happened. She wonders if she dreamed the past seven years of her life. Misery is by her bedside. She reveals that Serena attacked Irene to save Koen, and the pack is thrilled by her defensive action.
Misery changes the subject, inquiring after Serena’s CSD diagnosis and Heat. She reminds Serena how much she is loved and begs her not to keep any more secrets. Then the friends talk about love. Serena still fears that she and Koen can’t be together.
Chapter 39 Summary
Epilogue Summary
The narrative shifts into the third-person point of view. Serena and Koen settle into their relationship. They spend their days doing ordinary things, but they are happy. Koen loves watching Serena no matter what she is doing. However, Koen is still antsy and restless.
One day, Lowe confronts him about his demeanor. He is horrified to learn that Koen hasn’t told Serena about mating bites: When mates bite each other’s necks, they are permanently bound together; it’s easier for them to feel connected after the bite when they’re apart, too. Koen hasn’t wanted to tell Serena because he didn’t want to push her too fast.
One day, Koen returns home and Serena initiates sex. During the exchange, Serena bites Koen’s neck unprompted. A thrilled Koen bites her back.
Chapter 34-Epilogue Analysis
Serena and Koen’s forbidden love story resolves in the final chapters of the novel, in line with the conventional plot trajectory of the romance genre. Throughout the majority of Mate, Serena has been battling competing emotions. She has been desperate for intimacy with Koen and incapable of resisting her powerful sexual attraction to him, but she is also eager to protect Koen and quash her desires—terrified of compromising his position in the pack and further jeopardizing the Were community. Caught between her desires and fears, Serena has felt reluctant to trespass the boundaries of forbidden love and claim her sexual agency. Her inner conflict also highlights how the well-being of the Were community, and the Northwest in particular, has become important to her, indicating that she is Finding Identity and Belonging Through Connection.
Once Serena and Koen are free to act on their feelings, Serena discovers the power of Consent and Agency in Romantic Relationships. Serena’s Heat spans over 30 pages, protracting the depictions of her and Koen’s sexual encounters. These chapters formally enact the intensity of Serena and Koen’s dynamic. Hazelwood creates space on the page to underscore the respect and reciprocity of the lovers’ developing relationship. Serena and Koen are physically attracted to each other, but they desire to satisfy, pleasure, and enjoy one another, which fortifies their bond. The descriptive language and detail used to depict their sexual experiences underscore how complex their newfound communication with each other is:
I come again, and he comes, too, knot swelling, the pleasure sharper than a knife, slicing right through us. Irreparable damage that doesn’t hurt enough. Koen’s grip notches against me, leaving marks the size of his fingers in my flesh. He is a sting of wordless noises and unseeing eyes […] he never says that he loves me, but it’s written all over my skin (387).
Hazelwood is known for her raw depictions of sex and overt descriptions of sexual consent in her other work. In this passage—at the end of Serena’s Heat—she captures how verbal communication can develop into nonverbal communication over the course of a sexual relationship or exchange. At the start of the Heat, the lovers move from explicit, verbal forms of consent to more implicit, physical forms of communication. In the above passage, Hazelwood uses the metaphor of a knife to emphasize the intensity of their experience, evoking violent undertones. At the same time, Serena regards Koen’s aggressive lovemaking as his profession of love. Because scenes like this are written from Serena’s perspective, Serena has power over both her sexual experience and narrative. She feels empowered by this exchange because she has free will within it and has consented to it.
The narrative grants Serena and Koen a happily-ever-after ending. Mate is a work of romantasy (romantic fantasy) and employs the tropes of these intersecting genres. A key trope of the contemporary romance genre is a guaranteed happy ending. However, for Serena and Koen, romantic and domestic bliss does not happen until they conquer their Favored adversaries and transcend their circumstantial barriers, underscoring the success of their approach of Romance as Rebellion. They defeat Irene and convince the Assembly to throw out the covenant, and these plot points quickly resolve the characters’ obstacles and allow them to shape a life together as permanent mates. Their happy ending implies that love can be a productive form of rebellion; Serena and Koen had to take risks to be together but ultimately found bliss as a result, their relationship building into a true and equal partnership through the challenges they faced together.
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