Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 290

Chapter 290

Chapter 290

ARIA

I woke to sunlight filtering through curtains I didn’t remember closing and a body that felt like it had been put through a grinder. Every muscle ached in ways that went beyond normal soreness-this was the deep, bone-level exhaustion that came from sustained trauma and magical exertion and emotional devastation all compressed into a timeframe that shouldn’t have been survivable.

The Hunt was over. That was the first coherent thought I managed. The trials were complete. I’d survived them. We’d survived them.

And everyone knew what I’d done.

The second thought followed the first with inevitable gravity, pulling me from the foggy comfort of half-consciousness into the sharp reality of consequence. The entire pack had heard me confess to visiting Damon. Had watched Ivory attack me with justified rage after getting her memories back. Had witnessed Kael tell me I wasn’t good enough because I couldn’t be honest, couldn’t be trusted, couldn’t commit to what I had.

I pressed my face into the pillow and wanted very badly to disappear.

The chambers were empty except for me. Kael’s side of the bed was rumpled but cold—he’d been here at some point during the night but had left before dawn. I didn’t know if that was deliberate avoidance or just him returning to normal Alpha duties after the Hunt’s disruption. Didn’t know if I was supposed to care about the distinction.

My guard was probably outside. The one Kael had assigned to ensure I didn’t leave pack territory, didn’t do anything foolish, didn’t prove once again that I couldn’t be trusted to make good decisions without supervision. I could feel his presence like weight pressing against the door, a constant reminder that I’d lost the right to freedom of movement.

I forced myself upright despite my body’s protests. Forced myself to stand, to move toward the bathroom, to face my reflection in the mirror with something approximating courage.

I looked like hell. That was the objective assessment. My eyes were swollen from crying, my face pale beneath the bruising that had bloomed overnight from various Hunt injuries. My hair was a disaster-still matted in places with blood that wasn’t mine, tangled beyond what a simple brush was going to fix. And my expression showed everything I was feeling because I’d never learned how to hide what lived in face.

my

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Fear. Shame. The particular hollow exhaustion of someone who’d been emotionally eviscerated in public and was now expected to continue existing as if that was a reasonable thing to do.

I spent an hour in the bath. Too long, probably-the water went cold twice and I had to reheat it, sitting there staring at the tiles and trying to convince myself that getting out and facing the day was preferable to drowning myself in lukewarm water. Eventually pragmatism won over despair and I emerged, dried off, dressed in the simplest clothes I could find.

The guard was indeed outside when I opened the door. Different one from yesterday—a woman this time, someone I vaguely recognized from training sessions but had never spoken to directly. Her expression was professionally neutral in ways that somehow made it worse than if she’d been obviously hostile.

“Luna,” she said, acknowledging me with the title that felt increasingly like mockery. “Where would you like to go?”

Where did I want to go? Nowhere. Somewhere far from here where no one knew what I’d done. Somewhere I could hide until everyone forgot about me and I could stop carrying the weight of being the inadequate Luna who’d betrayed her Alpha’s trust.

my chambers would “Dining hall,” I said instead, because I needed to eat and because hiding in only confirm that I was exactly as weak as everyone believed. “If that’s allowed.”

“Everything within pack territory is allowed,” the guard said. “Just not leaving it. Alpha Kael was specific about the boundaries.”

We walked through grounds that were already awake with morning activity. Pack members going about their business, training sessions happening in the yard, the normal rhythm of pack life resuming after the Hunt’s extraordinary disruption. And everywhere we passed, people noticed me.

Some stared openly. Others tried to be subtle about it, glancing my way and then away quickly when they realized I’d caught them looking. A few whispered to their companions—I couldn’t hear what they were saying but the body language was clear enough. They were discussing me. What I’d done. What it meant for the pack.

Whether I deserved to still be Luna or whether Kael should have removed me when he’d had the chance.

The dining hall was crowded with the breakfast crowd. I hesitated at the entrance, wanting to turn around and flee back to the chambers, but my guard’s presence behind me made retreating impossible. So I forced myself forward, toward the food service area, acutely aware of how conversations quieted as I passed.

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