Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 292

Chapter 292

Chapter 292

ARIA

I forced myself to finish eating even though the food tasted like ash. Forced myself to sit there in the dining hall despite the stares and whispers, despite knowing everyone was probably discussing Bridget’s visit and speculating about what it meant. Forced myself to demonstrate that I wasn’t going to hide in my chambers just because facing the pack was uncomfortable.

When I finally left, my guard fell into step beside me without comment. We walked through the grounds in silence, past training sessions and morning routines and the normal functioning of a pack that was moving forward whether I was ready or not.

“Where to now, Luna?” the guard asked when we reached a junction.

I almost said the chambers. Almost retreated to the only private space I had left. But Nina’s words from yesterday echoed in my head: *You start being honest. About everything. You stop trying to handle everything alone and start actually trusting the people around you to help.*

“The healing tents,” I said instead. “I need to check on something.”

The guard nodded and we changed direction, heading toward where I knew Ivory was recovering. This was probably stupid. Was definitely going to be painful. But if I was going to start being honest, if I was going to stop running from difficult things, I needed to face the person I’d wronged most directly.

Needed to face Ivory and whatever justifiable hatred she was still carrying.

The healing tent was quieter than yesterday. Most of the Hunt survivors had been released to their quarters, leaving just the serious cases and those requiring extended observation. I could hear voices from behind curtained sections-healers conferring with patients, the murmur of recovery and treatment.

Nina was sitting outside Ivory’s curtained area, a position that suggested she’d been there for hours. She looked up when I approached, her expression carefully neutral.

“She’s asleep,” Nina said before I could ask. “Has been for most of the morning. The memory restoration exhausted her beyond what anyone anticipated.”

“I wanted to see her,” I said. “To-I don’t know. Apologize. Explain. Something.”

“She doesn’t want to see you,” Nina said bluntly. “Told me explicitly that if you came around, I

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should send you away before she woke up and was tempted to finish what she started during the trial.”

That hurt more than it should have, given that I’d expected exactly that response. “I understand,” I said.

“Do you?” Nina challenged. “Because from where I’m sitting, I’m not sure you understand much of anything about what you’ve done or what it means.” She stood, moving closer, her voice dropping to something more private. “Ivory loved Kael. For three years during his curse, she was the only thing keeping him alive and sane. She built toward a future with him. And then she woke up without those memories and had to navigate watching you occupy the space that should have been hers.” 3

“I didn’t know-” I started.

“You didn’t know because you didn’t ask,” Nina interrupted. “Didn’t try to understand what Ivory had lost. Didn’t consider that maybe, just maybe, the position you were occupying had been earned by someone else through years of sacrifice and suffering. You were too busy being insecure about your own inadequacy to see anyone else’s pain.”

The words cut deep because they were accurate. I had been so consumed with my own struggles that I’d never really considered what Ivory had lost. Had never tried to understand her perspective beyond the surface acknowledgment that she’d been close with Kael during the curse.

“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I should have tried to understand. Should have asked. Should have ” I stopped, not knowing how to finish.

“Should have done a lot of things differently,” Nina finished for me. “But you can’t undo the past. You can only decide what you do moving forward. And right now, moving forward means staying away from Ivory until she’s ready to deal with you. Which might be never. Can you accept that?”

Could I accept that Ivory might never forgive me? That I might have to live with her justified hatred for the rest of my time in Shadowmere? That there might be no redemption arc, no reconciliation, no moment where we worked through our issues and came out the other side as friends or even neutral parties? 2

“I don’t have a choice,” I said. “If that’s what she needs, I’ll stay away. I won’t make her recovery more difficult by forcing confrontations she doesn’t want.”

Nina studied me for a long moment, her expression showing calculation I couldn read. “Good,” she said finally. “That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard from you in months. Now go. Before she wakes up and I have to physically restrain one of you.”

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I nodded and turned to leave, my guard following me back toward the chambers. Back toward the isolation that was apparently going to be my life for the foreseeable future-confined to pack territory, under constant supervision, avoided by the people I’d wronged and discussed by those I hadn’t.

When we reached the chambers, I found a note had been slipped under the door. Plain paper, folded once, my name written on the outside in handwriting I didn’t recognize.

I opened it with hands that were shaking slightly.

*Security Chief Nina needs to speak with you about your visit to the neutral prison chambers and subsequent events. Please report to her office at 2 PM today. This is not optional. -Nina*

So it was starting. The investigation Bridget had warned me about. Nina was going to ask all the questions I didn’t want to answer, was going to dig into every detail of my visit to Damon, was going to determine whether I’d been complicit in his escape or in that ambush.

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