Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 339

Chapter 339

Chapter 339

ARIA

Several pack members confirmed this with the helpful specificity of witnesses who’d noticed exactly where I’d been standing and were very willing to say so.

J

“The thing is,” another pack member said, from somewhere in the crowd, with the casual conversational tone of someone making an observation that had nothing to do with anything deliberate, “she did walk right past the sign.”

“There’s definitely a sign,” someone else confirmed.

“Large sign,” a third voice added. “Clear text. You’d have to specifically not read it.”

“Or,” a fourth voice said, thoughtfully, “walk in from an angle where you couldn’t see it. Which is what happens when people don’t send the advance memo and don’t receive the instruction manual.”

“The instruction manual covers the sign,” Margo noted, still consulting her clipboard. “So it’s-”

“Her fault,” Amber said sweetly, from the ledge. “Is what I think everyone is suggesting.”

Kael arrived.

And Nina.

They came from the direction of the main grounds, moving at the pace of people who’d heard that something had happened and were approaching it with the preparedness of individuals who needed to see the situation before deciding how to respond to it. Kael took in Sera saturated, fragrant, visibly furious – and the scene around her with one comprehensive look that

gave nothing away.

–

–

“Luna Sera,” he said. His voice was perfectly calibrated. The voice of an Alpha acknowledging a visitor’s presence, carrying nothing except the form of the greeting. “I understand there’s been an incident,”

“Your people deliberately assaulted me,” Sera said. “In violation of-

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“Maintenance accident,” Margo said, before the sentence could reach its destination. She produced her paper again. “The documentation is here. Maintenance schedule for this corridor, posted at all entrances, included in the visitor orientation materials that accompany

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the open door policy for all coalition pack guests.” She offered the paper to Nina, who took it with the professional smoothness of someone accepting evidence. “Luna Sera arrived without advance notice, which meant we weren’t able to ensure she received the orientation materials beforehand. If she had sent the standard advance memo, as other coalition Alphas typically do, we’d have made sure she was routed away from the active maintenance areas.”

“The advance memo,” Kael said, with the tone of someone confirming a known fact rather than producing a new one. “Right. All the coalition Alphas know to send that when they’re planning to use the open door policy. It’s been standard for,-” he appeared to consider this, twelve years now. Since the policy was formalized at the coalition level.” He looked at Nina. “When did we standardize the advance memo requirement?”

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“Twelve years ago,” Nina said. Without looking up from the documentation Margo had given her. “After the formatting meeting. It’s in the coalition compact.”

“Twelve years,” Kael agreed, with the thoughtful quality of someone doing the math. He looked at Sera with an expression of genuine regret. “I’m sorry you weren’t informed. That should have been communicated through your pack’s coalition contacts. I’ll make sure we follow up with them directly to ensure they have the current documentation.” A pause. “For future visits.”

The implication that there would be future visits sat in the sentence doing very specific work.

“This was deliberate,” she said, and her voice was doing its best to recover the smoothness it had lost and partially succeeding. “This was a deliberate act against a visiting Luna.”

“A bucket slipped,” Amber said, from the ledge.

“In a waste disposal area,” Margo said, from below.

“That’s in the instruction manual,” a pack member from the crowd added, helpfully.

“Which she didn’t receive,” another one noted.

“Because there was no advance memo,” a third confirmed.

“So technically,” Kael said, in the same even tone, “this is what happens when proper notification procedures aren’t followed. The instruction manual exists specifically to prevent these kinds of situations.” He looked at Sera with an expression that was so perfectly neutral it was its own form of statement. “Shadowmere takes visitor safety seriously. This is why we have the manual.”

Sera’s expression had moved through several stages and was currently sitting somewhere between contained fury and the calculation of someone determining what options remained available. She was smart enough I’d always known she was smart to recognize that the ground of this had shifted in ways that made the direct accusation path significantly more

–

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complicated. The maintenance schedule was documented. The advance memo requirement was documented. Margo had documentation in her hands that Nina was reviewing with professional attention.

Whatever she’d come here planning to report back to Damon, this was not what she’d planned to report.

“I’d like to clean up,” she said finally. The composure was back, thinner than it had been but functional. “And I’d like to be seen by the healer.”

“Of course,” Kael said. “We’ll get you settled.” He gestured to two pack members, who moved forward to escort her with th

specific form of hospitality that was indistinguishable from close monitoring. “Margo will make sure you have everything

have everything you

www.need.”

Margo’s expression communicated that she would indeed make sure Sera had everything she needed, in the specific sense of needs as defined by the open door policy and absolutely nothing beyond them.

improved the go away. The smell of whatever had in that bucket went with her, which

improved the general atmosphere of the corridor considerably.

The gathered pack members began dispersing with the unhurried quality of people who felt they’d gotten something worth coming for. Several of them were not making eye contact with each other in the specific way of people who were making a collective decision about not acknowledging something they’d all witnessed, because acknowledging it would produce reactions that couldn’t be recalled.

Kael looked at the documentation in Nina’s hands. “The instruction manual,” he said, in the tone of someone making a formal observation. “We should probably update the formatting. Make sure it’s clearly paginated.”

“I’ll put

put it on the list,” Nina said, in the tone of someone making a note about something that definitely existed and had definitely been the relevant factor here: She folded the

documentation with professional care and tucked it away. Then she moved off in the direction Sera had been taken, because monitoring was its own kind of administrative function and Nina took all her administrative functions seriously.

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