Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 371

Chapter 371

KAEL

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I heard it the first time and decided I’d misheard it.

This was a reasonable decision. I’d been walking through the main corridor after my second meeting of the morning, thinking about the coalition correspondence that needed responses and the security review Nina had scheduled for the afternoon and the conversation with Ivory that I’d had two days ago and was still processing in the careful way of something that needed time rather than speed. My mind was occupied. Mishearing things was entirely plausible.

What I thought I’d heard was two pack members, standing near the equipment storage, saying something that contained the words *Ivory* and *Aria* and *both* in a combination that didn’t make immediate sense in the context of anything I was currently aware

I kept walking.

I turned the corner into the east passage and passed three more pack members who were having a conversation that stopped when they saw me and then resumed at a lower volume after I’d passed, which was not unusual – pack members often adjusted conversations when the Alpha walked by, either because the conversation was about him or because they’d been taught that certain discussions were more appropriate in certain contexts.

I filed this in the background and continued to the next meeting.

The next meeting was with Jordan, reviewing the logistics of the week’s security rotations and the continued monitoring requirements around Sera’s presence in the territory. Jordan was professional and thorough and said nothing unusual. But at one point, when I referenced Ivory’s clinic schedule and how it intersected with Sera’s movement restrictions, something happened in Jordan’s expression that was there and then wasn’t, controlled with the speed of someone who’d been practicing the control specifically for a situation they’d anticipated encountering..

I noticed this. Filed it. Continued with the meeting.

After Jordan left, I walked through the training complex toward the administrative building and passed the small courtyard where three of the younger pack members were sitting on the low wall eating their midday meal. They saw me coming and the conversation cut off with the specific quality of people who’d been saying something and had decided collectively, instantly, that this was not the moment to be saying it.

One of them turned visibly red,

I walked past. Kept my expression neutral. Thought about the equation forming from several data points and decided that the most efficient approach was to find someone who’d tell me directly what was being said rather than continuing to collect fragments that I was assembling in a direction I wasn’t confident about,

I found the next group of pack members near the textile workshop entrance-four women, including Amber, gathered in the way of people who had found something worth discussing and were giving it the attention it deserved.

My mouth made a decision before my brain had finished its review of the situation.

“Do you know where Aria or Ivory is?” I asked.

The effect of this question on the four women was immediate and comprehensive. They turned toward me with the synchronized

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0:44 am Pppp.

Chapter 371

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quality of people who’d all just received the same information simultaneously, their expressions doing a range of things that collectively communicated that my question, in the current context, had landed differently than I’d intended.

Amber went red. Not the mild flush of mild embarrassment but the specific, comprehensive red of someone whose entire face had been informed of something and had responded to it without consulting the rest of the presentation..

The woman beside her pressed her lips together with the effort of someone applying significant pressure to a response that very much wanted to come out.

“Alpha Kael,” Amber said, and her voice had the texture of someone walking very carefully across unstable ground, “is looking for both of them.”

She said it to the group rather than to me. Not rudely-more with the quality of someone narrating a situation for the benefit of those present.

“At the same time,” the second woman said. Her voice was doing something strained.

“He’s very-” the third woman started, and then stopped.

“-busy,” the fourth one finished, which was clearly not the word the third one had been heading toward.

They were flustered in ways that I didn’t have immediate context for. Visibly, completely, in ways that suggested the question I’d asked was funnier than I understood it to be. The two women at the back were engaged in the specific discipline of people trying not to react to something in front of an authority figure-faces going carefully blank, eyes finding neutral points in the middle distance.

“I just need to find-“I started.

“They’re both on the grounds,” Amber said, with the efficiency of someone completing an interaction before it got worse. “Ivory was at the clinic, Aria was heading toward the administrative building.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Of course, Alpha,” Amber said, with perfect composure and eyes that were doing a completely different thing from her voice.

I walked away.

Behind me, immediately after I’d turned the corner, I heard the sound of several people simultaneously exhaling, which was followed by something that was technically not laughter but was occupying the same general territory.

I stopped walking.

Stood in the corridor,

Applied the available data points to each other with the specific focused attention of someone who’d been gathering them for the past hour and who had, apparently, been the last person in Shadowmere to understand what they were gathering.

Ivory. Aria. Both, At the same time. Pack members going red when asked about it. Jordan controlling his expression in a meeting. The younger pack members cutting off their conversation when I walked by. Amber and her companions being flustered by the question of where they were in a way that made no sense unless the question of where they were, in the current context, had a meaning I hadn’t been attaching to it.

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