Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 373

Chapter 373

Chapter 373

Chapter 373

KAEL

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The central grounds of Shadowmere erupted.

Not in the outraged silence of a place that had witnessed something inappropriate. In the specific joyful chaos of a crowd that had just received the thing it had been waiting for cheering, actual cheering, from thirty-some pack members who’d positioned themselves for exactly this and were now getting the return on that investment with interest.

From the balcony, I heard Elite. Laughing. Actually laughing. The sound of it was so unfamiliar coming from Elite that it registered separately from everything else – sharp and genuine and thoroughly delighted.

Jordan had put his face in his hands. This was not a gesture of distress. This was a gesture of someone who could not look at the central grounds without losing the composure he’d been maintaining for the past however many hours and was making a strategic choice about where to direct his face.

Nina was looking at the middle distance with the expression of a woman at complete peace with her choices in life.

Aria had gone the specific red of someone whose entire cardiovascular system had received surprising news. She was staring at Ivory with an expression that was trying to find words and hadn’t located them yet.

I was screaming internally..

Not at the situation

or not entirely at the situation. Mostly at myself, for the specific failure of standing in the center of my own pack grounds with my wolf doing an extremely unhelpful victory circuit in my head while thirty people cheered and my security chief watched from a balcony with the serenity of someone who’d always known this day would come.

*This is not happening, I told my wolf.

He was already not listening.

*Ivory said it to be funny, I told him. *She said it because the crowd was watching and she made a choice about the moment. It means nothing.”

He had thoughts about what it meant. I was not going to engage with those thoughts.

*Aria doesn’t even know what’s been circulating, I thought, with the desperate clarity of someone trying to locate the rational architecture of a situation that had temporarily lost it. *Sera planted something, it got through the pack, and now we’re standing in the central grounds dealing with the consequences.*

My wolf pointed out, helpfully, that regardless of what Sera had planted, Ivory had just said what she’d said,

I pressed this thought firmly aside and tried to locate the Alpha.

The Alpha was in here somewhere. The Alpha was the person who conducted himself with measured authority in situations that required measured authority, who managed difficult moments with the kind of steady leadership that a pack needed from its center, who did not stand in the central grounds being cheered at by thirty people while internally having an argument with his own wolf about the implications of a joke.

I found the Alpha.

1/3

10:44 am Pppp.

Chapter 373

He was significantly outnumbered by the rest of what was happening inside me, but he was there.

0441

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Ivory was already walking. Not running-Ivory never ran from things, she simply moved through them with the composure of someone who’d made her contribution and was now attending to other business. She was heading in the direction of the clinic with the purposeful ease of someone who’d said a thing and was content to let it exist in the world without further management.

I was mentally screaming at her back.

*Ivory. Ivory, turn around. Ivory, you cannot just-*

*The mindlink’s been broken since the curse years, my wolf said, with the specific smugness of someone who’d been waiting to deploy that information. *She can’t hear you.*

*I know she can’t hear me,* I thought back. *Shut up.*

*The bond with Aria is active, though.*

*I am not-*

*You could reach through the bond and-*

*I am absolutely not, I told him, with finality.

Ivory disappeared around the corner of the clinic building. The crowd’s energy settled into the warm aftermath of a moment that had delivered on its promise – people dispersing with the satisfied quality of those who’d witnessed something they were going to be describing to others for the rest of the day.

From the balcony, Jordan, Nina, and Elite began the process of looking like they’d simply been up there for ordinary reasons and were now returning to their ordinary responsibilities. Nina’s departure had the specific dignity of a woman who had no idea what anyone was talking about. Jordan’s had the quality of someone recovering from a minor incident. Elite’s involved one more small smile that she directed at no one in particular before she turned and went inside.

I was left in the central grounds.

With Aria.

Who was still standing approximately twelve feet away, visibly red, looking at the space where Ivory had been.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

The thirty-some pack members had mostly dispersed. Mostly. There were still six or seven present who were very interested in the flower beds and the building structure and other entirely innocent features of the central grounds,

“I need to explain something,” I said.

“Okay,” she said.

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