Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 400

Chapter 400

Chapter 400

Chapter 400

“Yes,” Ivory said.

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Vina looked at Jordan. Jordan looked at Nina. The exchange between them was the silent version of a full security planning conversation – the kind they’d been having for years, that required very few words and covered a great deal of ground.

‘I’ll start mapping the connections,” Jordan said. “From last night’s attacker backward. What we know about her pack of origin, her >ower signature, who she might connect to.”

‘I’ll talk to Kael,” Nina said.

‘He’s going to be-” Ivory started.

‘Kael is going to be told everything,” Nina said, and her voice had the specific quality that meant this was not up for negotiation. Today. Before the eleven hours runs out and he comes in here expecting to negotiate the version you were going to tell him.” She ooked at Ivory steadily. “You’re going to tell him all of it, Ivory. Not seventy percent. All of it.”

vory looked at the rope on her wrist.

The rope comes off,” Nina said, “when you agree to tell him all of it.”

That’s coercion,” Ivory said.

It’s extremely effective coercion,” Nina said. “Which is different.”

looked at Ivory. She was looking at her wrist, at the rope, at the view outside the window, at the ceiling, at all the places that were lot Nina’s face where the answer was waiting for her.

Fine,” she said finally.

Fine as in you’ll tell him everything,” Nina said.

Fine as in I’ll tell him considerably more than I was planning to tell him,” Ivory said. “And fine as in the rope comes off now.”

The first part is acceptable,” Nina said. She began untying the rope. “The second part depends on whether you attempt to get off he table in the next forty-eight hours.”

I’m not going to-”

The rope will be available,” Nina said. “In the cabinet. Conveniently accessible.”

‘Nina,” Ivory said.

‘Ivory,” Nina said.

The rope came off.

vory flexed her wrist. Looked at me. Looked at the door, in the way of someone calculating,

“Don’t,” Jordan said, from the foot of the table, still looking at the ceiling.

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10:49 am P P

Chapter 400

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Ivory subsided.

I reached into the bag I’d brought with me – the one I’d packed before coming, because I’d had a reasonable suspicion about what this situation was going to look like and had prepared accordingly. I produced the botanical text that she’d been referencing in her last round of treatment notes, the one Kael had sent as part of the recovery gift, and set it on the table within her working hand’s reach.

She looked at it.

“You can read,” I said. “From the table. Without getting up.”

She looked at me.

“There’s also-” I reached back into the bag and produced the other thing, setting it beside the botanical text. The paper-wrapped stack, slightly battered now from travel, in the plain wrapping she’d use to disguise them from clinic visitors.

Her expression changed.

“Books three and four,” I said. “I thought you might be done with one and two.”

“Where did you-” she started.

“Margo,” I said. “She knows where things are.”

Ivory looked at the wrapped stack. At the botanical text. At me, with an expression that was doing the complicated thing it did when she’d been offered something she wanted and was deciding whether accepting it was consistent with the position she’d been taking.

“I’m not going to stay in this bed for forty-eight hours just because Nina has rope,” she said.

“Absolutely not,” I agreed.

“Thirty hours is reasonable,” she said. “Given the circumstances.”

“Very reasonable,” I said.

“The patients that need immediate attention should be flagged to me,” she said. “I’ll consult from here.”

“I’ll make sure Margo knows,” I said.

She reached for the botanical text with her working hand. Settled it in her lap. Looked at the window, the morning, the pack grounds beyond it.

“The rope was unreasonable,” she said.

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