Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 442

Chapter 442

Chapter 442

Chapter 442

IVORY

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“Complicated,” he said.

“Your father used that word,” I said. “About his choices. I’ve been told.”

His jaw did the thing.

“Want to know what I want,” I said. “If you’re telling me I’m your fated mate and that means something to you. Want to know what I actually want from my life, fated bond or not.”

He was quiet.

“I want to see Kael healthy,” I said. “With the integration complete and the mindlink restored and the pack running the way it should. I want to see Nina stop sitting on corridor floors outside locked offices. I want to see Jordan stop pretending to look at the ceiling when he’s overwhelmed. I want to see Elite benchpress something that actually needs benchpressing.” I paused. “I want to see what Aria becomes. She’s going to be extraordinary. I want to be alive to see it.”

I looked at him.

“That is what I want,” I said. “That is the full accounting. And none of it requires a fated bond to function. None of it requires you. What it requires is me getting out of this room and getting home and dealing with whatever is coming next.”

“If you mate someone who’s not your fated-” he started.

“Then I mate someone who isn’t my fated,” I said. “Go ahead. Tell me how that’s different from what your father did.”

‘My father mated his fated and still-”

“Yes,” I said. “Exactly. Your father mated his fated and still had you. The bond didn’t prevent anything. So tell me why it’s supposed to be the determining factor.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then: “You are extremely difficult.”

“Everyone says that,” I said. “I take it as a compliment.”

Then Damon said it.

He said it with the casual cruelty of someone who’d been waiting to deploy something and had found his moment

talking about

a plan. About using Ivory’s capture as bait to draw Kael’s team out of Shadowmere. About sending a force to the pack while the senior leadership was gone. Feral wolves. Witches. All aimed at a pack whose wolves couldn’t shift easily, whose mindlink was broken, who had children who were connected to a system that had been severed.

I moved before I thought about it.

The chains caught me. Of course they did.

1/3

10:57 am

Chapter 442

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Vela’s blast hit me while I was surging forward and I screamed because the shield took most of it but most of it wasn’t none of it and I was already damaged enough that partial wasn’t painless.

“Killian!” Vela snapped. “Choose. Her or us. She’s already chosen Kael. Are you going to give up your revenge for someone who doesn’t care about you?”

I was on the floor. The shoulder was worse. The blisters on my wrists were worse. The blast’s residual shock was working its way through me with the specific thoroughness of something that had hit the shield but wasn’t done.

“Killian,” I said. Quietly. From the floor.

He came to me. Of course he did. The fated mate pull was functional even if everything else between us was a disaster.

He crouched down. Checked the injuries with the careful movements of someone who hadn’t wanted this outcome. His hands were gentle in the way that was deeply infuriating given the entire context..

I got dlose to his ear.

“A fated mate,” I said, my voice barely a breath, “can’t watch his mate in pain without doing something about it. That’s how it works. You know it works that way.” I felt him go still. “Weaken the chains. Just weaken them – I’ll do the rest. Then leave. You don’t have to be here for what comes next. And I won’t tell Kael you were involved with them. You have my word.”

He was absolutely still.

“You’re manipulating me,” he said, equally quiet.

“Yes,” I said. “Is it working?”

A pause that lasted approximately four seconds.

Then I felt something change in the chains. Subtle – the compound in the metal losing some of its potency, the grip of it loosening at the left wrist specifically. Not enough to get free immediately. Enough that with time and effort I could work it loose.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Killian said, pulling back to full distance, his voice back to normal volume.

“Probably not today,” I said.

He stood. Looked at Vela. At Damon. At the room full of people who’d been hunting me for four years and had finally gotten me into a position they thought was permanent.

“I need air,” he said, to Vela, and walked out.

Vela watched him go with the expression of someone who wasn’t satisfied with that answer and was going to deal with it shortly. Then she turned back to me and said something about how my friends weren’t coming, about how by the time anyone found me it would be too late.

I wasn’t listening.

I was working on the left wrist.

The weakened link that Killian had done something to I didn’t know exactly what, didn’t know if it was the fated mate pull or calculation or some combination of both – was giving under pressure. Slow. The blisters were worse where I was working the chain against them. I wasn’t going to cry about it because crying was not useful and also deeply uncool.

2/3

10:57 am

Chapter 442

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