Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 453

Chapter 453

Chapter 453

Chapter 453

ARIA

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Through the link: the wolves had felt the change in the link’s quality when I’d processed what had happened to Terrence. They’d felt it and they’d understood it and they’d pressed harder,

the grief came later, the because that was how wolves processed loss in a combat context — fight was now, and the fight now was the thing that honored the loss.

I put the full lunar blast out.

–

—

the thing I’d been keeping Not at a specific target. Not minimum necessary. The full version in reserve because using it fully in a coordinated engagement was like swinging a hammer at a chess board. But the engagement had reached the stage where precision was less important than force, where the attacking force needed to understand in a language that had no ambiguity that they had miscalculated everything about tonight.

The blast went outward in a wave.

—

not an explosion, not fire, the The specific quality of it was the thing I didn’t have words for moon’s light expressed as force, as the translation of the bloodline’s most fundamental property into something the physical world could feel. The wave caught the main force’s remaining formation and the reserve wave’s remnants and the gap between them simultaneously.

People ran.

A significant number of them, in the same direction, which was away from Shadowmere’s northern border with considerable urgency.

The ones who didn’t run were on the ground.

The ones on the ground were breathing. I’d calibrated for that. The calibration had cost me most of the remaining reserves I had, but it had worked, and breathing people were people who would answer questions later.

Through the link: thirty wolves standing in the north of the pack grounds in the aftermath of the blast wave, all of them still connected to the anchor, all of them still themselves.

“Is that all of them,” Priya said.

“I think that’s all of them,” Sam said.

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Chapter 453

…

“Are we sure,” Louis said.

“Jason,” I said, into the walkie-talkie.

—

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“Checking,” Jason said. A pause. “Northern approach is clear. Eastern perimeter is clear. Western hold on.” Another pause. “Clear. I have eyes on all positions. Retreat appears to be comprehensive.” His voice had the quality of someone who’d expected to be reporting something worse and was very glad to be reporting this. “Luna Aria. I think we’re done.”

Through the link: thirty wolves processing the word done.

“We’re done,” Andrew said.

The anchor was still warm.

The link held.

—

I let it hold for another thirty seconds, feeling all of them through it thirty wolves in the north of the pack grounds, tired and injured in varying degrees and alive, all of them connected to me through something that hadn’t existed before tonight and was going to exist in my memory for as long as I had one.

Then I let the link settle back into the anchor and breathed.

Santos was already organizing the post-engagement assessment. Jason was bringing his archers down from the elevated positions. Margo was out of the east alcove and moving toward the injured.

I looked at the northern tree line. At the scattered evidence of the trap engagement. At the pack grounds around me, which were Shadowmere’s pack grounds and were still standing and

were ours.

Damon had run when the full blast went out. I’d registered him running and had let him run because catching him tonight wasn’t the goal and because catching him without Kael there would have produced a situation I wasn’t ready to manage alone.

He would be a problem for another time.

Tonight had its own accounting, and the accounting came out clearly.

They’d come to prove we fell apart without our leadership.

We hadn’t fallen apart. The anchor was warm. Thirty wolves were standing in the dark.

Terrence was gone, and that mattered, and would always matter.

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Chapter 453

We’d won.

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Through the link, a feeling I didn’t have words for thirty wolves processing the specific

–

quality of what had just happened and sending something back through the connection that was warm and solid and real. Andrew’s voice, quiet: *Good.*

Priya: *Yeah.*

Louis: *We were with you.*

Then the field report, because thirty wolves were still thirty wolves and they were thorough:

*Eastern boundary clear.*

*Western boundary clear.*

*Three witches incapacitated in the northern section. One fled. Two retreating on foot.*

*Twenty-six hostile wolves in retreat past the boundary markers. Four incapacitated on field.*

*One hundred nine retreated before final push.*

*Casualties?*

*Six injured, one critical. Margo has been notified.*

I exhaled.

Santos was at my right shoulder. He’d been there through most of the fight and had not once suggested I get back and let him handle it, which I was going to appreciate properly when I had a moment.

“That was something,” Santos said.

“Yes,” I said.

“The reversal,” he said. “The telekinesis. Ivory will want to know about that.”

“Ivory’s going to have opinions about it,” I said.

“She’s going to want to document it,” Santos said.

“She’s going to want to document it before she’s even out of whatever they’ve done to her,” I said. “She’s going to ask me to describe it in technical detail while Kael is in the same room telling her she needs to rest.”

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Chapter 453

“And then,” Santos said, with the faintest edge of a smile, “the rope.”

“And then the rope,” I agreed.

“Luna,” Jason said, through the walkie-talkie.

“Still here,” I said.

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