Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 474

Chapter 474

Chapter 474

Chapter 474

ARIA

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Ivory was quiet for a moment.

‘Let me reset the traps,” Nina said again. “You supervise. From a sitting position.”

‘I don’t need to sit,” Ivory said.

“Ivory”

‘The sitting is excessive,” Ivory said. “Standing is-”

‘Sitting,” Nina said.

vory sat down on the low garden bench near the shed entrance with the specific quality of someone making a concession they’d decided was worth fewer words than the alternative.

‘The secondary trigger points on the western approach,” she said. “I want them positioned at the secondary oak and the stone narker at thirty feet. The angle needs to cross-cover rather than parallel-”

‘I have the documentation,” Nina said. “I read it when you made the first set.”

‘You read the installation documentation,” Ivory said.

‘I read all of it,” Nina said. “I’m security chief. I read everything you write.”

‘Even the-“Ivory started.

‘Yes,” Nina said.

‘All the margins too?” Ivory said.

‘All the margins,” Nina said, with the serenity of someone who’d made peace with everything they’d found in the margins. ‘Including the ones about Kael.”

Kael, who’d been making his way through the garden with the quiet quality he’d had all morning, looked up at this.

‘What ones about me,” he said.

‘The ones in the third botanical volume,” Nina said. “Page forty-seven. The margin note about the sedative compound resistance.”

“That’s a clinical observation,” Ivory said. “Not an about you.”

“It says your name,” Nina said.

“In a clinical context,” Ivory said.

“With three asterisks,” Nina said.

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Chapter 474

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“The asterisks are a notation system,” Ivory said.

“What do three asterisks mean in your notation system,” Jordan said.

“Significant,” Ivory said.

“And one asterisk?” Jordan said.

“Notable,” Ivory said.

“Two?” Jordan said.

“Important,” Ivory said.

“So three asterisks means very significant,” Jordan said. “Kael specifically is very significantly resistant to the sedative compound.”

“In a clinical context,” Ivory said again.

Kael was looking at the plant near his left hand with the expression of a man choosing not to engage with a topic while Ivory sat nearby explaining her asterisk system.

Jordan made a note in the small notebook he’d produced from somewhere on his person, which meant the notebook was going in the intelligence files under *things we know about Ivory’s documentation system.*

I moved to the part of the garden I’d been in the previous evening- the secondary section, the nightbloom, the silver-leafed compound. The morning light was doing the thing that the evening light had done the night before, catching the luminescence of the plants, the specific quality of Ivory’s cultivated space showing its full character.

crouched at the nearest nightbloom and checked its root base the way Ivory had shown me. Then I said hello.

‘The roots are healthy, Silver said.

“Good,” I said, to the plant.

The root system’s response was something I felt through the anchor – not words, not communication in any meaningful sense, but something. The equivalent of a cat looking at you with extended attention. An acknowledgment without language.

‘She did that, Silver said, about Ivory. Built that response into them. It takes years. It’s in the structure she established when she planted them.”

I sat back on my heels.

Behind me, I heard Ivory talking Jordan through the additional trap placement while ostensibly remaining in a sitting position. I could hear from the description that she was using extremely specific visual references that would only make sense to someone who’d been in the garden many times.

I heard Jordan say: “I understand the angle. I’ve been in this garden before.”

“I’m making sure,” Ivory said.

“You’ve been making sure for four minutes,” Jordan said. “I have it.”

“The cross-coverage is-”

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Chapter 474

“Ivory,” Jordan said.

“Fine,” she said.

Then Nina’s voice, from nearer the main shed: “This one here?”

“That one is not a trap position,” Ivory said. “That one is the root base of the eastern secondary sedative. Don’t-”

“I’m not touching it,” Nina said. “I’m identifying it.”

“You’re very close to it,” Ivory said.

“I know what it looks like,” Nina said. “You’ve been very thorough in the documentation.”

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