Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 520

Chapter 520

ARIA

I went to Kael's office.

This had become a thing — not a formal arrangement, not something either of us had decided, but the early mornings in the office had developed their own rhythm during the break. The book. The conversation about whatever had happened the day before. The specific kind of quiet that existed before the walkie-talkies and the council meetings and all of it.

The door was open.

I heard voices before I got there, which meant I wasn't the first, which was Monday doing its Monday thing.

All of them were already there.

Kael, at his desk. Nina and Jordan in the chairs across from it. Elite in the corner. Ivory on the small couch that had appeared in Kael's office at some point during the break and whose origins I hadn't yet tracked down but suspected involved Margo's organizational instincts applied to the recovery period.

And Killian.

He was against the far wall with the specific quality of someone who'd been given leeway — my protection, the arrangement that had been established during the chaos of the full moon incident, when it had become clear that throwing him back out was both diplomatically inadvisable and practically unworkable. He'd been assigned a room in the guest quarters of the secondary wing, two guards outside it, monitoring by Ivory three times a day.

He stood against the wall like someone who knew the leeway was conditional and was not going to do anything to test the conditions.

Kael's desk had documents on it.

It also had something underneath the documents that Kael was clearly aware of and was trying not to draw attention to, which was drawing my attention to it in the specific way that things people try not to draw attention to always do.

Books.

Not Ivory's books. Or not the ones that Ivory already had. New books — still in the supplier's packaging, the specific sealed wrap that meant they'd come through the delivery system rather than being browsed and selected locally.

I looked at the packaging.

I looked at the supplier mark on the corner.

I looked at Kael.

He was looking at something on the desk that was not the books.

Ivory was looking at the books.

"What," Ivory said, "are those."

"Documents," Kael said.

"Those are not documents," Ivory said.

"They're—"

"Kael," she said.

He shifted the documents slightly. Not covering the packaging — the documents were already covering the packaging. Just shifting, with the quality of a man who knew the covering wasn't working and was doing it anyway.

"Those are," Ivory said, getting up from the couch with the energy of someone who'd made a decision, "in the series that I have not bought yet because I was short on funds this month."

"I don't know what—"

"Books nine and ten," Ivory said. She was already at the desk. Her hand came down on the packaging before Kael had finished not-knowing-what-she-was-talking-about. "These are books nine and ten."

"I can explain—" Kael started.

"And these," Ivory said, lifting the packaging to look at the one beneath it, "are from the Crimson Wolves series which I have not read yet because it only just came out and I was going to order it this week."

"It was Aria," Kael said, pointing at me.

"Those are critical annotations," Kael said. Ivory grabbed a book and flipped it to a random page that had scribblings on it as she read aloud

"The note on page forty-seven of book nine," Ivory said, "says, and I'm quoting directly: 'Everest is making a MISTAKE. The window was RIGHT THERE.'"

Nina's laugh arrived before she'd apparently decided to let it, a short bright sound that she immediately controlled. She was at the side of the room with her notebook — not making notes, just holding it, because the notebook gave her something to look at when looking at other things was becoming difficult.

Ivory was looking at him with the expression she wore when she was deciding how much to enjoy something before addressing it.

"You bought them," she said, to Kael. "Behind my back. After I specifically brought up the book club idea—"

"The book club idea was rejected," Kael said.

"It was rejected by people who then, apparently," Ivory said, "went and bought the books anyway. For themselves. Secretly. While telling me there would be no book club."

"It's not a book club," Kael said. "It's—"

"What is it," Ivory said.

"Personal reading," Kael said. "For relaxation purposes."

"Personal reading," Ivory said.

"Yes," Kael said.

"Of books you bought behind my back," she said.

"I didn't buy them behind your—" he started.

"How long has this been happening," Ivory said.