Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 524

Chapter 524

ARIA

"You're my second," Kael said. "You're supposed to support—"

"In the circle," Jordan said, "you're Kael. Among the circle you are Kael, not the Alpha. And Kael deserved the headache."

"I support this," Nina said.

"I also support this," Ivory said.

"I had no opinion at the time," Elite said. "In retrospect, the headache was appropriate."

"Killian," Kael said, turning to him.

"Don't," Killian said. "I'm not involved in your circle dynamics."

"You're sitting in a chair in my office," Kael said.

"Under Aria's protection," Killian said. "I'm here because she permitted it. Which means if she withdraws the permission I'm technically not here at all. My opinions about the bat are not available."

"Coward," Kael said.

"Practical," Killian said.

"He's learning," Jordan said.

"Also," Kael said, redirecting with the energy of someone who'd been building this point for twenty minutes, "the bat was a preemptive strike. You used the bat before you had a reason. You admitted that."

"I knew I'd find a reason later," Jordan said. "And I was correct."

"That's not how justice works," Kael said.

"That's not how justice works," Jordan agreed, "but it's how Jordan works, and in the circle those are sometimes the same thing."

"You bought books with pack money," Nina said. "Jordan was correct."

"The books came later," Kael said.

"But they exist," Nina said. "He was vindicated eventually."

"I can't believe you people," Kael said.

"You haven't been able to believe us for fifteen years," Jordan said. "You know exactly who we are."

"I do," Kael said, and the specific quality of those two words had the genuine version of what they were supposed to have — not the managed Alpha and not the performance, the actual Kael who'd read Ivory's books aloud in a park thinking that the healer reading them might somehow help the wolf.

"The pregnant woman," I said, because I'd been holding this since the previous night and it needed to be said, "almost went into early labor."

The room absorbed this.

"We know," Nina said, with the solemn weight of someone acknowledging a significant outcome.

"If she had," I said.

"She would have had a very interesting birth story," Jordan said.

"Jordan," I said.

"Too soon?" Jordan said.

"The name," Nina said. "If the baby had been born—"

"Kael Did This To You," Ivory said, with the flat delivery of someone stating a logical conclusion.

"That's a very long name," Kael said.

"Nicknames exist," Ivory said.

"Kael D Junior," Nina said. "For short."

"KDJ," Jordan said. "Even shorter."

"You're all terrible," Kael said.

"We're accurate," Nina said.

"Both," Kael said.

Killian looked around the room. At Nina, who was writing in her notebook and also still laughing. At Jordan, who was writing in his notebook and looking satisfied. At Ivory, who'd gotten the books while Kael was distracted by the Killian conversation and was now holding book eleven with the expression of someone reunited with something they'd been separated from against their will.

At me, standing in the doorway.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify