Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 532

Chapter 532

KAEL

"And then you helped Ivory," I said.

"And then I helped Ivory," he said. "Which got me hunted. Which led me here." A pause. "I know how it looks. Showing up after so long. Expecting—"

"I'm not going to kick you out," I said. "That's not—I'm not kicking you out while you're being hunted by people my pack is already dealing with." I paused. "What happens after the immediate threat is resolved is a different conversation. But right now, you're here and you're under Aria's protection and the threat is still active and you're not leaving."

He looked at me with the expression of someone receiving something they'd stopped expecting.

"She's good," he said. "Aria."

"Yes," I said.

"She didn't know me," he said. "Had no reason to—"

"She has good instincts," I said.

He nodded.

I looked at him. At the exiled years visible in his face, the specific accumulation of that time in the way time accumulated in people who'd been carrying something heavy. He looked like me in the way that distant relatives sometimes looked like each other — the same raw materials arranged differently, the same foundation producing different walls.

My father's face. My mother's eyes.

His mother's way of holding his shoulders.

The wolf, inside, said: *He needed a win.*

"The interrogation," I said. "The one Jordan conducted. He said you were cooperative."

"I told them everything I knew," Killian said.

"Including the casting structure," I said.

"Everything," he said.

"That helped us," I said. "Understanding the mechanism — Ivory needed the specific details of what they were doing to map the full moon window. You gave her those details."

"It was the least I could do," he said.

"It was more than that," I said. "It was actionable. It moved the investigation forward."

He looked at me.

"You're telling me I was useful," he said.

"I'm telling you what you did mattered," I said. "The distinction is relevant."

He was quiet for a moment.

"The pack," he said. "The butcher."

"The butcher has opinions," I said. "The butcher also has the right to his opinions. What he does with them in terms of actual actions is the concern."

"He made the neck gesture," Killian said.

"I know," I said. "I'm aware of the neck gesture. I'm addressing it."

"Martha stared at me," Killian said.

"Martha stares at everyone she has feelings about," I said. "The stare is actually a form of engagement rather than avoidance."

"That's a generous interpretation," Killian said.

"It's accurate," I said.

He looked at the window again. At the garden.

"I noticed," I said, "that you've been in the secondary section of the eastern garden."

He turned back.

"The companion planting," he said.

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