Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 533

Chapter 533

KAEL

He was very still.

"You're not my pack," I said. "I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I've been watching the model for fifteen years and I understand something about what it costs to hold a grudge past the point where it serves anything."

"You're not forgiving me," he said.

"I'm—" I looked at the window. "I'm acknowledging that ten years was a long time and that the gate wall was the last of the immediate expression and that what comes after that is a different conversation." I looked at him directly. "I don't know what comes after. I'm not making promises. But I'm here. Sitting in this chair. And that's—something."

Killian was quiet for a long time.

In his eyes, which I'd been avoiding looking at directly because of what the wolf had said, was the thing I recognized. The loneliness. The specific quality of someone who'd wanted to belong for so long that they didn't quite trust the possibility when it approached.

I knew what that looked like. I'd seen it in the mirror during the curse years, in the moments when the human consciousness was present enough to see its own reflection.

He needed a win. The wolf had said it and the wolf was right.

Not a big one. Not absolution. Just — one actual thing.

"The book club," I said.

Killian blinked.

"Ivory has been wanting to run a book club," I said. "For the inner circle. About her books." I looked at him with the expression of someone making an executive decision about the allocation of social torture. "When you're cleared to leave the secondary clinic, you're going to be the one who tells her the book club is a good idea."

Killian stared at me.

"You want me to tell Ivory her book club is a good idea," he said.

"You owe her a debt," I said. "She called one. This is a different one. This is a voluntary contribution toward the social rehabilitation of your standing within the inner circle." I paused. "Also, genuinely, the book club is a good idea and she deserves to hear it."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"You're going to make me read those books," he said.

"I'm going to make you read those books," I confirmed.

"I've seen the covers," he said.

"They're actually good," I said, before I'd decided to say it. And then, because the sentence was already out: "The narrative structure is more sophisticated than the presentation suggests. Everest's characterization is—" I stopped. "Don't tell Jordan I said that."

Killian looked at me.

Then he made a sound.

It was small. Surprised. The specific sound of someone who'd been braced for something heavy and had received something light instead and the body had responded before the mind caught up.

Almost a laugh.

I stood up.

"The book club," I said.

"The book club," he said.

"And don't grab Ivory again," I said.

"No," he said.

"I was not calm about the clinic wall," I said.

"I know," he said.

"The wolfsbane she put in you," I said. "Was the minimum dose. She has larger ones."

"I know," he said.

"She's told you," I said.

"She's told me," he said.

I went to the door.

*I know,* I said.

*And you're going to tell her,* the wolf said.

*I'm going to tell her,* I said.

*Because you're trying honest as a general approach,* the wolf said.

*Yes,* I said.

*How's that going,* the wolf said.

*Better than the alternative,* I said.

*Good,* the wolf said again.

I walked through the pack grounds toward the main building, where the morning was progressing and the people who were responsible for the pack's ongoing functioning were doing their jobs with the specific competence of people who'd been doing it for years and were very good at it.

My wolf was talking to me.

Not constantly, not in the seamless way it would eventually be when the integration was complete, but more than before. More clearly than before.

Something was shifting.

I was, carefully, letting it shift.

The eastern garden was visible through the corridor window. The nightbloom doing its luminescent thing in the morning light.

The secondary clinic's window was in my direct sightline.

Killian, visible through it, looking at the garden.

I kept walking.

But slower than I had been.

Did Kael just....attempt reconciliation? i did not see that coming.