Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 547

Chapter 547

ARIA

The room processed this.

I sat with what it meant. That Damon's father had commissioned the curse. That the nightmare years of what had happened to this pack — the broken mindlink, the wolf, all of it — traced back to a territorial dispute and a decision made by a man who was now dead.

And that Damon, who I'd loved and been rejected by and who had since become something considerably more complicated, might not have known.

Or might have known and said nothing.

Or might have known and built on it.

I didn't know which.

"This is a window," Ivory said, quietly.

"This," I said, "is a significant window."

"For multiple people," she said.

"For me specifically," I said. "The context of why I came here. The context of what Damon and I were. His father—" I stopped. "I don't know what Damon knew."

"We can find out," Nina said.

"We should find out," Jordan said.

"After the book club," Ivory said.

Everyone looked at her.

"I mean that practically," she said. "This information has been sitting for three weeks. It'll still be there in two hours. The book club is happening now and the conversation we're having is connected to this information but not dependent on the specific investigation." She looked at me. "How are you?"

"Processing," I said.

"Good," she said. "Process. And we'll return to the investigation." She looked at the table. "Windows."

"We were on windows," Jordan confirmed.

"Jordan's window was the information he just shared," Nina said.

"Which I've now gone through," Jordan said.

"How does it feel," Nina said.

"Better," he said. "You knew something was there."

"I could see you sitting on something," she said.

"For three weeks," he confirmed.

"The timing argument," she said.

"Was valid," he said. "But could have been shorter."

"Two weeks shorter," she said.

"Possibly," he said.

"The window," Ivory said, looking at Nina, "that Nina hasn't gone through."

Nina looked at Ivory.

"Is the one," Ivory said, "that's been there since approximately the fourth month of the curse years."

"Ivory," Nina said.

"We're at the book club," Ivory said.

"The book club is not—" Nina started.

"It's exactly the context," Ivory said. "We're using it. What is the window, Nina."

Nina was quiet for a moment.

"The window," she said finally, "is the conversation I haven't had with Kael. Directly. About what it cost. All of it." She paused. "I've told him pieces. I've told him things in the specific way of information delivery — this happened, this was the outcome, here's what we managed. I've never sat down and said — the specific things I said to Jordan in the recovery room two weeks ago. The weight of it."

"Why not," Ivory said.

"Because he was dealing with enough," Nina said. "He was always dealing with enough. The timing—"

"Was never right," Ivory said.

"Is never right," Nina said. "The right time for that conversation doesn't seem to exist."

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