Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 565

Chapter 565

ARIA

"She maintained what was left of it," Nina said. "It was breaking down along with everything else."

"I'm not going to force her," Kael said, and the way he said it communicated that the question had been answered and we were moving.

Jordan made a small sound.

Kael looked at him.

"Nothing," Jordan said.

"Jordan," Kael said.

"I just—" Jordan paused, with the expression of someone choosing their words carefully. "Ivory's been making a lot of decisions lately on the grounds that she knows what's necessary and everyone else's input isn't required." He looked at the table. "That's consistent with who she is. It's also been more frequent recently."

The room processed this.

"She's preparing for something," Elite said.

Elite didn't say things that weren't precisely what they meant. The room absorbed this accordingly.

"The root removal," I said.

"She keeps taking excuses to go to the lab," Nina said. "Alone."

"The root removal architecture is complex," I said. "She said it requires specific preparation—"

"It does," Kael said. "But she's been in that lab for—" he stopped. "More hours than the compound work requires."

Silver said something in my chest that she didn't put into words. Just a warmth with an edge to it, the specific silver-edged feeling she got when there was something she knew and wasn't sure how to communicate without more information.

*What,* I said.

*Nothing specific,* she said. *Just — watch.*

"What's the current threat timeline," I said, redirecting, because the thing about Ivory in the lab was sitting on my chest in a way I couldn't fully examine yet and the meeting needed to move.

Elite opened the assessment sheets.

"The network pulled back after the dungeon," Elite said. "Intelligence confirms reduced activity on the border approaches in the past forty-eight hours."

"They're regrouping," Jordan said.

"Or they're being strategic," Elite said.

"Both," Jordan said.

"The full moon is eleven days out," Elite said. "If they intend another root activation attempt, they need casting capacity in position before then. We've seen no movement that suggests that positioning is happening."

"Which is unexpected," Kael said.

"Yes," Elite said. "After Ivory's message, we expected an escalation. Not a withdrawal."

"The withdrawal is the escalation," Jordan said. Everyone looked at him. "We declared war and they went quiet. That's not retreat. That's patience. Whatever they're planning, they think they have time for it."

"What could they have time for," I said.

Jordan turned a page in his intelligence file. "We know Vela was one of their primary casting operatives for the root activation mechanism. With Vela gone, the specific casting structure she'd developed for the full moon window has to be rebuilt by someone with equivalent knowledge. That takes time."

Not in the way of things that had been recently cleaned — in the way of things that had been maintained with sustained attention over an extended period, the accumulated care of years of consistent hands. Every surface reflected the light with the specific quality of metal that had been tended to the way some people tended gardens.

"How long," Kael said, looking at the rows.

"Since the first year," Nina said. She was standing in the doorway with the particular posture of someone in a space they'd spent significant time in, the specific ease of familiarity. "When it became clear the mindlink wasn't coming back quickly. When we understood that the pack was going to have to defend itself differently than it had before."

"You built this," Killian said. He was looking at the room with the assessment of someone whose intelligence background made inventorying a reflex.

"I expanded what was here," Nina said. "The original armoury was standard — traditional wolfsbane rounds, standard silver, the usual defensive stock. I—" she paused, "—developed it."

"With Ivory," Elite said.

"With Ivory," Nina confirmed. "She provided the compound work. I provided the deployment architecture."

"What does the compound work mean in this context," I said.

Nina walked to the first rack.

"Standard wolfsbane rounds affect wolves," she said. "Incapacitate, depending on concentration. The concentration Ivory developed for the perimeter botanical — the sedative compound — she adapted it for delivery via projectile." She indicated the specific section of the rack. "These are sedative-concentration wolfsbane rounds. Hit a shifted or partially shifted wolf and they're down in under a minute. Hit an unshifted wolf—" she paused, "—thirty seconds."

"And the moon child rounds," Elite said.

Nina moved to the next section.

I looked at those differently.

"Ivory developed the compound after the first moon child incident," Nina said. "Early in the curse years, before we understood what we were dealing with. She said—" Nina paused, with the expression of someone remembering something specific. "She said she didn't know what was coming and she wanted options."

"How do they work," I said.