Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 567

Chapter 567

ARIA

"How much harder," Kael said.

"I can hit a specific target at range," I said. "I can define the area of effect with intention. Whether that holds under active engagement conditions—" I paused. "Silver and I are still working on the consistency."

"That's honest," Elite said.

"I'd rather be honest about what I can reliably do than overstate it in a planning meeting," I said.

Elite gave me a look that I recognized, after nine months of interpreting Elite's minimal expressions, as approval.

"The moon shield is more reliable," I said. "I can hold it with defined boundaries consistently now. The lunar scream—" I thought about the six seconds in the battle, the specific quality of the effect, "—is useful for disruption. Not elimination. Buys time."

"Buys time is valuable," Nina said.

"Buys time is very valuable," Elite confirmed.

"The blood-bending," Kael said.

"Instinctive," I said. "I haven't been able to reproduce it in practice. It happened in the battle because something in the situation activated it. Silver thinks the trigger is specific — an acute threat to pack members, a response that bypasses the intentional layer and comes from something older."

"So it may or may not be available," Jordan said.

"It may or may not," I said.

"Then we don't build the plan around it," Elite said. "We note it as a possible variable and build around what's reliable."

"Moon shield and defined lunar blast," Nina said.

"At the position with the defensive coverage," Jordan said, and his voice had shifted — not conceding exactly, but arriving at the version he could work with.

"At the position," I said. "Yes."

The room settled.

"The pack meeting," Kael said. "We need to tell them before we do any of this. Everything — the war, the mindlink restoration, the armoury, the plan."

"When," Jordan said.

"Today," Kael said. "Tonight. Ivory comes back from the lab and we tell the pack."

"She'll want to be there," Nina said.

"She'll be there," Kael said.

"Killian," Elite said.

Killian, who'd been listening from his end of the table with the specific quality of someone who was filing everything and saying little, looked up.

"The rogue wolf connection," Elite said. "You've been outside the pack link for twelve years. When the mindlink restores—"

"He rejoins," Kael said.

The room went quiet.

Kael said it the way he said things he'd decided rather than things he was proposing. Killian looked at him with the expression he got when Kael did something that Killian hadn't prepared a response for.

"The link is pack-wide," Kael said. "Killian is in this pack. He rejoins."

"That requires—" Jordan started.

"Ivory's antidote and Aria's channel work," Kael said. "Which applies to everyone who's been under suppression. Killian's suppression is different from the pack's — rogue isolation rather than deliberate severance — but the mechanism Ivory's developing should cover it." He looked at me.

"I'll ask her," I said.

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