Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 570

Chapter 570

KAEL

I thought about it.

"Early on," I said. "In the first few months."

*And since then,* Khris said.

I didn't answer.

*She stopped asking for space,* Khris said, *and you kept giving it to her. Because it was easier. Because the den is easier. Because being a good Alpha and a courteous presence is easier than—*

"Than what," I said.

*Than figuring out what's actually between you and having it be real and new and not what you planned,* Khris said. *The future changed. It's not what we built. And you've been standing at the edge of the new one and looking back at the old one and calling it processing.*

"You're very philosophical tonight," I said.

*I've had six months of the den floor to think,* Khris said. *Also I agree with the left knee.*

I stood up.

I needed to find Aria.

I needed to — fix was the wrong word, you didn't fix something like this, you addressed it, and the address required actually knowing what I was going to say rather than another sequence of sentences that communicated the opposite of what I meant.

I went into the corridor.

And stopped.

Aria was at the far end of the hall, near the secondary sitting room. Killian was with her — I didn't know when he'd appeared, whether he'd been there when she left the quarters or had found her in the corridor after. They were talking in the specific low register of a conversation that wasn't meant to carry, and Aria's posture had the slightly released quality of someone who'd been tense and was being talked down from it.

*What's he doing,* Khris said.

*I don't know,* I said.

*Should we—* Khris started.

*No,* I said. *We're not eavesdropping.*

*I wasn't suggesting eavesdropping,* Khris said. *I was suggesting you go talk to her.*

*She's talking to Killian,* I said.

*So you wait,* Khris said.

*Or I don't interrupt,* I said. *She needs—she went to Killian for a reason. Or he found her for a reason. Either way the conversation is happening and I'm not going to stand in the middle of it.*

Khris was quiet for a moment.

*You could wait here,* he said.

*I'm not standing in the corridor watching them,* I said.

*Then what,* Khris said.

I looked at the corridor. At Aria's back, at Killian's face, which was doing the thing Killian's face did when he was saying something he meant — the slight difference between Killian performing and Killian actually present.

He was actually present.

He was saying something that was landing — I could see it in the way Aria's shoulders changed, the specific release of someone receiving something they needed.

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