Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 581

Chapter 581

ARIA

"Validation," he said. "From who? He didn't care about you — he wanted to own you, Aria. He wanted to keep you as his secret omega and when you stopped being useful to him he tried to destroy you and then when he needed something he pulled you back in. That's not someone you seek validation from. That's someone you run from."

The words landed harder than I expected because they weren't wrong.

"It wasn't better here," I said, and my voice came out smaller than I intended. "I had to compete with Ivory constantly. Everything I did was compared to her. The pack resented me for being here instead of her. You compared me—"

"I never compared you," he said.

"The pack did," I said. "And you let it happen."

He was quiet.

"I told you not to compare yourself to her," he said. "I told you multiple times. You're different people."

"Telling me not to compare myself isn't the same as making the space feel like it's actually mine," I said. "She was everywhere, Kael. In the pack's loyalty, in the inner circle, in your eyes every time she was in the room. I was the interloper who'd taken something that was supposed to be hers."

"She never treated you that way," he said.

"No," I said. "She didn't. She attacked me with a knife."

He blinked.

"She came after me in the Ghost Hunt chamber," I said. "After her memories came back. She attacked me."

"She'd just had everything restored in a single overwhelming event," he said, "and everything in her mind was jumbled together and the memories were barely—" he stopped. "I'm defending her again."

"You are," I said.

"I'm just stating what happened," he said. "I'm not—" he stopped again. Looked at his hands. "God, I am defending her."

"I know you don't mean to," I said. "That's the thing. You're not doing it deliberately. It's just where your instinct goes. Someone mentions Ivory and your instinct is to explain, to contextualize, to make sure she's understood correctly." I held his gaze. "Your instinct for me is different. You're careful with me. Respectful. You give me space. But careful and respectful and space are not the same thing as the reflex that makes you want to protect her understanding in every room she enters."

He was very still.

"Ivory saved your life," he said. "And the pack's. She found the evidence that exonerated you. Without her you would have been—"

"I know," I said. "I know that. And I'm grateful. Genuinely. I don't resent what she did for me, I resent what it means that she had to do it. That the standard for trusting me was so low that she had to bet her life to meet it."

"The bond was damaged," he said. "You were barely a month in. The evidence—"

"As my mate," I said, "you were supposed to believe me."

He looked at me.

We sat with the silence.

"I can't compare to her," I said, and I said it quietly because it was the actual thing, the one underneath all the other things. "I've been here nine months. I don't have twelve years. I didn't go through the curse with you. I don't have the history or the shared everything or the specific knowledge of exactly how you're built." I looked at the window. "She knows where all your edges are because she helped shape them. I'm still finding them."

"That's not a deficit," he said.

"It feels like one," I said.

"It's nine months," he said. "Nine months against twelve years isn't a competition. It's just a difference in timeline."

"You kept seeing her," I said. "Every day. And I saw Damon once and got house arrest."

"Those are different," he said, and his voice went flat.

"I know they're different—"

"They're completely different," he said. "Ivory lives here. Her family is here. She's part of my inner circle, she has been since before the curse, what would you have me do — ban her from the pack? Have Jordan pass notes between us? Refuse to speak to her in her own home?" He looked at me. "Ivory didn't attack this pack. Ivory didn't hurt anyone. Ivory has given up more for this pack than most people will be asked to give in a lifetime."

"I know," I said.

"Then what," he said.

"I'm not asking you to choose," I said. "That's not what this is. I'm just—I need you to understand that it's hard. Watching you with her. Seeing how it is between you. Understanding that the love is real and it's not going away and it's not wrong and I can't even be angry at the right things." I looked at him. "You get to grieve the future you lost with her. You've been grieving it for nine months, I've watched you do it. Why don't I get to grieve that I arrived here and my mate's heart was already fully occupied?"