Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 584

Chapter 584

ARIA

"I created a compound," she said. "That reverses the suppression we've been living with for three years." She indicated the table — the rows of vials, Margo's careful organization of them. "The mindlink was broken deliberately. We made that choice to protect the pack from the broadcasts, from the wolf's deterioration, from the damage that was being done through the connection. We made the right choice." She paused. "The choice is no longer necessary."

The hall went quiet in a different way.

"The compound I've developed," she said, "will remove the suppression and restore your shift capacity. Your wolves will come back. And when they come back—" she looked at me, "—Aria will build the mindlink. The full pack connection. The one we lost."

The silence lasted exactly three seconds.

Then Nina said, from her seat beside Jordan: "When."

Her voice had the specific quality I'd heard once before, on the path in the dark when she'd said *finally* about the armoury. The word doing significant work to contain what was underneath it.

"Today," Ivory said. "If everyone agrees."

"Everyone agrees," Edna said, before anyone else could speak. She said it with the authority of someone who'd been in this pack for decades and knew its people. "Don't we."

The hall answered.

Not unanimously — there were questions, there were concerns, there was the specific caution of people who'd been in their suppressed state for three years and had built their lives around it and weren't sure about the transition. But the weight of it, the clear preponderance of the hall, was yes.

Kael stood up.

He'd been in his chair — the Alpha's chair, the one at the head of the room — and when he stood the hall's attention went to him with the specific automatic orientation of people who'd been orienting toward him for years.

"Anyone who wants to talk to Ivory or Eliza about the compound before taking it," he said, "will have that opportunity. This isn't mandatory. The pack chose to suppress and the pack can choose to restore." He looked around the hall. "But I want to be clear about what we're doing. We're taking our pack back. The infrastructure we lost — the connection, the wolves, the shared link — we're taking it back. And then we use it."

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

Silver, in my chest, was doing something that was entirely feeling rather than words — the specific warm rushing quality of something that had been waiting for a long time and was very close to the thing it had been waiting for.

*Ready?* she said.

*Ready,* I said.

Ivory picked up the first tray of vials.

"Margo," she said.

Margo moved to the second tray.

"Nina," Ivory said.

Nina stood up, walked to the table, and picked up the third tray with the specific competence of someone who'd been waiting for exactly this moment for years and was not going to fumble it.

"Everyone in rows," Ivory said, to the hall. "We'll move through systematically. Anyone with questions sees Eliza first." She looked at the pack — at all of them, the humans who'd been more than human through everything the curse had asked of them. "This is going to feel strange initially. The wolf coming back after this long — give it space. Don't fight it. Let it arrive." She paused. "You know who you are. The wolf is part of that. Let it come home."

The hall started moving.

I stayed at the edge of it and watched Ivory work — the clinical efficiency, the specific care with which she checked each person before the compound, the questions she answered and the ones she passed to Eliza and the way she moved through the crowd with the ease of someone who knew every face and had been keeping track of every person for years.

Killian appeared beside me.

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