Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 601

Chapter 601

IVORY

*See,* Ivy said.

*Don't,* I said.

*He's not going to let it go,* she said.

*I know,* I said.

*And he's right,* she said. *Can't and won't are different.*

*I know they're different,* I said.

*So why did you say can't,* she said.

*Because it's what I meant,* I said.

*Then tell him,* she said.

*No,* I said.

*Ivory,* she said.

*No,* I said.

*You're going to die,* she said, bluntly, with the wolf's complete absence of management around true things, *and he's going to be here without knowing why any of it happened. You're going to leave him here not knowing.*

*He doesn't need to know,* I said.

*He's fated to you,* she said. *He has a right to know.*

*Rights and needs are different things,* I said. *I know about fated mates and rights and needs and I've been living with the specific distinction for a long time. Knowing doesn't help him. It just gives him something to grieve in advance.*

*Or,* Ivy said, *it gives him time.*

*Time for what,* I said.

*To stop you,* she said.

*Nobody can stop this,* I said.

*You don't know that,* she said.

*I've been researching the curse for four years,* I said. *I know the architecture. I know the failsafe. I know every possible pathway through it and I've mapped them all and the map leads to one place.*

*Did you show the map to anyone else,* Ivy said.

I didn't answer.

*Did you,* Ivy said.

*The map leads to one place,* I said again.

*You're the only person who's seen the map,* Ivy said. *Which means the map's accuracy relies entirely on your analysis. Which means—*

*I'm very good at analysis,* I said.

*You're also,* Ivy said, *in love with the Alpha. Which means you have the specific bias of someone who would accept a worse outcome for themselves if it meant a better outcome for him.*

*That's not—*

*It's accurate,* Ivy said. *You know it's accurate. That's why you won't let anyone see the map.*

I sat with this.

The compound notes were in front of me. Forty pages of documentation that I'd been writing for weeks with the specific urgency of someone working against a deadline. The countdown that I'd built into my own schedule, the one that was proceeding on the timeline I'd calculated.

*Ivy,* I said.

*Yes,* she said.

*Be quiet,* I said.

*No,* she said.

"Ivory," Killian said.

I'd been silent too long. He was watching me with the expression of someone who'd learned to wait out my silences because my silences sometimes produced things that the interruption would have prevented.

"There are things," I said, carefully, "about the root removal that I haven't shared with everyone."

He was very still.

"Things I've been working through alone," I said. "In the lab. In the documentation."

"What things," he said.

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