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.

*Because telling someone makes it real and real means it's actually going to happen and you needed it to be actually going to happen,* Ivy said. *So you could stop carrying it alone.*

I put the pen down.

Killian was looking at me with the expression I'd been cataloguing since his arrival — the one that was different from the performing version. The actual one. It had several layers that I'd been learning to read, and the top layer right now was the specific expression of someone who'd received information they'd suspected and had hoped not to have confirmed.

"You've known this for how long," he said.

"Four years," I said. "Approximately. Since the second year of the research."

"Four years," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"You've been planning this for four years," he said.

"I've been working toward it," I said.

"That's the same thing," he said.

"Yes," I said.

He was quiet for a long time.

The link hummed at the edge of my awareness. Ben was asleep — the contentment had shifted into the specific warmth of a small wolf at rest, broadcast gently into the link in the way of someone who had no idea they were sharing their dreams.

"Does anyone else know," Killian said.

"No," I said.

"Does Kael know," he said.

"No," I said.

"Nina," he said.

"No," I said.

"Aria," he said.

I paused.

"Aria," I said, "has been watching me. She's noticed something. She hasn't named it yet."