Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 605

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Chapter 605

ARIA

Nina's composure lasted exactly three more seconds.

Then she turned to face the territorial map at a slightly different angle, which put her profile to most of the room, and something in her shoulders moved in a way that was not consistent with professional neutrality.

She did not make a sound. She simply — changed shape, slightly, in the specific way of someone who'd decided the sound wasn't happening but couldn't stop the physical response entirely.

Jordan, from behind the filing cabinet, made a sound that he converted into a cough with sufficient speed that it was only technically a cough.

Ivory's pen, on the notepad, moved. Not writing. The specific small movement of someone whose hand had twitched.

I looked at Killian.

He was staring at the point on the wall with the intensity of a man who was one ladle away from losing something he'd been holding with both hands.

Three more Marcuses arrived.

Then a pause — long enough that Kael's expression shifted toward the cautious optimism of someone who'd begun to hope the wave was complete.

Then the shower Marcus came in.

He was — he'd made an effort, that was clear, the specific evidence of someone who'd received an urgent order and had done what they could in the available time. What they could was not quite enough. His hair was still wet. He had wrapped a towel around his waist, and there was still soap duds on his shair, the inner circle visibly bowed their heads to control their laughter as Kael was fighting out how the hell he found himself in this situation,

The shower Marcus looked at all the Marcuses already in the room.

He looked at the ladle.

He looked at Kael.

"Am I late," he said.

Jordan's cough became something else entirely that he converted back into a cough with less success than the first time.

Ivory's pen left a line across the notepad. Not a word. A line. The specific mark of a hand that had been given a competing instruction.

Killian was shaking harder.

I was watching him with the specific attention of someone who'd become genuinely concerned about his structural integrity, and I saw the exact moment that holding it stopped being possible.

His shoulders went.

He didn't make a sound. He was completely silent. But his shoulders dropped and his head went forward and he was — shaking, properly now, the whole-body kind, and completely silent, which was almost worse than the sound would have been.

The travel guide arrived.

He came through the door with the specific quality of someone who'd received a message, determined it was important, and had come immediately — except that immediately, for the travel guide, had included the small group of four visitors he'd been leading on a pack grounds tour when the order arrived and couldn't figure out how to separate himself from without being rude, so he'd brought them.

Four tourists stood in the doorway of the Alpha's office looking at twenty Marcuses, a ladle, an almost nude Marcus, and the inner circle of Shadowmere in various states of professional management trying to win the battle of uncontrollable laughter, and were all losing with dignity.

"Is this," one of the tourists said, "part of the tour."

The travel guide looked at Kael with an expression of pure apology.

Kael looked at the tourists.

The tourists looked at Kael.

"It's a—" Kael started.

"Meeting," I said.

"A meeting," Kael confirmed.

"A pack meeting," I said.

"Yes," Kael said.

"This is very interesting," said one of the tourists, who appeared to be genuinely engaged and had produced a small notebook from somewhere.

"It really is," said another tourist, looking at the assembled Marcuses with the expression of someone cataloguing a remarkable sight.

"The Marcus protocol," said the first tourist, writing something down.

"Is that—is that what this is called," Kael said.

"I'm naming it," said the tourist.

"You can't name it," Kael said.

"I've written it down," said the tourist.

"The writing doesn't—" Kael stopped. Looked at the room. At the twenty Marcuses, the ladle, the tourists, the children — the six-year-old had at some point in the past several minutes secured a position in the corner of the office with the settled determination of someone who'd identified a good location and was not vacating it.

The eight-year-old had found a chair.

Kael hit the table.

Not hard enough to damage it — the significant loud controlled impact of someone reclaiming authority over a situation.

The room went quiet.

*Wait a damn minute,* he said, through the link, at the directed volume of someone who'd learned in the past two days how to use the link with intention rather than broadcasting.

The quiet held.

He looked at the assembled Marcuses — I counted quickly, almost twenty-three now, with the travel guide and the tourists making it a room of significant occupation — and used the expression that was the Alpha expression, the one that had nothing in common with the cheerful chaos of the past ten minutes.

*One of you,* Kael said, through the link and aloud simultaneously, *punched me. When I was ten years old. Eastern training yard.*

The room was very still.

*And when I found you again,* he said, *you looked me dead in the eye and said it wasn't you.*

Twenty-three Marcuses were looking at twenty-three different points in the room with the collective expression of people who were not doing anything in particular and had no information about the subject being raised.