Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 622

Chapter 622

ARIA

"Nina," Kael said.

"I'm serious," she said. "I need to know this happened. I need physical evidence. The clipboard pieces should be preserved in a display case."

"That's extreme," Kael said.

"My jaw dropped," Jordan said. "Actually dropped. I had to close it manually."

"I had to clean my eyes," Nina said. "I thought I was seeing something incorrectly. I looked again. It had not changed."

"I side with Aria," Kael said. "It happens."

"Name one other time," Nina said.

"I—" he started.

"Name one," Nina said.

"There have been—"

"Name one," she said.

"The training yard incident last—"

"That doesn't count," Nina said. "That was agreeing with a decision Aria had already made and you were retroactively supporting it. Name one time you sided with Aria in a room where the other option was Ivory."

Kael opened his mouth.

Closed it.

"Aria almost got executed," Jordan said helpfully.

"Jordan," Kael said.

"I'm just noting that the historical record has some relevant precedents," Jordan said. "In the interest of complete documentation."

"I do things without Ivory's input," Kael said. "It's not always a fallback position."

"When," Nina said.

"Regularly," he said.

"When," she said.

"I—" he stopped. "The budget allocation for the third quarter was—"

"Ivory was the one who flagged the budget allocation issue in the first place," Nina said. "You responded to her flag."

"The eastern border patrol schedule—"

"Ivory's security recommendations formed the basis of the schedule," Jordan said.

"The—" Kael stopped.

The room waited.

"I feel I can fly," Nina said. "Can you fly, Jordan?"

"I feel the wings coming out," Jordan said.

"I feel we could stab ourselves with wolfsbane and survive," Elite said, from the corner.

Everyone looked at Elite.

"The significance of the moment," Elite said, with complete composure, "seemed to warrant participation."

"That's extreme," Kael said.

"We were going for extreme," Jordan said.

"Come on," Kael said. "I do things independently. It's not that shocking."

"Name one," Nina said again.

"Killian," Kael said. "The room. The exile lift. Ivory's input—"

"Was given after," Nina said. "You'd already made the decision and she endorsed it retroactively. Timing matters."

"I—" Kael stopped again. The expression of someone who'd been handed a mirror and was finding the reflection more interesting than expected.

"It's fine," Jordan said. "It's actually—Kael, it's a good thing. Aria is your mate. This is what it's supposed to look like. We're celebrating."

"You said you could fly," Kael said.

"I said I felt the wings," Jordan said. "They haven't manifested yet. The feeling is still good."

"Oh my god," Nina said, and her voice had the quality it got when she'd arrived at something that was very specifically wonderful. "I need to lie down. This is too much for one morning."

"Everyone is being dramatic," Kael said.

"We earned the dramatic," Nina said. "We've been watching you defer to Ivory since we were seventeen. We've earned a significant amount of dramatic for today."

"She wouldn't—" I started.

"She would," Kael said. "Not harmfully. Never harmfully. But there was an incident — the last time I made a decision she was significantly unhappy with, she had access to the kitchen and she ran some experiments and she had a phase of appearing at my side while I was eating and noting observations out loud."

"What kind of observations," I said.

"She'd look at me very carefully," Kael said, "and say things like *hm, no signs of animal ears yet* or *cognitive thinking appears to still be functioning, interesting* or *the tail development is later than projected.*"

The room was very quiet for exactly two seconds.

Then Jordan made the sound he made when something was genuinely unexpected, which was a short sharp noise that was not quite a laugh but adjacent.

"She was testing compounds on you," Nina said.

"She said they were all completely harmless and she had full ethical approval from herself," Kael said.

"She approved her own ethics committee application," Jordan said.

"She said the committee found no issues," Kael said.

"She's the committee," Jordan said.

"I was aware of this," Kael said. "I chose not to press it because she was technically correct that nothing harmful happened and the observations were—" he stopped. "Fine. They were also funny. But the point stands. When Ivory is petty, she's creative about it. Don't eat things for three days."

"Do not eat anything Ivory gives you for the next three days," he said.

I looked at him.

"I'm serious," he said. "Not snacks she leaves in the meeting room. Not tea she offers from the clinic. Not anything she hands you directly with the specific pleasantness of someone who has forgiven you and wants to express it through food."

"Kael," Nina said.

"The last time I significantly pissed her off," he said, "she had a period of what I can only describe as anger management through experimental application. She would walk by while I was eating and pause and say—" he adopted a specific expression that was apparently his impression of Ivory's clinical register, "—*hmm. No signs of animal ears. Cognitive thinking still appears to be operational.*"

The room processed this.

"She experimented on your food," Jordan said.

"She adjusted certain compounds in things I ate," Kael said. "Nothing harmful. I would like to be clear that she would never actually harm me."

"But," Jordan said.

"But there is a significant distance between harmful and petty," Kael said, "and Ivory has very comfortable residence in that distance when she's been crossed." He looked at me. "The animal ears comment was in response to a very minor disagreement about the training schedule."

"What kind of animal ears," Nina said.

"Cat, I believe," Kael said. "Based on the ear shape she was monitoring for."