Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 624

Chapter 624

ARIA

"You're talking about me like I'm not right there," Kael said.

"We're talking about you like you're someone whose behavior we've been watching for fifteen years and have just witnessed a significant new data point from," Jordan said. "Those aren't the same thing."

"The significant new data point being that I sided with my mate," Kael said.

"The significant new data point," Jordan said, "is that when the room contained both Aria and Ivory as options, you sided with Aria. That's—Kael, that's the window."

The room went quiet.

Kael looked at Jordan.

Jordan looked back with the specific expression of someone who'd said a true thing and was letting it land.

"The book," Kael said.

"Yes," Jordan said.

"You're quoting the book at me," Kael said.

"I'm applying the metaphor that exists for exactly this situation," Jordan said. "You went through the window."

"I agreed with my mate," Kael said. "That's not—"

"In a room where the other option was Ivory," Jordan said. "Yes. It is."

Kael looked at the table.

At the structural map.

At the clipboard pieces.

At the door.

"She's furious," he said.

"Yes," Jordan said.

"But you went through the window," Jordan said.

"The window," Nina said, and her voice had arrived somewhere warm. "Kael."

"Don't," he said.

"Kael," she said.

"I know," he said.

"Do you," she said.

"I know," he said again, and the quality of the repetition was different from the first one — the specific quality of someone who did know, who'd arrived at knowing and was sitting with the weight of it.

Silver was warm in my chest.

Not saying anything. Just warm.

I looked at the door Ivory had walked out of.

At the clipboard.

At the map on the table with the root notation in the attachment point that I'd been feeling through the bond and that Silver had been feeling and that the analysis said cost Ivory's life and that might — might — have a gap in it.

Three days.

"I need to go," I said.

Everyone looked at me.

"The preparation," I said. "I need to work on the architectural understanding." I stood up. "Three days isn't much time."

"Do you need—" Kael started.

"I'm fine," I said. "I just need the time."

He looked at me with the expression that had been developing since the heart-to-heart conversation — the one that was paying attention in a different way from before, the less managed version.

"Okay," he said.

I left.

In the corridor outside the meeting room, I stood for a moment with Silver very focused and very present.

*Three days,* Silver said.

*Three days,* I said.

*Can you find the alternative in three days,* she said.

*I don't know,* I said.

*Honest,* she said.

*Yes,* I said. *Honest.*

*What do you need,* she said.

*Access to the root,* I said. *Real access. Not just feeling it through the bond at a distance. I need Kael to let me actually work with the architecture — not to sever, just to examine.* I paused. *And I need Ivory to not be in the room when I do it.*

*She's going to be watching,* Silver said.

*Yes,* I said. *Which means I need a time when she's occupied elsewhere.*

*That's going to be difficult,* Silver said.

*Everything about this is difficult,* I said.

*Yes,* Silver said. *But you're the Luna of Shadowmere.*

*Apparently,* I said.

*Not apparently,* Silver said. *Actually. And actually means you figure out the difficult thing.*

I stood in the corridor and thought about Ivory walking out of the room with the link sealed and the clipboard broken and the fury contained in the specific way that made it more rather than less formidable.

The corridor outside the meeting room was empty when I left.

Killian appeared at my elbow — he'd been doing this, the quiet materialization from slightly unexpected directions, the rogue wolf's specific relationship with arrival.

"She went to the clinic," he said.

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