Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 315

ARIA

I closed my fingers around the pearl and didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, which seemed to be sufficient because she nodded once and stepped back.

I returned to my place in the crowd and stood there holding a luminous pearl in my closed hand and tried to understand what had just happened.

Across the room, I caught a glimpse of Aryada pressing something small into Ivory's hand with a privacy that was deliberate — turning slightly away from the main crowd, head bent, saying something too quiet for anyone else to hear. Ivory's expression when she looked at whatever it was contained layers I couldn't read from this distance.

Then the crowd was cheering again, the formal ceremony concluding into the resumed warmth of the celebration, and I let myself be moved by the current of it back toward the food tables because I hadn't eaten since mid-afternoon and at some point survival required attending to basic practicalities regardless of whatever else was happening.

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About the cheering, I'd formed a theory by the time I reached the food table and assembled a plate with the focused attention of someone who was using a task as cover for thinking.

They hadn't cheered for me because they'd forgiven me, or accepted me, or decided I was actually adequate after all. They'd cheered because there were twelve visiting Alpha pairs in this room and a full complement of Ghost Council observers, and whatever Shadowmere thought of its Luna was Shadowmere's business and nobody else's. They were the most collectively stubborn and petty people I had ever met in my entire life, and their pettiness ran in multiple directions simultaneously. They could hate me and still refuse to hand visiting alphas ammunition to use against their pack.

I couldn't decide if this was touching or purely territorial.

Probably both, knowing Shadowmere.

I was standing at the edge of the food table, working through this reasoning with one hand and holding my plate with the other, when someone appeared beside me.

Alpha Dan — I'd learned the name from the briefing Nina had provided about the visiting wolves — was broad and self-satisfied in the specific way of people who'd been powerful for long enough that they'd forgotten the social skills that power had made unnecessary. He was probably fourty, fit in the way of someone who maintained their physical capability to look good.

"Luna Aria," he said, with the warmth of someone who wasn't warm at all. "I've been hoping to speak with you."

"Alpha Dan," I said. "Enjoying the celebration?"

"Wonderful hospitality," he said, in a tone that meant he was about to say something that was not about the hospitality. He loaded a small plate of his own, the performance of casual conversation. "I wanted to say — as someone who's known Kael for years — that I think what he did, keeping you on after everything, it's admirable. Really. A lesser alpha might have made the easier choice."

"Kael doesn't make the easier choice," I said. "He makes the right one."

"Of course," Dan agreed, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "And you — well, it must be difficult. Occupying a position when everyone knows the history. When the whole pack saw what happened during the trial. When—" he paused, tilting his head with the studied casualness of someone who'd rehearsed the gesture, "—there are whispers, you understand, that your loyalty might still be somewhat divided. Between Shadowmere and other interests."

I kept my expression even. "I'm not sure what whispers you're referring to."

"Damon Blackwood," Dan said, dropping the name with the satisfaction of someone placing a chess piece. "Your former mate. It must be — well, how does it feel, exactly? Pretending to be Shadowmere's Luna while still carrying that attachment? Knowing that the pack knows? Knowing that you're occupying this position by the skin of your teeth while the woman who actually earned it is somewhere in this room right now?" He smiled, the kind that was constructed to look sympathetic. "I can't imagine how much it must hurt, knowing that none of this is really yours. That you don't actually matter here."

Each sentence landed with the precise placement of someone who knew exactly where to push. Who'd come into this conversation with the specific intention of finding the places that were already bruised and pressing on them until something broke or flinched.

I felt the moon pearl warm in my hand where I'd been holding it since the ceremony. Felt my magic respond to something — to the anger, maybe, or to whatever the pearl was doing that I didn't yet understand. My eyes probably showed the silver glow, but the lighting in the room was warm enough that it might not be obvious.

I was three seconds from responding — from doing something that would be either spectacularly satisfying or diplomatically catastrophic, possibly both — when someone appeared at Dan's elbow.

"Alpha Dan," Ivory said pleasantly. "I didn't realize you'd made it. How wonderful."

Her voice carried the specific warmth of someone who was absolutely not feeling warm, deployed with a precision that was almost musical. Dan turned toward her with the automatic reflex of someone responding to a new social stimulus, and Ivory smiled at him with the serene composure of a woman who had been dealing with powerful people's nonsense for years and had long since made peace with the necessity of managing it efficiently.

"Healer Ivory," Dan said. "I heard about your recovery — remarkable, truly. The whole trial sounded extraordinary."

"It was something," Ivory agreed. "I actually wanted to ask after you — I'd heard some things and I was a bit concerned." She tilted her head with an expression of attentive professional interest. "How is Lady Dana? I heard she's been — well, I don't want to speak out of turn, but there were reports coming through the healer networks. Something about sleeping with your brother?"