Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 364

ARIA

"The silver poisoning—" Sera started.

"Is documented," I said. "In the file. Which is being processed in order. I understand silver poisoning is serious, which is why I want to make sure you're seen by the most qualified healer available as soon as the scheduling permits." I looked at her with the warm sincerity of someone deeply invested in the wellbeing of their patients. "Five months is genuinely the nearest convenient time given current demand."

"You can't—" Sera stopped. "This is—"

"The authorization process," I said gently, "exists for important reasons. I take it seriously. Each case receives proper consideration in the appropriate order." I folded my hands on the desk with the composure of someone who had conducted a thorough and entirely satisfying administrative meeting. "Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

Sera looked at me across the desk with an expression that had moved completely past the composure and the calculation and the weapons, that had arrived somewhere much rawer and more honest, that was the face of a woman who had come here with several strategies and had watched every one of them fail and was now simply out.

"You," she said, and her voice was quiet in the way that wasn't soft but was depleted, "are not what I expected."

"I get that sometimes," I said.

She stood. Did not curtsey on the way out, which I decided to let go because the curtsey on the way in was going to sustain me through several difficult future conversations and I didn't need to be greedy about it.

Celine showed her out with the professional efficiency of a woman who had approximately four minutes of composure remaining before she was going to need somewhere private to use it.

The door closed.

The room was quiet.

I sat at my desk and did not move for approximately five seconds.

Then I looked at Celine.

Celine looked at me.

For another three seconds, neither of us moved.

Then Celine sat down on the floor. Not dramatically — just with the specific quality of someone whose legs had filed a formal complaint and been granted the request. She sat on the floor of my office with both hands pressed over her mouth and her eyes squeezed shut and her entire body shaking with the laugh that was coming out of her despite every effort, silent because she was clearly applying the last reserves of her professional capacity to making it silent, which meant it came out as a wheeze.

I looked at the ceiling.

I was also shaking. The shaking of someone who had maintained composure through an extraordinary amount of material and was now in the aftermath where the composure could relax slightly and the body reported on what that had cost.

Shadowmere, I thought, had been a terrible influence on me.

I picked up my comm and checked the recording.

It was perfect.

I was going to watch it at least twelve times and I was going to share it with no one except possibly Jordan in a moment of weakness and I was absolutely going to use it as a personal resource on days when things were difficult and I needed the reminder that occasionally, if you paid attention to the packet of petty that this pack had been quietly handing you since your arrival, you could produce something like this.

"Celine," I said.

"Luna Aria," she said, from the floor. Her voice had the quality of someone who had recently survived something.

"You can get up," I said.

"I need another moment," she said.

"Take your time," I said.

I set my comm down and looked at the administrative report, which was real documentation and contained a real queue and in which Sera's name actually did appear quite far down because the open door policy was genuinely actively used and the queue was genuinely long.

The five months was accurate.

Give or take.

I thought about the poly bluff. About Sera's face when I'd asked the question. About the specific moment when the weapon had been aimed and had found that the target it was aimed at had, apparently, already been informed about and was enthusiastically participating in the situation the weapon was supposed to reveal.

The look on her face.

I was going to think about that look for a long time.

I had kissed no one. I was in no poly. Ivory would probably need a moment when she eventually heard about what I'd implied, though I had a reasonable suspicion she'd find it funny before she found it anything else.

Five months. Sera's face when I'd said five months.

I picked up my inspection notes and went back to work.

Outside my window, through the glass, the pack grounds were doing their afternoon things. Ordinary, ongoing, the texture of Shadowmere continuing.

My pack. Terrible influence. Absolute disaster of a place to try to develop dignity or restraint or any of the qualities I'd aspired to before I'd arrived here and started learning what the position actually required. I was starting to think dignity and restraint were overrated anyway. The floor was solid under my feet. I was standing on it. That was enough.