Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 402

ARIA

"Open it," he said.

She looked at him.

"Open it," he said again, quieter.

She set down the botanical text and reached for the twine with her working hand. Untied it with the careful economy of someone managing with one hand and not wanting to ask for help. Unfolded the paper with the same care.

The books were visible before she'd fully opened the wrapping.

I was watching her face. I saw the moment she registered what they were — the specific collection of volumes, the covers she'd apparently been familiar with from a previous iteration of herself that had known what these were and had wanted them. The expression that moved through her face was not the controlled professional version. It was the unguarded version, the one that arrived before the management did.

She pressed her lips together. Looked at the note.

"Read it," Kael said, from the foot of the bed where he'd positioned himself. He was looking at her with the expression of someone who'd calculated this approach and was watching it work with something that wasn't quite satisfaction — more like the feeling of having done the right thing and finding it was received.

Ivory unfolded the note and read it.

I couldn't see what it said from my position. Whatever it was, it was not long — she read it in under a minute. When she looked up, her expression had settled into something that was complicated in the specific way of feelings that were multiple and didn't simplify into one thing.

"You bought the entire series," she said.

"Seven and eight released last month," he said. "I had them held."

"You had them held," she said.

"I've been having them held since six was released," he said. "Waiting for the right time to give them."

The room was doing the thing rooms did when something private was happening in them that the people present had varying degrees of right to be witnessing. Jordan had found something genuinely interesting in the window view. Nina was writing in her notes with the focused attention of someone who was definitely not listening. The junior healers had collectively developed an intense interest in the equipment on the far wall.

I was sitting in my chair looking at Ivory's face, which was the honest thing to do because what was in it was worth seeing.

"Seven books," she said. "You held seven books."

"You deserved to have them all, not just the first batch when you were yourself," he said. "When you knew what they were and why they mattered."

Ivory was quiet.

"Also," he said, "the books are a bribe. I want you to tell me everything, and the books are the bribe for the everything part."

Nina's pen stopped moving.

"That's," Ivory said, and then stopped.

"I know," he said. "It's a terrible bribe. You already have books one through six. Books seven and eight are a modest addition to an established collection. It's not enough for everything." He held her gaze. "But it's what I have available at short notice, and I thought the intent mattered more than the adequacy of the offering."

The room was very quiet.

Ivory looked at the books. At the note. At Kael, at the specific quality of him standing at the foot of the bed in the morning light.

"The rope," she said. "Is still offensive."

"The rope," he said, "stays where it is until I have reasonable confidence that you're not going to find an urgent reason to check on a sleeping patient at a critical moment."

"I don't do that," she said, and this version had less conviction than the earlier ones.

"The treaty negotiation," he said.

"That patient had—"

"The coalition meeting," he said.

She closed her mouth.

"The Jordan conversation," he said.

"Fine," she said.

"Fine you'll tell me everything," he said.

"Fine I'll tell you significantly more than I was going to tell you," she said. "Which I already agreed to tell Nina."

"Everything," he said. "Not significantly more than planned. Everything."

"Everything is a very large category," she said.

"Yes," he said. "That's why I brought rope."

Jordan turned from the window with the expression of someone who'd been doing a very good job and was now done doing it and needed a moment. He found something elsewhere to direct his attention.

"I'm going to tell you everything relevant to pack security and your personal safety," Ivory said. "Some things are mine and don't affect either of those categories and—"

"Everything," he said.

"Kael—"

"Ivory." The way he said it had no argument in it. Just the specific weight of two words carrying two decades of being the person she'd consistently kept things from and having arrived, finally, at the point where he was done allowing it. "I watched them carry you on a stretcher last night. I want everything."

The room held its breath.

Ivory looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at the books in her lap. At the note still in her hand.

"The root still being active," she said finally. "That's the most important thing. The attacker was right. Breaking the curse through the bond stopped the progression but didn't destroy the foundational construction."

"I know that part," he said. "What's the rest."

"The caster," she said. "Whoever built the curse — I don't have a name. I have a family line and a regional origin and some structural signatures in the curse's construction that narrow the field significantly. The attacker's information filled in several gaps I'd been missing." She paused. "Vela — the attacker — she was working for someone. Not the caster directly. An intermediary. Someone who's been protecting the caster's identity and also protecting the root because the root being intact is potentially useful to whoever wanted the curse to work in the first place."

"Someone wanted the curse," Kael said. "Wanted me transformed."