Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 433

ARIA

"Kael," Nina said.

"Where is Vesper," he said again.

"The dungeon holding," Jordan said, with the tone of someone answering because the answer was going to come out regardless.

Kael left the office.

We followed him because the alternative was not following him and that had outcomes that nobody in the room wanted to manage alone.

---

The guard outside the holding room stepped aside without being asked. This was the correct instinct on the guard's part — the expression on Kael's face as he came down the corridor was the kind that wise people removed themselves from the path of immediately and without discussion.

The door opened.

Vesper was on the floor. He'd been put in the holding room with the basics of medical attention — the arm situation addressed to the level of keeping him stable rather than comfortable, which was the level of attention Nina had specified earlier when she'd wanted answers from him rather than a corpse.

He looked up when the door opened. Registered Kael. Registered Kael's expression.

His own expression did something complex and settled on defiance, which was either brave or very foolish depending on how you calculated the situation.

"I'm not talking," Vesper said.

"Oh," Kael said.

He crouched down in front of Vesper with the casual ease of someone who had a great deal of time for this and no urgency whatsoever, which was the most alarming quality he could have deployed and appeared to be entirely deliberate.

"You have no idea," Kael said, "how happy I am that you said those words."

He ripped Vesper's good arm off.

The sound and the aftermath and the specific chaos of the next thirty seconds were things I filed in the part of my brain that was keeping a running account of moments in Shadowmere that I would need considerable time to fully process. Vesper's scream filled the holding room. The arm was no longer attached. Jordan, with the expression of a man who'd seen too much today and was adding this to the list, picked it up from the floor where it had ended up and held it at arm's length with the resigned quality of someone who'd been assigned this task by the universe and was accepting it.

"This is going to be a headache," Jordan said, "for whoever gets assigned to scrub this floor."

"We could give Vesper a bucket and rag," Nina said. "He can scrub it himself. Pass the time."

Kael let Vesper finish screaming. He waited with the specific patience of someone who'd decided that the screaming was a reasonable interlude and was prepared for it to conclude on its own schedule.

"Let it all out," Kael said, when the screaming had peaked and was beginning its descent. "Just cry. Get it all out. I'll wait."

"Sometimes," Nina said, very quietly, to me and Jordan, "I forget how cruel he can be."

"You are worse than him," Jordan said.

"That's true," Nina said. "Okay, but still."

Vesper's screaming had reduced to something more manageable. Kael looked at him with the expression of someone who'd been patient and was ready to move to the next phase.

"Now," Kael said. "You have one hand attached to your body. On that hand, three fingers. I don't see a significant future in certain aspects of your life." He paused. "Unless you're planning to develop significant alternative capabilities." He tilted his head. "Are you planning to develop significant alternative capabilities, Vesper?"

Vesper was not planning anything. Vesper was on the floor bleeding through his injury and looking at Kael with the expression of someone who had genuinely miscalculated the situation.

The guard outside — I could hear it from where I was standing — made a sound and then converted it immediately to a cough. The conversion was not fully successful.

"You can tell me where they took her," Kael said. "Or I can use you as a human version of she loves me, she loves me not. Do you know that game? You need an even number of components to play it properly." He looked at Vesper's remaining hand. "Three fingers. We need to add one for it to work evenly, or remove one. Your preference."

Vesper talked.

He talked fast and he talked thoroughly, which was what happened when the alternative had been clearly demonstrated. Kael asked questions and Vesper answered them and Kael asked follow-up questions and Vesper answered those too, the answers coming out between the physical reality of his situation and the very clear understanding that Kael had both the capability and the willingness to continue the reduction of available components.

The third location on Elite's list. The facility near where Damon had been sighted. Underground — below a legitimate building that had been used as cover for years, that appeared in public records as a research installation and was actually something else entirely. Access points. Security arrangements. The number of people inside. The specific details of where they would have put someone they'd taken alive and needed to keep contained.

Kael stood up when he had what he needed.

"You had to overdo it," Nina said.

"He's not dead," Kael said.

"I can't even be mad because it's technically true," Nina said. "But I wanted to do it."

"I'll leave Damon to you," Kael said.

"You're lying," Nina said. "You'll never leave Damon to me."

"Let's not," Jordan said, "discuss killing Damon in front of his ex-girlfriend."

Everyone looked at me.

I looked at them.

"How about," Nina said, after a moment, "we focus on other targets. I'll rip apart the woman who shot Ivory."

"No," Kael said. "She's mine."

"You people," Vesper said, from the floor, with the hoarse remnant of his voice, "are monsters. Ivory will be killed. You won't stop this. Your bond—" he looked at me, "—will be broken."

"Can I take one of his legs," Kael said, to no one in particular. "I don't think he values it."

"NO," said Nina, Jordan, Elite, and I simultaneously.

The guard outside coughed again with even less success than the first time.

"Fine," Kael said.