Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 456

KAEL

I didn't kill him — I was keeping count of who in this room had answers we needed, and this one had the bearing of someone who was too operational to not be worth questioning. But the conversation I had with him using my hands communicated the full range of my feelings about finding Ivory on that floor with chains on her wrists, and when it was done he stayed where he landed.

Ivory had used the distraction of my entrance to finish what she'd been doing with the right wrist chain. The lock mechanism — she'd been working it, apparently, with whatever she'd gotten her left hand around. The chain came loose while I was dealing with the man who'd been holding her.

She sat up.

The room was still active — three separate engagements going on simultaneously, the witch from upstairs who'd been coming around before Nina had caught up with the timing now appearing in the doorway behind Nina. The two defense rotation members dealing with the trained fighters, Elite systematically working her way through a situation on the right side of the room that I wasn't fully tracking. Jordan had taken someone down in the left corner.

Another witch came through the far wall.

Not the door. The wall. The specific appearance of a power user who didn't need architecture's cooperation for their movement choices.

I felt the curse scar respond — the place where the original curse had lived in my body for three years, healed now but leaving the specific sensitivity of tissue that had been through something significant. A witch's power at close range triggered it. Not pain — more like weather recognition. The knowledge of what was in the room.

"Behind you," Ivory said, from the floor.

I ducked.

The blast went over my head. Close — I felt the heat signature of it even as I was moving. The wolf's combat instincts and the human's tactical training doing the specific thing they did in high-pressure situations where having both was an advantage rather than a complication.

I came back up and went for the witch.

She was recalibrating — she'd expected to hit me, was adjusting for the miss, building the next attempt. Between the building of the next attempt and its execution there was a window that was smaller than any normal human could use but was exactly right for what I was doing.

The wolf's claws were out.

I didn't kill her. I put her on the floor and kept her on the floor and said to her very quietly the specific things that made people choose to stay on the floor. She chose to stay on the floor.

The room's remaining active participants had noticed the entrance and the subsequent series of events and were engaged in the specific recalculation of people who'd been expecting a secure facility and were now in a room with Nina and Jordan and Elite and two defense rotation specialists and a Shadowmere Alpha whose wolf was present and had feelings about the situation.

The recalculations were not producing hopeful conclusions.

Ivory, from her position on the floor, said: "The one on Jordan's left is overextending his right side when he swings. There's a gap every third strike."

"I can see the gap," Jordan said.

"I'm just saying," Ivory said. "In case you couldn't."

"I can see it," Jordan said.

"The gap is quite obvious," Ivory said. "I noticed it from here."

Jordan used the gap. The person on his left went down.

"I was going to use it," Jordan said.

"Of course you were," Ivory said.

"I had a plan," Jordan said.

"The plan looked very similar to my suggestion," Ivory said.

"It was a coincidence," Jordan said.

"Nina," Ivory said, slightly louder.

"Yes," Nina said, from the door position.

"The one in the corridor who you left on the floor—"

"She's secured," Nina said.

"She's also waking up faster than you'd expect," Ivory said. "The specific compound she's using for endurance has a side effect on sedative resistance. She'll be mobile in about four minutes."

"How do you know what compound she's using," Nina said.

"I can smell it from here," Ivory said. "Healer. Three years of working with botanical compounds and their interaction with various biological systems. The secondary notes of it are quite distinctive."

"Four minutes," Nina said.

"At most," Ivory said. "Possibly three and a half."

"Thank you," Nina said, and made an adjustment to how she'd secured the person in the corridor.

I had worked my way to Ivory.

The room was mostly resolved — the defense rotation members had the trained fighters contained, Elite had dealt with whatever had been happening on the right side, Jordan was finishing the last active engagement in the left corner with the efficiency of someone who'd been given adequate information about the gap.

I crouched down beside Ivory.

The damage was — significant. More visible up close than from across the room. The shoulder from the clinic blast, the chain injuries on both wrists, the newer damage from what they'd been doing to her before we arrived. The blistering from the wolfsbane contact was advanced enough that I could see it even in the room's dimmed light.

"I'm fine," she said, before I could speak.

"You're on the floor," I said.

"I'm resting," she said.

"Ivory—"

"I was in the middle of something when you came in," she said, with the specific injured dignity of someone who felt their process had been interrupted. "I had a plan."

"You were chained to the floor."

"I had gotten one chain off," she said. "I was working on the second. I had the knife in my thigh still. I was getting there."

"How many minutes away," I said.

She paused. "Give me credit for the plan even if I can't give you a precise timeline."

"Ivory."

"I was getting there," she said. "The plan was solid."

"You were getting there with a damaged shoulder, a wolfsbane-blistered wrist, and injuries that had been sustained for—" I stopped. Looked at her. "How long were you conscious for before we got here."

"Define conscious," she said.

"Ivory."

"Most of it," she said. "There were some gaps. The shield work was tiring and they weren't being gentle. But I was mostly present." She held my gaze. "I'm alright, Kael. I mean it. Not performing alright. Actually alright."

I sat on the floor beside her rather than crouching. The wolf settled. The immediate threat in the room was resolved, the team had the situation under management, and sitting beside Ivory on the floor of the place she'd been held felt like the correct allocation of myself for this moment.

"Elite," I said.

"Here," Elite said, from across the room.

"She's going to need medical."

"Margo's kit is in the car," Elite said. "I'll get it."

"She'll argue about the medical," I said.

"I know," Elite said. "I'll argue back."

"While you're doing the medical," I said, "someone needs to say the thing."

Elite paused in her movement toward the door.

She turned back.

She looked at Ivory on the floor with the expression she'd been building up to for the entire drive and the entire approach and the entire room-clearing.

"Ivory," Elite said.

"No," Ivory said.

"We rescued you," Elite said.

"You didn't need to—"

"We rescued you," Elite said again. "You were in distress. You were chained to a floor. We came. We got you out."

"I had a plan—"

"I told you so," Elite said.

Ivory closed her eyes briefly.

"I told you so," Elite said again, with the measured satisfaction of someone who'd been waiting a long time. "You should have told us. We could have helped. Now look. We helped."

"I was going to get out of the chains," Ivory said.

"I told you so," Elite said, and went to get the medical kit.

"She's been waiting to say that," Jordan said.

"I know," Ivory said.

"She has been waiting," Jordan said, "for a very long time."

"I know," Ivory said.

"Years," Jordan said.

"Jordan," Ivory said.

"Just saying," Jordan said. "Years."

From the floor, Ivory looked at me. The expression she had when we were done performing things for the room and were just ourselves — the one that had the full twelve years in it.

"Killian was here," she said.

I went very still.