Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 463

IVORY

"I owe you several apologies too," I said. "We both know it. We'll have those conversations when the night is processed and the wrist has been properly treated and we've slept." I looked at him directly. "I'm going to have them. Not manage around them. Actually have them."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"That's the most alarming thing you've said tonight," he said. "Including the part about the sixty-nine incidents."

"I know," I said. "I've decided to find alarming things useful."

"That's my line," he said.

"I borrowed it," I said. "From watching you use it."

Edna appeared.

She was moving through the edge of the crowd with her walking stick and the specific bearing of a woman who had been in the shelter and was now out of it and had opinions about being in the shelter. She came directly to me.

"Ivory," Edna said.

"Edna," I said.

"I was in the shelter," she said.

"I know," I said.

"The Luna promised me Damon Blackwood's address," she said.

"She did, indeed," I said.

"The address," Edna said.

"When we have it," I said. "I'll personally make sure it reaches you."

"Good," she said. She looked me over with the assessment of someone who'd known me for a long time. "You look terrible."

"Thank you," I said.

"You'll be fine," she said. "You always are. It's very irritating." She patted my non-damaged arm once, which from Edna was the equivalent of a speech. Then she made her way back into the crowd.

The noise of the pack continued around us. The specific celebratory chaos of a group that had been through something and had won and needed to express what winning felt like before the exhaustion arrived properly.

I looked at Aria.

She was laughing at something Jordan had said, and two of the wolves from the link were standing close to her with the specific quality of animals that had made a decision about a person and were communicating it through proximity. She hadn't noticed. She was focused on Jordan's account.

She'd run a temporary mindlink for thirty wolves.

She'd countered a blood-bending attack with the same power, in a combat situation, with zero preparation.

She'd organized the defense of a pack whose senior leadership was absent, against a force that had been specifically staged to exploit that absence, and had produced an outcome where the pack was standing and the enemy was not.

She'd done all of that while I was on a basement floor calculating chains.

And the first thing she'd done when the car came through the gate was check that I was whole.

I'd arranged her life and called it protecting Kael.

She'd protected my pack and checked on my wrist.

The accounting was not flattering to me.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow there would be the conversation I'd committed to, the full version, all of it. Killian and the fated bond and the letter and what I'd known and what I hadn't said and all the costs of all the decisions and the places where I'd gotten it wrong and the places where I'd gotten it right and the complicated truth that most of it was both simultaneously.

Tonight Aria was the star.

And she absolutely deserved to be.

I stood at the edge of the celebration with Kael beside me and watched Shadowmere give someone their due, and felt something that I was going to need some time to properly classify.

The chaos of Aria and the pack continued around us, and someone had gotten flowers from somewhere which was very Shadowmere and someone else was trying to give Aria a detailed account of a specific wolf-form engagement that had been particularly well-executed, and Celine was crying while simultaneously insisting to Margo that she wasn't crying, and Martha was telling someone near the gate an account that I caught fragments of and that sounded significantly more dramatic than whatever had actually happened but was also almost certainly accurate in spirit.

Killian could wait.

The root of the curse could wait.

The conversations I'd been not-having could be scheduled for tomorrow.

Tonight was this — the specific messy joyful aftermath of people who'd been afraid and had done the thing anyway and had come out the other side. My inner circle, standing near the car. Nina, who'd been my cousin and my closest person since before I could remember, who'd sat outside a bolted door on a corridor floor because she didn't want to leave. Jordan, who'd documented approach timing variations when what he was doing was filling the space where the fear was with professional function. Elite, who'd monitored a wrist treatment for her own peace of mind.

Kael, who'd driven and fought and carried me fourteen feet and was now standing beside me watching his pack celebrate his mate with the expression of someone who was several things simultaneously and was not yet sorting them into their categories.

Aria, surrounded, being cheered for, looking slightly overwhelmed in the specific way of someone who'd expected this to be harder and was receiving something larger than they'd prepared for.

She caught my eye across the chaos.

The look between us was brief. It contained the apology I hadn't said yet and her acknowledgment of it and several other things that didn't have words yet and didn't need them right now. Tomorrow, the words. Tonight, just this.

I felt the cracking thing settle slightly.

Not resolved. Not finished.

But moving in the right direction.

The pack was cheering.

Aria was the star.

Killian could absolutely wait.

A/N; God this chapter felt nostalgic, and we get to see Aria acknowledged, I am so touched, and happy.

I like to apologize to everyone, yesterday I uploaded up to 453 from 448. But for some reason only 448 was showing, so I am making it up with this. I cant wait for Aria supporters to have opinions and finally be pleased. I don't know why but I feel like tearing up, we are entering Aria's Arc people, yeah ivory will be there, and I really hope people stop hating on ivory. Oh well, enjoy. As for my other books, please check them out, also don't forget my friend book hikikimori. I'm free till next week, no exams so expect update later tonight or tomorrow.