Chapter 539

KILLIAN

We sat with the silence.

“You weren’t the only casualty,” he said. “Of what they did. My parents. Our father’s choice. Your mothe he stopped. “You grew up without the acknowledgment you should have had. I understand that now. I c understand it at seventeen. I was too-”

“You were seventeen,” I said. “And your mother had just died.”

“Yes,” he said.

“And I’d known and said nothing,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “And you’d known and said nothing.” He looked at his hands. “Those two things can both be true.”

“Yes,” I said. “They can.”

“I’m angry,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“Not at you specifically,” he said. “At-” he stopped. “The whole configuration. What it produced. What bot of us lost because of what our father did.” He looked at the sealed wall. “I sealed that because I couldn’t-1 couldn’t walk past a door that led to where your mother had been. Every time I walked through this wing I see it and–”

“I know,” I said.

“I didn’t want the reminder,” he said.

“The reminder is still there,” I said. “Sealed or open.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is.”

We sat in the room that he’d sealed and opened for me at the same time, which was its own kind of statement about where we were.

“The wolf,” he said.

“What about the wolf,” I said.

“Mine says you’ve suffered long enough,” he said, “He said it on Thursday and I’d been hearing it for days before that.”

“I know you have a complicated relationship with your wolf’s opinions.” I said

“He’s usually right. Kael said I just take a long time to agree with him.”

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Chapter 539

“Yes,” I said.

r wolf protected Ivory,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Without the mindlink,” he said. “In full wolf form. Against mine.”

“I wasn’t going to let-” I stopped.

“You weren’t going to let the cursed version of my wolf-” he started.

“Hurt her.” I said. “No.”

He was quiet.

“Why,” he said.

“Because she’d told me she owed me one,” I said. “And because-” I stopped. “She’d been fair. In the cli when she was treating me, when she had every reason to be something else. She was fair.” I paused. “I v going to let-”

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s not-”

“You don’t have to explain it,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I’m explaining it anyway.”

He looked at me.

“She’s been through a lot,” he said, and the quality of his voice when he said it communicated the specific depth of what twelve years of knowing someone produced.

“I know,” I said. “I’ve seen some of it.”

“More than some,” he said.

“More than some,” I agreed.

“She’s in a complicated position,” he said.

“Everyone here is in a complicated position,” I said. “I don’t expect uncomplicated.”

He looked at me for a moment with the expression that had several layers- the Alpha and the half-brother and the person who’d been carrying the history of both for a long time.

“The book,” he said.

“What about it, I said.

Was it effective.” he said. “Chapter seventeen. Narratively”

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Chapter 539

“We established that,” I said.

“The character dynamic,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“The younger character-” he said.

“Kael.” I said.

“What,” he said.

“Are you trying to tell me something using the characters as cover,” I said.

He was quiet for a moment.

“No,” he said.

“Are you sure,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Because if you have something to say,” I said.

“I don’t,” he said.

“The sealed wall,” I said.

“Is a sealed wall,” he said.

“And you’re sitting under it,” I said.

“I’m sitting,” he said, “in a room. That happens to be near a wall. That happens to be sealed.”

“Kael,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“You sat on the floor,” I said. “Specifically. Below the sealed wall.

“The floor is comfortable,” he said.

“There’s a chair,” I said.

“I prefer the floor,’ he said.

I looked at him on the floor below the sealed wall.

He looked at me on the bed.

vas on the table.

the chapter” I said.

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Chapter 539

“Yes,” he said.

You’re welcome to-” I started.

“No.” he said.

“I was going to say stay,” I said.

“I know what you were going to say,” he said.

“The book has good pacing,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I’ve read a similar volume.”

“You could read it,” I said. “Chapter seventeen specifically.”

“I know what’s in chapter seventeen,” he said.

“You know what’s in your volume’s chapter seventeen,” I said. “The specific sequence in this one—”

“The sequence is similar across the series,” he said. “Ivory has described the parallels.”

“Ivory has described them to you,” I said.

“At length,” he said. “With diagrams.”

“Ivory made diagrams,” I said.

“Ivory made-” he stopped. “They were explanatory diagrams. For the interpersonal dynamics.”

“Of course,” I said.

“They were very thorough,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Ivory is thorough.”

“About everything,” he said.

“About everything,” I agreed.

We were talking about something else. Both of us, We’d been talking about something else for the past fifteen minutes and were maintaining the specific fiction of talking about the book because the thing we were actually talking about was too large and too new and too complicated to be addressed directly at nine in the evening in the room below the sealed wall.

But we were both saying it.

I’m going to finish the chapter, I said again

I’m going to go,” he said.

“Yes,” I said

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Chapter 539

10

Fi

He stood up from the floor. Brushed off his clothes. Looked at the book. At me. At the sealed wall, ond briefly.

“Kian,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Monday briefing,” he said. “Eight o’clock.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

“Bring the book,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Ivory is going to ask about it,” he said. “You might as well have it with you for the discussion.”

“There isn’t going to be a discussion,” I said.

“Ivory is going to make there be a discussion,” he said. “You might as well be prepared.”

“Will you be prepared,” I said.

“I’m always prepared,” he said.

“For Ivory specifically,” I said.

“I’ve been preparing for Ivory since i was a child,” he said. “It’s still insufficient.”

He went.

I listened to his footsteps down the corridor.

Then I picked up the book.

I finished chapter seventeen.

And then chapters eighteen, nineteen, and twenty, which built on chapter seventeen in ways that I was going to have to be very careful about how I described to Ivory.

Outside the window, the eastern garden was dark. The nightbloom was luminescent even at night – Ivory had built that into it, the specific quality that meant the plants didn’t require sunlight to express themselves

The sealed wall was still a sealed wall.

And the book was very well-written.

I thought about chapter fourteen.

I thought about whether Kael had actually had diagrams.

I thought about a great inany things until quite late.

talking about it, ughhh. I know you guys are wondering. Kael has not had an entononal

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Chapter 539

conversation with Aria about their love life and yet he has one with Killian almost immediately, Karl can have the conversation with Aria unless he digs up the past, and who happen to be the reason he hates fat

ds…ding ding ding. Killian. Kael has apologized for being a douche bag to Aria and said from now on he will treat her well. Yes. But now, their fated bond, Kael acts he is fine and accepts it, but we see him los control or shuts down when someone brings it up, before Killian was here. He wanted Killian gore becau he didn’t want to deal with what Killian presence held. And now he is having the conversation, he is lettin go slowly, he is trying to heal. Like the wall he sealed, he just put a wall over his heart and declared it functional. The hurt is still there, now he has to heal, before he and Aria can have anything worthwhile o sooner than later he will hurt Aria. Aria is the catalyst yes, but Kael has to decide on his own terms to heal and let go of the past.

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Mated To My Mate’s Worst Enemy

Florence

A passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.