Chapter 509
ARIA
Finished
“My protection,” I said. “He helped Ivory. Pory called the debt. That happened in this pack’s territory and it makes him a protected party for the immediate period.” Hooked at the group. “I know you’re angry. I know there’s history. I know that all of you have reasons that go back years and that he represents things that were genuinely terrible. I’m not saying ignore the history. I’m saying you can’t gang up on a person in a clinic bed because you have feelings about that history.”
“She’s not wrong,” Elite said.
“She’s not wrong’ found annoyi
“Aria,” Nin underst
“You’
agreed, with the specific tone of someone acknowledging an argument they
f its correctness.
one of someone who was about to say something they genuinely believed, “I we’re being-”
said.
nd something in her voice shifted with the specific quality of someone deciding to be We are assholes. That’s fair.”
oked at her.
said. “Aren’t we assholes?”
es we are,” Jordan said.
mpletely,” Elite said.
Profoundly,” Kael said.
“Competent assholes,” Jordan said, with the decisive clarity of someone who’d made a distinction they considered load-bearing. “We are competent assholes. There’s a meaningful difference.”
“The rest of us,” Ivory said.
“We’re competent assholes,” Elite said, without inflection.
“Absolutely, Jordan said
“Obviously.”
The dy
us from the other kind”
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Chapter 509-
Finish
I looked at them. At the five people who’d been building something together for fifteen years and had gotten so good at it that the building happened automatically, who were now standing in a corridor agreeing that they were assholes with the specific pride of people who’d decided that was the accurate assessment and were comfortable with it.
“How about,” I said, “we ask the pack what they think. About what should happen with Killian.”
Elite said: “Stoning.”
It came out immediately, with the flat certainty of someone who’d run the calculation and arrived at an
answer.
“Elite,” I said.
“You asked,” Elite said.
“The pack wouldn
“The pack,” Jon to Kael’s fam
and Luna. thorough
“Mart
a sp
started.
loyal to Kael. And to Ivory. And the history of what Killian’s existence did to the pack. There are pack members who remember the previous Alpha at the circumstances were.” He paused. “The pack’s response would be
he’d been in my head since Jordan had named the pack’s sentiment and she was ould we be worried about his meals.”
with the tone of someone who wasn’t necessarily asking because they were worried.
one should tell Martha.”
aid, “is going to be personally offended that we think she would.”
I said.
Kael and Jordan looked at each other.
ly not permanently damage,” Jordan said. “But the specific kind of preparation that results in a y unpleasant experience-”
Martha,” I said.
I’ll tell Martha,” Ivory said. “She’l listen to me. She won’t like it. But she’ll listen.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Kael was looking simultaneously manages Al
He’s he
with
in the garden — the one that was several things The one that had more of him in it than the
for, to the situation. He’s in the secondary citme trayed the network that had been running
ars. The packed. That’s the full accounting
9:53 am P
Chapter 509-
“It is,” Nina said.
Finisher
“He’s the reason,” Kael said, and his voice had the quality of someone deciding to say something they’d been deciding about, “that fated bonds are practically outlawed in this pack. The whole thing – my mother, my father, the way it ended – Killian is the evidence. The walking proof that a fated bond doesn’ mean what it’s supposed to mean and doesn’t guarantee what it’s supposed to guarantee.” He looked at the wall. Not the gate wall – the corridor wall. “built a policy around what he represented. The whole pack absorbed that policy.”
“And now your fated mate is also here,” Ivory said, quietly.
The corridor absorbed this.
Kael didn’t answer im through him in the instead of manag
“And now my
I stayed ve
Silver
need
- He looked at the wall. At some middle distance. At whatever was working
that things worked through him when he’d decided to sit with them.
e,” he said.
arm and careful. The respectful still of someone witnessing something that and not interfered with.
se when it was made,” Kael said. “The people who chose each other freely – Amber, hey chose well. They’re good. The policy didn’t hurt them. But-” he stopped.
approached the bond,” Ivory said,
approached everything,” Kael said/”The whole way I thought about it. And when the bond n it was real and it was there and it was fated – I didn’t know how to-” he stopped again.
eave a framework,” Jordan said, with the gentleness that came out occasionally from Jordan
as saying something he’d thought about for a while. “The policy you built was about protection fated bonds do when they fail. But it didn’t give you anything for what to do when they re real”
ael said.
I say,” Kael said, after a moment, “that Killian is also technically the reason I was cursed.”
thought we already had people to blame for the curse, Ivory said.
“We do, Kael said. “We have a very specific list. But Killian’s existence was the precedent that made me decide love over fate, and
and saving those kids
“That’s an exiren
Ts in a cre
“The wil
witetd
e was the decision I was making when I saved those kids.
child sacrifice The child sacrifice and the
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Chapter 509-
Finishe
“He was working with them,” Kael said. “The network. The same people. Aha. That’s a crime.”
“We know it’s a crime, Nina said. “Which is why we’re going to interrogate him properly and add his information to the investigation and process the situation through appropriate channels.”
“After I get one more swing,” Kael said.
“No.” I said.
“I said count me in earlier,” Kael said.
“I know what you said,” I said. “The answer is still no.”
“He was working w
who had Ivory in a basement,” Khel said.
1
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Mated To My Mate’s Worst Enemy
A passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.