Chapter 569

KAEL

Finished

“I don’t know why you’re-4” I started. “You said you wanted space. We gave each other space. You said you needed to heal – from Damon, from the rejection, from what that history cost you. I understood that. I didn’t press. I gave you the space you said you needed because pressing would have been—*

“And I understand that,” she said. “I know you were trying. But it’s been months. And the space that was supposed to be for healing started feeling like something else. She held my gaze. “After the curse is broken. What happens then?”

*Good question,* Khris said.

*Not helpful,* I said.

“We chose you,” I said. “We’ll be faithful-”

“So I’m what you settled for,” she said.

“I never said that,” I said.

“You implied it,” she said.

“What? No,” I stopped. Looked at her. At the specific careful composure of someone who’d decided to have this conversation and was holding it together with the specific strength of someone who’d been holding things together for a long time. “I care for Ivory. I’m not going to pretend I don’t. But that doesn’t

mean-”

“You can’t even say it,” she said. “I asked you if you loved me and you said I was your fated mate.”

“I love you,” I said.

She looked at me.

“You’re just saying it,” she said.

“You told me to say it,” I said.

The words came out before I’d processed them.

Oh no, Khris said.

I heard what I’d said approximately half a second after I’d said it. The specific gap between speaking and registering that I’d spent nine months trying to close and had just failed at in the worst possible context,

“Aria-“I started.

She shook her head.

1:40 pm

Chapter 569.

And left.

Finished

The door closed behind her with the specific quiet of someone who’d decided the volume of the closing wasn’t worth the energy. Not a stam. Worse than a slam. The controlled quiet of someone who’d expected a particular outcome and had received it and was done.

I stood in the middle of the quarters and held the bag I’d been about to take to the den.

*Wow,* Khris said.

“Shut up,” I said.

*That was,* Khris said, *genuinely terrible.*

“I know,” I said.

*On a scale of one to catastrophic,* Khris said, *that was catastrophic.*

“I know,” I said.

*She asked if you loved her,* Khris said, *and your response was to tell her she made you say it.*

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said.

*No,* Khris said, *but you said it. Meaning and saying are two different things and you just demonstrated that in the worst possible direction.*

I put the bag down.

Sat on the edge of the bed – Aria’s side, which was where I’d ended up when I sat down, which was its own kind of information – and looked at the door she’d just closed behind her.

*Also,* Khris said, *she was right.*

“About which part,” I said.

*The eyes,* Khris said. *The touch. The six months.* A pause. *All of it, actually.*

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I said.

*I am on your side,* Khris said. *Being on your side means telling you when you’re wrong so you don’t keep being wrong. You are wrong. You have been wrong for six months in a slow and consistent way and she just told you specifically how and you responded by confirming it.*

“I didn’t mean to confirm it,” I said.

“What did you mean to do,* Khris said.

I looked at the window. The night outside. The pack grounds in the late dark, the nightbloom in the castern garden doing its luminescent thing that I’d stopped being able to see as anything other than Ivory’s work at some point in the past months.

That, Khris said.

PPP

1:40 pm P

Chapter 569.

Finished

“I know,” I said.

*You were thinking about the garden,* Khris said. *Which is her garden. She built it. And that’s where your head goes.*

“I was thinking about Aria, I said.

*You were thinking about Aria while looking at Nory’s garden,* Khris said. *There’s a distinction in there.*

“You said you were in,” I said. “At the book club. You said you came around.”

–

*I came around,* Khris said. *Aria is our mate. The bond is real, we said so, I believe it. She is — she is good, Kael. She chose this pack before this pack chose her. She held that shield in the battle. She’s been building the mindlink for weeks at five in the morning before anyone else is awake because she doesn’t want to take up space by being seen to try too hard.* A pause. *She’s been trying not to take up too much space since she arrived and we gave her every reason to keep not taking it.*

I sat with this.

*The children’s names,* Khris said, quietly.

“Don’t,” I said.

*We had them chosen,* Khris said. *For years. Before the curse. We had a future mapped out and the curse came and took it and you’ve been – you’ve been here, you’ve been present, you’ve been doing what needed doing. But you haven’t – you haven’t let the old future go.*

“I know,” I said.

*The true thing,* Khris said. *That we want her. That it got buried under the grief of what we lost and the weight of everything else and we let it get buried for too long. That she was right about all of it. That she deserves the actual version.*

“I know,” I said.

*And then,* Khris said, *at some point, you are going to have to talk to Ivory.*

“Not tonight,” I said.

*Not tonight,* Khris agreed. *But soon. Before the root removal. Before the war. Because if we go into what’s coming with this still unaddressed-*

“I know,” I said.

“We had Bartholomew, Khris said, quietly.

“It was a terrible name,” I said.

“Yes,” Khris said. “But he was going to be ours.

I stood with this for a moment. The specific weight of a future that hadn’t happened and was never going

to happen and that had been sitting in my chest for three years without being named.

1:40 pm PPP

Chapter 569-

“I’ve been letting it go,” I said.

Finished

*You sleep in the den, Khris said. “Six months. You haven’t touched her. She’s your mate and you’ve been a very respectful, very courteous, very distant presence in her life and you told yourself it was giving her space.* He paused. *When did she last say she needed space?*