Chapter 572

KAEL

Finished

She looked at the window! The same window Killian had been looking out of in the secondary clinic, weeks ago. The same eastern garden.

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

She waited.

“I said I chose Aria,” I said. “At the book club. I meant it – I mean it. The bond is real. What I feel for her is – it’s growing. It’s not what you and I have, it’s different from that, but it’s real and it’s becoming something and I’m not walking away from it.” I held her gaze. “But I’ve been carrying the old future. The one we had before the curse. The names we’d chosen, the things we’d planned – I’ve been holding onto it in the way you hold onto something you haven’t finished grieving.”

Ivory was very still.

“I haven’t grieved it,” I said. “The future we lost. I’ve been trying to build the new one without finishing with the old one. And that’s-” I stopped. “That’s not fair to Aria. And it’s not fair to you. And it’s not fair to whatever we actually are now.”

“What are we now,” she said. Her voice was very quiet,

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s honest. I know I love you. I know that hasn’t gone anywhere and I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere and I’m not pretending it isn’t what it is.” I looked at my hands. “And I know I chose Aria. And I know those two things have to exist simultaneously because the alternative is being dishonest about one of them.”

“Kael,” she said.

“I need to put the old future down,” I said. “Properly. Not pretend it away. Not manage around it. Actually put it down.” I looked at her. “And I think to do that I needed to say it out loud to you. Because you were the other person in it.”

She was quiet for a long time.

“The children’s names,” she said, eventually.

“Yes,” I said.

Something moved in her expression. The managed layer and the clinical layer and everything underneath

them.

“I still think about the garden,” she said. “The one I was going to build on the eastern side of the quarters. Different from the clinic garden.” She paused. “More personal. For us, specifically.”

7:27 pm P PPP.

Chapter 522-

“I know,” I said. “You showed me the plans.”

“Before the curse,” she said.

“Before the curse,” I said.

#Finished

We sat with that for a moment. The specific weight of all the things that had been planned before the curse and had not survived it.

“I’m going to break the root,” she said.

—

but the

The shift in her voice told me something. Not what – I didn’t have the specific information yet quality of the shift, the way she said it with the settled certainty of someone who’d arrived at a decision they were completely at peace with.

“I know,” I said. “That’s the plan.”

“Yes,” she said. “It is.”

Something in the way she said it.

*Khris,* I said.

*I feel it too,* Khris said. *I don’t know what it is.*.

“Ivory,” I said.

“You should go,” she said. “You need sleep. The left knee needs sleep.”

“How do you know about the left knee,” I said.

“I’ve been monitoring your training assessments,” she said. “Go.”

“We’re not done,” I said.

“We’re not done,” she agreed. “But we’re done for tonight.” She looked at me with the twelve years in it. “Go talk to Aria tomorrow. Properly. Don’t do the thing where you know what you should say and you say something adjacent to it. Say the actual thing.”

“You heard about that,” I said.

“Nina has ears everywhere,” she said, “And Jordan was awake. And Killian was in the corridor.”

Killian was in the corridor,” I said.

“He found her afterward, Ivory said. “He’s good with her, actually. He says the things that need saying without all of your architecture.”

“I have architecture,” I said.

“You have twelve layers of management between what you feel and what you say she said. “It’s a structural feature. It has served you well in many contexts. In this one, say the actual thing”

7:27 pm P PPP

Chapter 522-

I stood up.

“The actual thing,” I said

“Start with the apology,” she said. “Not the managed version. The real one.”

“The real one,” I said.

“And Kael,” she said.

I stopped at the door.

#Finished

“The future we lost,” she said. “I grieve it too.” She held my gaze. “But I’d do it the same way again. I’d make the same choice.” She paused. “You needed to know that.”

r

I stood in the doorway of the clinic with the twelve years and the old future and the new one that was still being built.

“I know,” I said.

“Goodnight,” she said.

Goodnight,” I said.

I walked out into the dark corridor.

Well, Khris said.

Not now, I said.

Okay, Khris said.

We walked toward the den.

The left knee had opinions.

let it have them.

7

A/N: I did not enjoy writing this scene at all, but apparently i have been turning aria to a robot, and well

here we are.

Also some people do not understand the wolves mechanism, i saw a comment so i will clarify.

vory being stated as a human in the previous chapters by the bad guys isn’t wrong. Shadowmere pack, veryone in it are all humans except for three people; kael, killian, and aria. But that doesn’t mean they ren’t wolves either. Shifting is very hard and painful for them, but they can shift. The only issue is one. hey can’t communicate when shifted, they can’t hear instructions and they are more similar to feral wild animals, i call them human in the sense that; they can’t smell or scent, they do not have super strength, or super speed, neither can they do the mindlink or the other things wolves can do in human form, they are all limited as humans. Killian was a rogue wolf and left the pack, his wolf was not suppressed. Kael had his wolf ripped out from him and turned into a twisted separate entity inside him. making them two different people, or personality, and Aria was a full wolf that got bound to a cursed wolf and lost her woll. I mean she could shift and all that, but i think she forgot because there was no reason for her to do anything.

PPPP

7:27 pm P

Chapter 522-

because nobody else was shifting.

Finished

In conclusion, Aria did not return their wolves to them or convert them to wolves, she is simply being an anchor for them so they have something to return to, or use it as a baseline but they are all capable of turning into wolves albeit it is very painful.

And i will say it again, kael and aria will not have a romance until the curse is gone. i do not know why some are insisting it happened, if aria and kael actually start kissing out of the blue, it is ridiculous, let kael grieve, he also has the right to mourn what he lost