Chapter 612

“The pack survives, he saidd Theemindink is built now. The wolves are restored. The bond was the mechanism for breaking thee assethe curse is broken, functionally. The root is still there but the bond’s primary function in terms ofthe pock’s stability is he stopped. “It’s relevant but not the sole factor anymore. We have other minusz”

What happens to the root! I sudd

“Ivory is working on the roottemnoull he said. “She says she has a mechanism.”

Something in his voice when hbssuid

He didn’t know what I knew. WnusSuch had been watching. What Killian now knew.

“What happens to you. I said.

I’m the Alpha.” he said. “I manage

“That’s not an answer. I said.

He looked at the window.

I manage.” he said again, and the repection was bonest in a way the words themselves weren’t quite.

“Kael. I said.

You’re not asking about me, he said.You’ve easking about the inating. About what you want. That’s what this is what you want, not what’s good doorhbopack or good for ing or what fits the structure. What you actually want.”

–

I looked at him.

At the nine months. At the border baule and dhbhbobklub and the woods in the morning and the specific quality of him lying in the grass looking atthe canopy with his arm behind his head and the lazy certainty of someone who’d found a space they were confurrblienAtthe argument this morning and the things ne’d said and the things he’d said wrong and thb things shthuhhad been true in both. At the twelve layers between his feelings and his words and the occasioionthinomguts when something slipped through the layers without the management and landed exactly right

As the wolf.

At Khris, who I could feel through the bond now hbeudewway that the inte

not the distant warmth of the early months.oothbenediated signal

toward

the actual woit, present and complex and carrying thingss

At what the bond felt bke now versus nine months ago

I want to tell you something, I said.

(

16:59 Tue, Sep 15

Chapter 612

ச.

“Okay,” he said.

“I came here,” I said, “from a pack where I was someone’s secret. Where the person who was supposed to be my mate had already decided what I was worth and the decision was not much. Where the rejection was-“I stopped. “The rejection was built into the foundation. He’d decided before he knew me. And I carried that here. I carried the version of myself that had been valued at not–much and I arrived in a place where the pack resented me and the Alpha was grieving something I wasn’t and I tried to build something out offery little with very little to build from.”

“I know,” he said.

“Let me finish,” I said.

He waited.

“I built something,” I said. “I built it badly at first, and then better, and then better than that. I made mistakes – Damon, the house arrest situation, the things I didn’t say and should have said and the things I said that I shouldn’t have. I built it imperfectly.” I held his gaze. “But I built it. And the thing I built is here. It’s in the pack link and it’s in the thirty wolves and it’s in the border battle and it’s in the book club and it’s in the woods in the morning and it’s in the conversation we had this morning where we actually said the real things for the first time.” I paused. “I built something here that I’ve never had before and I’m not walking away from it.”

He was very still.

“That’s not you answering the question,” he said. That’s you explaining the context. The question is—”

“The answer is no,” I said. “I don’t want the mating dissolved.”

He looked at me.

“Aria,” he said.

“I said I’m not walking away from it,” I said. “That’s the answer. No. I’m not invoking the Convention. I’m not asking for the dissolution.” I looked at him steadily. I’m telling you that I know what I came from and 1 know what I’m in and I’m choosing this. Not because the bond requires it. Not because I don’t have another option. Because this is what I want.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“Even with,” he said. “All of it. The things I haven’t been able to give you. The situation with Ivory. The nine months of-

“Even with,” I said. “Yes.”

That’s not- he started.

“Kael.‘ I said.

He stopped.

You asked me what I want,” I said. “I told you. Are you going to argue with what I want

59 Tue Sep 15

He looked at

w something happened in his expression that I hadn’t seen before- not quite A shaft in the specific quer of the guard that he kept, the one that had been coming down incrementally since the book chatu coming down a degree further than it had been before. The specific look of someone who’d offered a person a door and had the person turn around and face the window instead and was receiving that

No he said. Tim not going to argue with it

“Good” I said

But you should know,” he said, that if you change your mind-

I won’t I said.

“If you do, he said. “The option stays open. I’m not holding you here by obligation. I want- he stopped Reorganized I want you here because you want to be here. Not because the bond requires it or the pack needs a Luna or I need the integration for the root situation. Because you actually want this

Tactually want this I said

He held my gaze

Why he said

The question was quieter than the others. The specific quiet of someone who’d been asking other questions and had arrived at the actual one underneath them

Why do you want this he said. Specifically. After everything

I thought about it.

Really thought about it- not the version I’d been assembling for other people or for the arguments Id been having with myself at four in the morning. The actual accounting

“Because you’re trying,” I said. “You’ve been trying since the book club in a way that’s different from before. Because the trying is real – I can feel the difference between performed trying and actual trying and this is actual. I paused. “Because you put Killian in the main quarters wing and told the pack he was pack. Because you sat on the floor of his room under the sealed wall and had the actual conversation instead of the managed one. Because you went to the council meeting when Morrison came after me and you put your hand through the mahogany table.

That was-

“It mattered.” I said. “It mattered to me. The specific way you put your hand through the him. Because when Ivory was in the clinic, being choked by a controlled Killian I co the bond before you could feel anything else and you ran. You just ran. No deliberatio opoons You ran because she needed you. I paused. “And I need a mate who runs whe needs him. Even if that someone isn’t always me

He was very still.

Even if that someone isn’t always you, he said.