Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 198

Chapter 198: Chapter 198

Aria’s POV

I couldn’t speak.

For a long moment I just stood there. In the middle of those pale flowers, in that impossible soft light, with Artemis pressed warm against my side.

Staring at her.

*The Moon Goddess.*

My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I—" The word came out like I’d forgotten how words worked. "You’re—"

She looked at me with that same patient, gentle expression. Like she’d waited through longer silences than this and had no objection to waiting through mine.

I moved without thinking.

My legs bent. My head dropped. Some deep, ancient instinct pulling me downward before my brain could say anything about it.

Her hand caught mine before I made it halfway.

"None of that." Her voice was soft. Completely certain. She drew me back upright, her fingers light around my wrist. "You’re not a subject. You’re mine." A pause. Those eyes—ageless, warm—held mine. "What mother wants her child to bow to her?"

Something cracked open in my chest.

I couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t grief exactly. It wasn’t joy. It was some third thing that existed in the space between the two—something that had been sealed shut for so long I’d forgotten it was there, and now it was open, and I didn’t know what to do with the air.

She let go of my wrist.

Sat back down in the grass like the most natural thing in the world. And looked at me with that small, knowing smile. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"You’ve been apart from her for a long time," she said simply. "I think you should take a moment."

I looked down.

Artemis was already looking up at me.

---

I dropped to my knees in the flowers.

It wasn’t graceful. I didn’t care.

Artemis stepped into my arms again—that same steady warmth, that same impossible solidity, that silver fur under my hands—and I pulled her in and just *held on.*

"Where did you go?" My voice came out muffled against her fur. Raw at the edges. "I looked for you. Every day. I kept reaching for you and there was just—nothing. Just silence." My arms tightened around her. "I thought you were dead. I thought I’d—that you were gone and it was my fault, and I thought—"

She shifted. Pulled back just enough to look at me.

And then—slow, deliberate, impossibly gentle—she pressed the side of her muzzle against the palm of my open hand.

Like she was answering me.

I laughed. Or cried. I wasn’t totally sure which.

"Okay." I pressed my hand against her face and felt her lean into it. "Okay. Tell me."

*It hurt,* she said. Not in words exactly—it never was. More like the meaning landed in my chest directly, bypassing language entirely. *After they gave me the poison. It hurt in a way I didn’t know it was possible to hurt.*

My jaw tightened.

"I know." I’d felt the edges of it. I hadn’t known the whole shape. "I’m sorry."

*Don’t.* Firm. Her eyes met mine steadily. *But it would have been—worse. Except she protected me.*

I looked up. Over Artemis’s head, toward the woman in white.

The Moon Goddess was watching us. That expression still there—gentle, patient, the sadness that wasn’t quite sadness.

"She protected you," I repeated quietly.

The goddess met my eyes and nodded. Once. Simply.

I looked back at Artemis. My hand still cupped against her jaw. Her silver eyes steady and direct and entirely, unmistakably herself.

"So why didn’t you come back?" I asked. My voice came out softer than I’d intended. "When you were better. When the poison wore off. Why—" My throat tightened. "I needed you. There were so many times I needed you and you weren’t there."

Artemis was quiet for a moment.

*I was too weak at first,* she said. *For a long time. Longer than it should have taken.*

"But then?"

She looked at me.

That look that was always somehow more direct than words. More honest. The thing I’d always loved about her and the thing that was hardest to hold.

*By the time I was recovered,* she said slowly, *I had already found something I needed to do. Something more important than coming back to you right away.*

I waited.

*You have children to protect, Aria.*

I blinked.

"My children are—I mean, they’re not babies. Lina’s only three but she’s—she’s growing up, and they’re—"

*No.* Patient. Unmistakably certain. *Not them.*

I stopped.

The word landed strangely in my chest. Like something clicking into a space I hadn’t known was there.

"What do you mean not them?" I said carefully.

Artemis looked at me with those silver eyes.

And I felt it—something shifting. Something hovering at the edge of what I understood.

"What child?" My voice came out smaller than I expected. "What are you talking about? What—"

But even as I asked, something else was happening.

The fog around us was changing. Not dramatically—just shifting, thinning in places, thickening in others. The light stayed soft but seemed to pull at me slightly. Like it was pointing somewhere.

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