Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 211

Chapter 211: Chapter 211

Rebecca’s POV

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The fur was scratchy.

That was the first thing I’d noticed, two weeks ago when Magnus had deposited me in this chair like I was some kind of prize he’d won. The pelts that covered it were old and poorly cured, stiff in some places and weirdly soft in others, and they smelled like animal and mildew and the particular unwashed musk of men who had stopped caring about basic hygiene somewhere around the time they decided civilization wasn’t for them.

I sat in it every day.

I sat in it straight-backed, chin up, Vixen perfectly composed under my skin, projecting every ounce of Silver Fang authority I had left. Because if I slouched for even five minutes, one of these animals would take it as an invitation.

There were thirty-seven of them.

Uncounted rogue wolves, ranging from young and feral to old and feral, housed in a converted warehouse complex somewhere in the outer ring of the territory. No windows worth mentioning. Leaking ceiling in the east wing. Cooking smells that would have made any reasonable person lose their appetite entirely.

I was the only woman here.

I was aware of this fact constantly. Every hour of every day. The way you’re aware of a thorn in your shoe — not always screaming, but always *there.* The looks they gave me were the particular kind that men who have spent too long outside of any social structure give to anything female that wanders into their orbit. Calculating. Measuring.

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The door banged open at half past two.

I heard Magnus before I saw him. That particular heavy tread, the one that announced itself. The sounds of the men in the outer space stirring, shifting, the instinctive animal awareness of the apex predator returning to his den.

I set down the comb I’d been dragging through my hair and stood up.

Composed my face.

He came through the doorway like he owned everything, which he believed he did. Magnus Blood Crown at sixty-two, stripped of his title and his territory and his legitimate authority, exiled by his own son — and somehow still managing to take up more space than any man I’d ever met.

His red-gold eyes were bright.

He was in a good mood.

That should have been a relief. It was not.

"Rebecca." He crossed to me in four strides. His hands found my waist before I could manage so much as a greeting. He pulled me against him, and I went — of course I went — and then his mouth was on mine.

I kissed him back.

I made myself kiss him back.

His hands were too tight on my waist and he smelled like blood and unwashed skin and the faint metallic undertone that always clung to him now, that rust-and-iron scent that Tyrant — his inner wolf — wore like a coat. He tasted like whiskey and violence and I kept my hands flat on his chest and my face perfectly still and I kissed him back.

When he finally pulled away, he was grinning.

"You should see your face," he said. Like he found something delightful about me.

"I’m looking at you," I said. Sweetly. "My face looks exactly the way it should."

He laughed. He liked that. He liked things that had edges, liked to think he’d met his match, liked the performance of it.

Good. Let him think that.

He settled onto the fur-covered chair — *my* chair, technically, the one I occupied during the day — spreading himself across it with the loose-limbed confidence of a man who had never in his life questioned whether he belonged somewhere. His long legs stretched out in front of him. He reached for the bottle on the table beside it.

"Sit," he said.

I sat on the arm of the chair. Close. The way he liked.

"Tell me," I said. "You look pleased."

"Pleased." He rolled the word around. "Yes. I am pleased." He took a long drink. Set the bottle down. "The eastern checkpoint."

I kept my expression warm and interested. Just the right amount of eager. "I heard the commotion earlier. The men were excited about something."

"They should be." He leaned back, satisfied with himself in a way that filled the whole room. "Two of Kael’s perimeter warriors dead. A third hanging on, last I heard. And the boy knows it was me — that’s the beautiful part." He pointed at his chest. "I made sure of it. Left something for him to find."

"Smart," I said.

"Of course it was smart. I trained him. Every instinct he has, every tactical move he makes — I built that." He looked at me. "And I know every counter to it."

I nodded slowly. "So you’ve mapped their defenses."

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