Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 212

Chapter 212: Chapter 212

Aria’s POV

Sophie cried for forty-five minutes straight.

Not the quiet, dignified kind of crying. The full-body, mascara-everywhere, snot-involved kind that made Lina stare with her mouth open and Lilith pretend to be very interested in her shoelaces.

I laughed. It came out softer than I intended. "You’ve been here for weeks. Your mother needs you. Your life needs you."

She finally pulled back. Just far enough to look at my face. Her eyes were still wet, mascara smudged in two perfect dark circles beneath them, which somehow she was still managing to make look stylish.

"If anything happens," she said, "you call me. Immediately. Not later. Not after you’ve handled it yourself. The second something goes wrong."

"Nothing is going to—"

"Aria Moon." She pointed one finger directly at my nose. "I swear to God, if you call me three days after some crisis to say ’oh by the way I almost died again’, I will come back here and sit on you."

Lina perked up from her spot beside my leg. "You can’t sit on Mommy. She has a baby in her tummy."

"I’ll sit very gently," Sophie said, without breaking eye contact with me.

I put my hands up. "I will call you."

"Immediately."

"Immediately."

She studied my face for another three seconds, apparently running some internal assessment. Then she seemed satisfied. She dropped her hand.

And then she turned to the girls.

Lina didn’t even wait. She launched herself at Sophie’s waist at full speed, and Sophie caught her with both arms and made a sound like she’d been physically wounded.

"My baby," Sophie said, with enormous drama. "My tiny little baby. I’m going to miss you so much. You have to video call me every day."

"Every day?" Lina said, delighted.

"Every single day. You can show me things. Rocks. Drawings. Whatever you ate for lunch."

Sophie finally released her. Stood up straight. Grabbed her bag from the floor with the energy of someone executing a military withdrawal before her emotions could catch up to her.

"Right," she said. Brisk. Professional. Her voice only slightly wrecked. "I’m going. I’m doing it. I’m leaving."

She made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. Then she actually left — walking fast, not looking back, which was the only way Sophie ever managed goodbyes.

The door clicked shut.

Lina stared at it for a moment. Then looked up at me with wide, thoughtful eyes.

"Is she crying in the hallway?"

I listened.

Muffled noise from the other side of the door. Definitely crying. Definitely Sophie.

"Yes," I said.

Lina nodded seriously. "I thought so."

---

I was back at work by Thursday.

Kael had opinions about this. Strong ones, delivered in that particular way he had of stating things as fact when he was actually making a request.

"You should rest another week."

"I’ve been resting for nine days."

"The doctor said—"

"The doctor said no excessive physical activity. Sitting at a desk is not excessive physical activity."

He’d looked at me for a long moment.

I’d looked back.

He’d let me go.

The office felt the same as it always had. Familiar. The particular smell of it, the light through the east windows in the morning, the coffee machine that took exactly three minutes longer than it should have. The quiet rhythm of people moving around me with things to do.

Normal. Ordinary. Everything I’d been missing.

But Kael wasn’t normal. Not lately.

He was *there* — present, attentive, checking in, eating dinner with me and the girls every night. But there was something else underneath it. Something I kept catching at the edges of him.

A weight.

He’d been carrying it since the eastern checkpoint. Since the badge. Since the conversation he’d told me about, short sentences measured carefully in the dim hospital room.

He didn’t talk about it beyond what he’d already told me. I didn’t push. I knew what it cost him just to say those two words. But I watched him and I thought about it, and every day that passed the weight seemed to settle a little deeper.

The reports were on his desk.

He’d left them there when he was called away that morning — front line updates, injury tallies, patrol records. He hadn’t hidden them. He also hadn’t specifically said *look at these,* but he hadn’t said *don’t,* and they were right there.

I sat down in his chair.

Opened the top folder.

Fifteen minutes later, I closed it.

My hands were steady. My face was steady. But something was sitting in my chest that hadn’t been there before — heavy and sharp at the same time, the way broken glass feels.

Three more soldiers down in the past week. Injuries on the eastern and northern fronts both. The medical post at the eastern checkpoint was overwhelmed — thirty-seven personnel being treated, half of them for wounds that were taking too long to heal. Which meant, for wolves, something was wrong. Our healing was supposed to work faster than this.

But they’d been hit with wolfsbane compounds.

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