Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 222

Chapter 222: Chapter 222

Kael’s POV

The laugh came from the dark.

Low. Soft. Familiar.

Every muscle in my body locked.

Fenrir surged forward so hard I felt my vision blur. Hackles raised. Teeth bared. Every instinct screaming at once.

*Wait.*

I held him back.

Barely.

I turned toward the treeline. The darkness between the birches was thick—no moonlight this far into the canopy, just shadow layered on shadow. My eyes adjusted. Pushed through the dark.

And found a shape.

A man. Standing still. Not hiding anymore.

He stepped forward.

My breath stopped.

It was Ronan.

He moved out of the shadows and into the thin grey light of the clearing, and he was—wrong. Something was wrong. I could see it before I could name it. He looked like Ronan. The same height. The same build. The dark hair, the broad shoulders, the face I’d known since we were both teenagers running drills in the back fields.

But he was moving wrong.

There was blood on his shoulder. A dark stain spreading through the fabric of his tactical vest. Not fresh—older. Hours old.

He didn’t seem to be in pain.

Damon was behind me. I felt him tense. "Alpha—"

I held up one hand. Quiet.

I took a step forward.

Ronan watched me come. His expression was flat. Empty. Like someone had smoothed every line from his face and left nothing behind.

"Where are the others?" I asked.

He didn’t answer right away.

I stopped four feet from him. Close enough to see his eyes clearly now.

"Ronan." My voice came out careful. Soft. The kind of voice you use when you’re not sure what you’re standing in front of. "Talk to me. What happened out here? Where’s your unit?"

He tilted his head.

Like the question was coming from very far away and he was having trouble making sense of it.

"Ronan." Sharper now.

"They’re dead," he said.

The words came out flat. No grief. No horror. No the-floor-just-dropped-out-from-under-me quality that news like that should carry.

Just—stated. Like a fact. *The sky is grey. The grass is wet. They’re dead.*

My stomach went cold.

Behind me, Damon made a sound. Low. Controlled. But I could hear what was underneath it.

"All of them?" I asked.

"All of them."

I stared at him.

He stared back.

There was something in his eyes that I kept trying to read and kept failing to find. Ronan had been with me for over a decade. I knew his face the way I knew Damon’s, the way I knew my mother’s, the way I knew Aria’s. I’d watched him angry, frightened, grieving, exhausted, triumphant. I’d watched him drunk off his ass after we won a border dispute and he’d bet his month’s wages on the outcome. I’d watched him kneel beside a fallen soldier and stay there for an hour without moving.

I knew what this man’s emotions looked like.

And this—whatever this was—wasn’t any of them.

"Ronan." I closed the distance. Put my hand on his shoulder.

I looked at his face.

His arm didn’t move. His grip didn’t loosen. His expression didn’t change. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

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