Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce! novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Chapter 71

Aria’s POV

I don’t know how long I lay there on that cold ground.

Minutes. Hours. Maybe forever.

The sky above me had turned from gray to dark. Stars were starting to appear. Cold, distant stars that didn’t care about the broken woman lying in the dirt below them.

*Artemis.*

I called her name again. For the hundredth time. The thousandth.

Silence.

Always silence.

My throat was raw from screaming. My eyes were dry. No more tears left. I’d cried them all out hours ago.

She was gone.

My wolf was really gone.

I pressed my hand against my chest. Where that warmth used to live. Nothing but cold emptiness now.

How was I supposed to survive without her?

She’d been my strength when I had none. My voice when I couldn’t speak. My courage when fear paralyzed me.

Now I was just... me.

Broken. Alone. Human.

I was a wolf without a wolf. A creature that didn’t belong anywhere. Not in the pack world. Not in the human world. Stuck in some horrible limbo between the two.

My legs shook as I stood. The world tilted. I grabbed a tree branch. Waited for the dizziness to pass.

One step. Then another.

I didn’t know where I was going. Didn’t care. Just needed to move. To do something. Anything.

The road stretched endlessly in both directions. Trees pressed in from either side. Dark and silent and watching.

I picked a direction at random. Started walking.

My bare feet scraped against the rough pavement. When had I lost my shoes? I couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember anything after that bitter liquid being forced down my throat.

What had they done to me?

Who were they?

Someone had ripped Artemis away from me like tearing off a limb.

The thought made my stomach heave. I doubled over. Retched onto the road.

Nothing came up. My body had nothing left.

I straightened. Kept walking.

The moon was rising now. Full and bright. It should have called to me. Should have stirred something in my blood.

I felt nothing.

Just cold emptiness where my wolf used to be.

Time lost all meaning. I walked and walked and walked. My feet went numb. Then started bleeding. I kept going.

Eventually, lights appeared in the distance. Buildings. Signs of civilization.

I stumbled toward them.

It was a small town. Quiet. Mostly human, from the look of it. No pack symbols. No wolf territory markers.

Good.

I didn’t belong in wolf territory anymore anyway.

A gas station glowed at the edge of town. I made my way toward it. My reflection caught in the dark windows.

God.

I looked like death.

My hair was matted with dirt. My clothes were torn. My face was streaked with dried tears and something dark. Blood, maybe. I couldn’t tell.

The cashier stared at me when I pushed through the door. A middle-aged woman with kind eyes that went wide with concern.

"Oh honey." She came around the counter. "What happened to you? Are you okay?"

No. I was very much not okay.

"I’m fine," I heard myself say. "Just... had an accident."

She didn’t believe me. I could see it in her face.

"Should I call someone? The police? An ambulance?"

"No!" The word came out too sharp. Too desperate. "No, please. I just need... do you have a phone I could use? And maybe some water?"

And my baby...

My baby would be born to a wolfless mother. In a society that valued wolves above all else.

What kind of life would that be?

I imagined it. A child growing up knowing their mother was broken. Was incomplete. Was less than everyone around them.

A child who might be wolfless too.

Because who knew what that drug had done? What if it affected the baby? What if my child was born without a wolf because of what someone had done to me?

My hands trembled against my stomach.

I couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t raise a child in a world that would hate them. That would discriminate against them. That would see them as lesser just because of circumstances beyond their control.

The wolf world had never been kind to me.

Why had I ever thought it would be kind to my child?

The answer was so obvious I almost laughed.

I had to leave.

Not just Meridian Territory. Not just pack lands.

I had to leave the wolf world entirely.

The human world.

That’s where I needed to go.

Humans didn’t care about wolves. Didn’t care about blood purity or pack hierarchy or any of the bullshit that had made my life hell.

In the human world, I could start over. Be whoever I wanted to be. Raise my child without the shadow of prejudice hanging over us.

I’d never considered leaving before. The wolf world was all I’d ever known. Despite everything, it was home.

But home had never really wanted me anyway.

I straightened. Looked at my reflection again.

The stranger in the mirror was still broken. Still hollow. Still missing something vital.

But there was something new in her eyes now.

Determination.