Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 178

Aria’s POV

The drive home felt like the longest ride of my life.

Not because of traffic. Not because of distance.

Because I couldn’t stop watching them.

Lilith sat in the back seat next to Lina. She was very quiet. Her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes fixed on the window, watching the city blur past.

She hadn’t said a word since we left the tribunal.

I kept checking the rearview mirror. Kept scanning her face for signs of distress. For tears she was holding back. For that familiar distant look that meant she was shutting down.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel.

A child had just testified against her own father. Had sat in front of a room full of strangers and said the words out loud. Had pushed up her sleeve and shown everyone the bruises like she was showing them a wound that never quite healed.

How was she supposed to feel after that?

I had no idea. I genuinely had no idea.

Then Lina opened her mouth.

"SISTER!"

The word exploded out of her at a volume completely inappropriate for a moving vehicle.

I nearly swerved.

"Lina—"

"You were SO BRAVE!" She grabbed Lilith’s arm with both hands and shook it. Not gently. "Like, SO BRAVE! Did you see everyone watching you? They were all like—" She made a face of exaggerated awe, mouth hanging open. "WHOAAA! And you just sat there and told them EVERYTHING! You’re basically a superhero!"

Lilith blinked.

She looked at Lina like she wasn’t quite sure what species this small, loud creature was.

"A superhero?" Her voice was small. Uncertain. "I just... I talked."

"EXACTLY!" Lina bounced in her seatbelt. "You talked in front of ALL THOSE PEOPLE! I could never! I would have cried and run away! But you just sat there like—" She straightened up dramatically, puffing out her chest. "BAM. Truth time. Done."

Despite everything, I almost smiled.

Lilith’s fingers tightened around the hem of her shirt. She pulled at a loose thread, her eyes dropping to her lap.

"But I..." She hesitated. "I said things about Daddy. Bad things. In front of everyone." Her voice got quieter. "I put him in prison."

"So?" Lina said, completely matter-of-fact.

"So..." Lilith frowned. "Doesn’t that make me bad? Doesn’t that make me... wrong?"

Lina shook her head like this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Of COURSE not!" She threw her hands up. "They were the bad ones! They hit you! They didn’t give you food! That’s BAD. Really really bad. The worst kind of bad."

She pointed a tiny finger at Lilith. Serious. Certain.

"And you told the truth about it. That’s what heroes do. They tell the truth even when it’s really really scary." She paused, then added as an afterthought: "Also, they usually have capes. But you don’t need a cape. You were brave without one."

Lilith stared at her.

Blinked once. Twice.

Then something cracked open in her face. Something small and fragile and terribly hopeful.

"You really don’t think it was wrong?" she whispered. "You really don’t think I’m... scary? Or bad?"

"No!" Lina looked genuinely offended by the question. "You’re my SISTER. You’re not scary. You’re cool! You stood up in that big stone room and you talked super loud and you didn’t even cry until after!"

She grabbed Lilith’s hand. Held it tight.

"You’re my hero, big sister. I decided just now."

The quiet that followed was a completely different kind of quiet than before.

Lilith looked down at their joined hands. Her bottom lip pressed together. Her eyes shining with something that wasn’t sadness.

Then she laughed.

It was small. A little rusty. Like a sound she hadn’t made in a while.

But it was real.

"Okay," she said softly. "Okay."

I breathed.

The tightness in my chest finally, finally, loosened. Just a little.

---

We got home as the afternoon light was turning gold through the windows.

The apartment felt different the moment we walked in. Smaller somehow, but also warmer. Fuller.

Two girls instead of one.

Lina dropped her bag directly on the floor the second she got through the door—a habit I’d given up correcting weeks ago—and spun around to face Lilith.

"Okay," she announced, hands on her hips with the authority of a tiny general. "We need to make this place nice. Because Sophie is coming!"

Lilith looked around. Taking in the small living room. The worn couch. Lina’s drawings covering the coffee table. The bookshelf overflowing with children’s books and a few battered paperback novels.

Nothing like the apartment she’d come from. Nothing like the Nightfang mansion where she’d spent her early years.

"Who’s Sophie?" she asked.

"Mommy’s best friend!" Lina grabbed her arm again. "She’s HUMAN. And she’s really loud. Even louder than me, actually." She considered this. "Well. Almost as loud as me."

"Nobody is louder than you," I said, dropping my own bag onto the kitchen counter.

"That’s because I’m very enthusiastic," Lina said with great dignity.

I started pulling things out of the cabinet. The good throw pillows from the top shelf. The little string lights I’d bought months ago and never gotten around to hanging. The nice candle Sophie had sent me for my birthday that I’d been saving for a special occasion.

What counted as a special occasion if not this?

"Here." I handed Lina one end of the string lights. "Hold this."

She grabbed it. Held it up like it was a torch. "What are we doing?"

"Making it nice."

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up. She turned to Lilith. "Come help! You can hold the other end!"

Lilith hesitated for just a second. Then she crossed the room. Took the other end of the lights from my hands.

Our fingers brushed.

She didn’t pull away.

I looped the lights around the bookshelf. Draped them over the window frame. The apartment was small enough that twenty feet of lights went further than expected.

"It looks like stars," Lina breathed, watching the tiny bulbs flicker on when I plugged them in.

"Mm." Lilith stared at them. Something quiet and wondering in her expression. "We never had lights like this. At Daddy’s place." She paused. "Everything was always very... expensive. But it didn’t feel like..."

She trailed off. Couldn’t quite find the word.

"Like home?" I offered gently.

She looked at me. Those amber eyes—Finn’s eyes, a face that would always carry his features—searching my face.

"Yeah," she said quietly. "Like that."

We worked for another twenty minutes. Lina commandeered the throw pillows, arranging and rearranging them according to some system only she understood. Lilith helped me put together a snack plate—crackers, cheese, grapes, the good chocolate I kept in the back of the pantry for emergencies.

"Can I try one?" Lina pointed at the chocolate.

"After Sophie gets here."

"That’s forever from now!"

"It’s twenty minutes."

"That IS forever!"

Lilith watched this exchange with something that looked almost like amusement. Almost. Like she was remembering what it felt like to find something funny, and was trying to figure out if she was allowed to do it again.

I handed her a small piece of chocolate. Held a finger to my lips.

Her eyes went wide. Then she put it in her mouth quickly, like a conspirator.

Lina spun around. "Hey! Did she just get chocolate? Without waiting? That’s not FAIR—"

"Life is not fair," I said.

"MOMMY."

"Also you just got chocolate too." I pressed a piece into her palm.

She looked at it. Looked at me. Looked at Lilith.

Then she grinned. "Okay. I forgive you."

---

My phone buzzed on the counter.

Sophie: *I’M ALMOST THERE. I’m in a taxi. I’m dying. Is there food? Tell me there’s food.*

I typed back: *There’s a snack plate.*

Sophie: *I need REAL food. I’ve been traveling for six hours. I’m starving. I’m fading. I’m—*

Sophie: *Wait is that string lights in the window?? ARE THOSE STRING LIGHTS??? I can see from the street!!!*

Sophie: *ARIA MOON YOU ARE THE CUTEST PERSON ALIVE.*

I set the phone down. "She’s close."

"How close?" Lina pressed herself against the window.

"Don’t breathe on the glass."

"I’m not—" She was absolutely breathing on the glass. "I just want to see when she gets here!"

Lilith came to stand beside her. Quieter. But also looking out.

"What does she look like?" she asked.

"Blonde. Loud. Will probably immediately try to hug you," I warned. "She’s very... enthusiastic."

Lilith glanced at me. "Like Lina?"

"Exactly like Lina. But taller."

Lina made a noise of protest at this comparison but didn’t deny it.

The minutes ticked by. The apartment glowed softly with the string lights. The candle on the coffee table smelled like vanilla and something citrusy. The snack plate sat untouched—Lina was exercising superhuman restraint.

I stood in the middle of my small living room.

Looked at the string lights. At the snack plate. At the two girls pressed against the window waiting for Sophie.

One daughter who had always been mine, built from scratch, raised with everything I had.

One daughter I was getting a second chance to love properly.

And a best friend about to walk through my door.

My chest felt so full I didn’t know what to do with it.

Three years ago I had nothing. I had left a territory with no wolf, no money, no future. I had Lina growing in my belly and pure terrified determination and absolutely nothing else.

And now—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Lina shrieked. Literally shrieked. "SHE’S HERE! SHE’S HERE! SOPHIE’S HERE!"

She launched herself away from the window and toward the door.

"Wait—" I started.

She was already grabbing the handle. Already yanking it open.

"SOPHIE! WELCOME TO OUR—"

She stopped.

I stopped.

Lilith, still standing by the window, tilted her head.

Because standing in my doorway, filling most of it with his ridiculous height and broad shoulders and that slightly sheepish expression, was not Sophie.

It was Kael.

He was in a dark jacket, his hair a little wind-tousled. He had a paper bag in one hand—something from what smelled like actual good takeout. And he was looking at me with those black-gold eyes like he’d been looking for something and found it.

"Hi," he said.