Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 209

Aria’s POV

Eight days. I’d been in here eight days.

The routine had settled itself without anyone planning it.

Sophie handled school pickup and dropoff. She’d announced this fact on day two with the energy of someone launching a military campaign — hands on hips, chin up, absolutely non-negotiable. "You’re not moving from that bed. I will handle the children. Do not argue with me."

I hadn’t argued.

Every afternoon, right around four-fifteen, the door would open and I’d hear them before I saw them. Lina first — her voice carrying down the hallway like a small, cheerful alarm. Lilith’s quieter footsteps behind. Then they’d pile in, dropping backpacks on the floor, climbing onto the bed or the chair depending on mood, and the room would immediately become a different place. Warmer. Louder. Less like a hospital.

Lina had developed a habit of bringing things. A drawing she’d done at school. A rock she thought looked interesting. Once, memorably, half a granola bar she’d been saving since lunch "in case you were hungry, Mommy, because hospital food is yucky."

I’d eaten it.

It was the best thing I’d had all week.

By seven o’clock, both girls should have been home. Lilith always said goodnight properly — she’d stand up, smooth her jacket, press a careful kiss to my cheek. Formal. Like she’d practiced it. But real underneath, the way everything Lilith did was real underneath.

Lina never wanted to leave.

Every single night, without fail. "Five more minutes." Then five more. Then she’d be slumped sideways in the chair with her eyes half-closed, fighting it, and Sophie would appear in the doorway and give me the look — the one that meant *she’s not going to go quietly* — and we’d have the same negotiation.

"Lina, sweetheart. It’s time to go."

"Mmmm." Eyes closed. "I’m not sleeping."

"You’re definitely sleeping."

"I’m *resting.*"

Last night she’d made it all the way to fully unconscious in the chair before Sophie finally just picked her up and carried her out. She hadn’t even stirred. Sophie had mouthed *I’ll bring her back tomorrow* over Lina’s limp little shoulder, and I’d pressed my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh loud enough to wake her.

I was going to miss this terrible, wonderful, exhausting routine when I went home.

---

Kael came when he could.

That was the honest version of it. Not every day. Sometimes late, when the ward had already gone quiet and the night staff moved on soft soles through the corridors. He’d come in and drop into the chair beside the bed and not say anything for a full minute, like he needed that minute to shift gears. To stop being an Alpha managing a crisis and just be the person who sat beside me.

I never pushed him to talk first.

When he was ready, he’d start. Short sentences, mostly. Measured. The kind of updates you give when you’ve been choosing words carefully all day and you’ve run out of energy to keep doing it.

Two more incidents on the eastern perimeter. Three men brought in for questioning. The fourteen names on Damon’s list whittled down. Progress. Slow, grinding progress that cost something every step.

I listened. I always listened.

But three days in, he told me something that changed the weight of all of it.

"The badge," he said. He was looking at his hands. "My mother recognized it."

I waited.

"It’s my father’s." He said it the same way you’d say *the building is on fire.* Flat. Factual. Like the emotion had already been processed somewhere private and what was left was just information. "He had an organization. Before he became Alpha. He dissolved it — officially. But some of them are still loyal to him." A pause. "It looks like he’s been gathering them again."

I was quiet for a moment.

My chest had gone tight. The particular tightness that comes when something you were afraid of turns out to be exactly as bad as you feared.

"Magnus," I said.

"Yes."

I looked at Kael’s face. At the set of his jaw. At the way he was holding very, very still.

"Kael." My voice came out quieter than I intended. "That’s your father."

"I’m aware."

"I mean — he’s not just an enemy. He’s not just some threat from outside the territory. He’s—"

"I know what he is." He looked up. His black-gold eyes found mine. Something in them that was controlled but not entirely. "He’s been planning this since I took his title. Maybe longer." He exhaled. "He wants it back. Or he wants to make sure I can’t keep it. Either way—" He stopped.

"Either way you have to face him," I finished.

"Yes."

I pressed my lips together.

I didn’t want to say the next thing. I knew it would come out wrong. Too scared, too obvious, not useful to him at all.

I said it anyway.

"I’m worried about you."

He didn’t dismiss it. Didn’t wave it off with something reassuring and performative. He just looked at me, steady and direct, and reached out and covered my hand with his.

"Don’t be." His thumb moved across my knuckles. "I’ve beaten him before."

Then he turned my hand over and held it properly. Warm and certain. Like a commitment.

"The first time," he said, "I took everything from him. His title, his authority, his ability to hurt my mother and Lucian. I wasn’t prepared for what that fight cost." His grip tightened slightly. "This time I know exactly what he’s capable of. And this time—" He looked at me. "This time I have more to protect."

My heart did something it had been doing a lot lately. That unsteady lurching thing.

I looked at him. At those black-gold eyes that had been watching me with that steady, patient certainty for so many weeks now. At the face I’d memorized without meaning to. At the man who had walked into my life like a collision and somehow become the thing I was most afraid to lose.

He leaned forward. Pressed his forehead against mine for a moment. Just that. Just breathing.

He said. "I’ll be fine."