Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 198

Aria’s POV

I couldn’t speak.

For a long moment I just stood there. In the middle of those pale flowers, in that impossible soft light, with Artemis pressed warm against my side.

Staring at her.

*The Moon Goddess.*

My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I—" The word came out like I’d forgotten how words worked. "You’re—"

She looked at me with that same patient, gentle expression. Like she’d waited through longer silences than this and had no objection to waiting through mine.

I moved without thinking.

My legs bent. My head dropped. Some deep, ancient instinct pulling me downward before my brain could say anything about it. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Her hand caught mine before I made it halfway.

"None of that." Her voice was soft. Completely certain. She drew me back upright, her fingers light around my wrist. "You’re not a subject. You’re mine." A pause. Those eyes—ageless, warm—held mine. "What mother wants her child to bow to her?"

Something cracked open in my chest.

I couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t grief exactly. It wasn’t joy. It was some third thing that existed in the space between the two—something that had been sealed shut for so long I’d forgotten it was there, and now it was open, and I didn’t know what to do with the air.

She let go of my wrist.

Sat back down in the grass like the most natural thing in the world. And looked at me with that small, knowing smile.

"You’ve been apart from her for a long time," she said simply. "I think you should take a moment."

I looked down.

Artemis was already looking up at me.

---

I dropped to my knees in the flowers.

It wasn’t graceful. I didn’t care.

Artemis stepped into my arms again—that same steady warmth, that same impossible solidity, that silver fur under my hands—and I pulled her in and just *held on.*

"Where did you go?" My voice came out muffled against her fur. Raw at the edges. "I looked for you. Every day. I kept reaching for you and there was just—nothing. Just silence." My arms tightened around her. "I thought you were dead. I thought I’d—that you were gone and it was my fault, and I thought—"

She shifted. Pulled back just enough to look at me.

And then—slow, deliberate, impossibly gentle—she pressed the side of her muzzle against the palm of my open hand.

Like she was answering me.

I laughed. Or cried. I wasn’t totally sure which.

"Okay." I pressed my hand against her face and felt her lean into it. "Okay. Tell me."

*It hurt,* she said. Not in words exactly—it never was. More like the meaning landed in my chest directly, bypassing language entirely. *After they gave me the poison. It hurt in a way I didn’t know it was possible to hurt.*

My jaw tightened.

"I know." I’d felt the edges of it. I hadn’t known the whole shape. "I’m sorry."

*Don’t.* Firm. Her eyes met mine steadily. *But it would have been—worse. Except she protected me.*

I looked up. Over Artemis’s head, toward the woman in white.

The Moon Goddess was watching us. That expression still there—gentle, patient, the sadness that wasn’t quite sadness.

"She protected you," I repeated quietly.

The goddess met my eyes and nodded. Once. Simply.

I looked back at Artemis. My hand still cupped against her jaw. Her silver eyes steady and direct and entirely, unmistakably herself.

"So why didn’t you come back?" I asked. My voice came out softer than I’d intended. "When you were better. When the poison wore off. Why—" My throat tightened. "I needed you. There were so many times I needed you and you weren’t there."

Artemis was quiet for a moment.

*I was too weak at first,* she said. *For a long time. Longer than it should have taken.*

"But then?"

She looked at me.

That look that was always somehow more direct than words. More honest. The thing I’d always loved about her and the thing that was hardest to hold.

*By the time I was recovered,* she said slowly, *I had already found something I needed to do. Something more important than coming back to you right away.*

I waited.

*You have children to protect, Aria.*

I blinked.

"My children are—I mean, they’re not babies. Lina’s only three but she’s—she’s growing up, and they’re—"

*No.* Patient. Unmistakably certain. *Not them.*

I stopped.

The word landed strangely in my chest. Like something clicking into a space I hadn’t known was there.

"What do you mean not them?" I said carefully.

Artemis looked at me with those silver eyes.

And I felt it—something shifting. Something hovering at the edge of what I understood.

"What child?" My voice came out smaller than I expected. "What are you talking about? What—"

But even as I asked, something else was happening.

The fog around us was changing. Not dramatically—just shifting, thinning in places, thickening in others. The light stayed soft but seemed to pull at me slightly. Like it was pointing somewhere.

Like time was running.

I reached out. Got both hands around Artemis’s face. Looked at her directly.

"Come back with me," I said. "I don’t want to go back without you. I can’t—" My voice broke slightly. I steadied it. "I can’t do it again. The silence. I can’t."

She looked at me.

That expression I knew. The one that meant *yes, and also, not yet, and also, I love you.*

*I am always with you,* she said. *You just couldn’t hear me.*

My eyes burned.

"That’s not the same thing."

*I know.*

"Come back," I said. "Please. I’m asking you to come back."

Artemis was quiet for a moment.

Then she stepped forward. Pressed her forehead against mine the way she had before. Warm. Solid. Completely present.

*When the time is right,* she said, *I will come back to you. I will bring everything I have been holding. All of your strength. All of your gifts.* A pause. *Every piece of yourself I have been keeping safe for you.*

"And when is that?" My voice came out rough. "How long?"

She pulled back far enough to look at me.

*Soon,* she said simply.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

But I could see in her eyes that it was the only answer she had, and that she meant it, and that it was true.

I exhaled. Let go of her face. Pressed my palm flat against her neck, feeling her warmth under my hand. Feeling her *there*, real, present.

"You’d better," I said. "I’ll be angry if you don’t."

She made a sound that was entirely and absolutely a laugh.

---

I stood up slowly.

My legs felt strange. Light. The ground under my feet less solid than it had been.

I turned back to the Moon Goddess.

She was already watching me. Both hands resting in her lap. That patient, warm expression.

"She says there’s a child," I said. "A—" I swallowed. "One I don’t know about yet."

The goddess looked at me steadily. "Yes."

Just that. Just *yes.*

My heart was doing something I couldn’t quite categorize. Not panic. Not disbelief. Something bigger and harder to name, pressing against the inside of my ribs from all directions at once.

"Is that—" I stopped. Started again. "Is that why she stayed? To protect—"

"Yes."

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach.

The fog was pulling at me. The light changing. I could feel it now, the weight returning to my body, my feet becoming more real than the flowers around them.

The space between was ending.

"Wait," I said quickly. To the goddess. To Artemis. To both of them, to whoever was listening. "I have things I need to ask. There’s so much I need to—"

The goddess smiled.

"You’ll find your way," she said gently. "You always have."

"That’s—that’s not an answer, that’s not—"

*Aria.*

Artemis’s voice. Steady and warm and right beside me even though I hadn’t heard her move.

I looked down.

She was there. Her silver eyes holding mine.

*Go back to him,* she said. *He’s waiting.*

My chest ached.

"Will you be here?" I whispered. "If I reach for you—will you be there? Even just—can I hear you?"

She pushed her nose once against my hand.

*Always,* she said. *You just have to listen.*

And then the wind came.

Out of nowhere. Warm and sudden, pressing against my back, lifting my hair, gentle as anything and completely impossible to resist. My feet lifted slightly. The flowers rushed past. The fog swirled and opened and the light grew—

I reached back. Reached for Artemis, for the goddess, for the clearing, for any of it—

But my fingers met only air.

The world went white.

And then—

A lurch. A falling-upward sensation that stole the breath right out of my lungs.

Weightlessness.

One complete, total, spinning second of nothing.

And then—

My eyes snapped open.