Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 213

Aria’s POV

The warrior stood up.

He didn’t just sit up—he *stood.* Full weight on both legs, the grey pallor gone from his face, breathing steady and deep. He looked down at his arm, turned it over slowly, like he was waiting for the pain to come back.

It didn’t.

"I—" He looked at me. "Luna, I don’t understand. What did you do?"

I didn’t have an answer.

Because I didn’t know what I’d done.

My hand was still warm—not hot, just warm, the way your skin feels after holding something that radiates heat. But the warmth was fading now, pulling back into my chest, settling somewhere deep behind my ribs.

"I don’t know," I said honestly.

The other warriors were watching. All of them. The ones who could sit up had sat up. The ones who couldn’t were staring from their beds, eyes wide and locked on me like I’d just performed a miracle in the middle of their ward.

Maybe I had.

I stood up slowly. Looked around the room. Forty-three injured warriors, all of them fighting wolfsbane poisoning, all of them healing too slowly, all of them looking at me like I might be able to fix it.

I walked to the next bed.

A younger warrior—early twenties, maybe. Dark hair, pale skin, bandaging across his ribs and left shoulder. He watched me approach with the kind of careful stillness that meant he was trying very hard not to hope.

"May I?" I asked.

He nodded.

I placed my hand over the bandaging on his shoulder.

Waited.

Felt for that warmth again, that pull in my chest that had come so easily with the first warrior.

Nothing.

I pressed a little harder. Concentrated. Tried to summon whatever it was I’d just done—whatever instinct or ability or gift that had flowed out of me without asking.

Nothing.

The warrior’s breathing stayed shallow. The grey tinge to his skin didn’t change. The bandaging didn’t stop seeping.

I pulled my hand back.

"I’m sorry," I said quietly.

"It’s okay, Luna." His voice was rough but kind. "It was worth trying."

I moved to the next bed. And the next. And the next.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

By the time I’d tried with the fifth warrior, my hands were shaking.

Not from exhaustion—from frustration. From the feeling of something being *right there,* just out of reach, like trying to remember a word that sits on the tip of your tongue and refuses to come forward.

I’d done it once. I *knew* I’d done it. I’d felt it happen, seen the results with my own eyes.

So why couldn’t I do it again?

---

I left the medical post twenty minutes later.

The receptionist didn’t ask questions. Just gave me a long look and a nod, and I walked back out into the afternoon light feeling like I’d swallowed something heavy.

The drive home was quiet.

I should have told someone I was going to the checkpoint. I should have coordinated with Kael’s security team. I should have done about fifteen things differently.

But I’d healed someone.

That thought sat with me the whole way back, turning over and over in my mind. The look on that warrior’s face. The way the bleeding had stopped. The way the color had come back into his skin like someone had flipped a switch.

Moon Goddess had said I was special. That I had a gift. That there was something in me that could help.

Maybe this was it.

Maybe this was what she’d meant.

---

Kael was home when I got back.

He was in the main room, standing by the window with his phone to his ear. He glanced up when I walked in, and something in his expression shifted—relief first, then something sharper.

He said something clipped into the phone and hung up.

"Where were you?" His voice was carefully controlled.

I set my bag down. "The eastern checkpoint."

Silence.

I looked up.

His face had gone very still.

"You went to the checkpoint," he said slowly. "Alone."

"I wasn’t alone. There were guards. And the medical staff—"

"Aria." He crossed the room in four strides. Stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "The front lines are under active threat. We’ve had three attacks in the past week. The eastern checkpoint is one of the most vulnerable positions we have right now." His voice stayed level, but something underneath it was vibrating. "You don’t go there without security. You don’t go there without telling me first. You don’t—" He stopped. Exhaled hard through his nose. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," I said, keeping my voice steady, "that I wanted to help."

"Help how?"

"By being there. By—" I stopped. Took a breath. "By seeing them. The warriors. The ones who are hurt."

His expression didn’t soften. "You could have been hurt." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"I wasn’t hurt."

"You could have been."

"Kael—"

"You’re pregnant, Aria." The words came out rougher than I think he meant them to. "You’re carrying our child. You can’t just—" He gestured vaguely, like he was trying to encompass the entirety of what I’d just done. "You can’t take risks like that."

Something flared in my chest.

"I’m not made of glass," I said quietly.

"I didn’t say you were."

"You’re treating me like I am."

He looked at me for a long moment. His jaw was tight. His hands were pressed flat against his sides, like he was physically holding himself in place.

"I’m treating you," he said finally, "like someone I can’t lose."

The words landed between us.

I felt them land—felt the weight of them, the truth underneath them, the fear he was trying very hard not to let take over.

My anger softened.

Just a little.

"I know," I said. "I know you’re worried. But Kael—" I reached out, touched his arm. "I healed someone today."

He blinked. "What?"

"One of the warriors. At the medical post." I kept my hand on his arm, felt the tension running through him like a current. "I put my hand on his bandaging and—something happened. I don’t know how to explain it. But the bleeding stopped. The color came back to his face. He stood up and walked around and he was *fine.*"

Kael stared at me.

I watched the information process across his face. Confusion first. Then something like wonder. Then something darker—concern, maybe, or caution.

"You healed him," he said.

"Yes."

"How?"

"I don’t know." I shook my head. "I just—felt something. This warmth, in my chest, and then it moved through my hands and—" I stopped. "It worked. I saw it work."

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said: "Did you try it again?"

"Yes."

"And?"

I looked down. "Nothing. I tried with five other warriors and nothing happened."

"So it only worked once."

"So far."

He turned away. Paced to the window. Stood there with his back to me, hands in his pockets, that particular tension still running through his shoulders.

"Maybe it’s connected to what Moon Goddess told you," I said. "In the dream. She said I was special. That I had a gift. That I could help." I moved closer. "Maybe this is it. Maybe if I can figure out how to control it—if I can learn to use it properly—"

"Then what?" He turned back around. "Then you heal all forty-three warriors in that medical post? Then you go to the northern checkpoint and do it there too?"

"Maybe."

"Aria—"

"Kael, listen to me." I crossed to him. Stood directly in front of him so he had to look at me. "You’re carrying all of this. The attacks, the defectors, the injuries, the threat from your father—all of it, on your shoulders, every day. And I’ve been sitting here feeling useless." My voice cracked slightly. I pushed through it. "Let me help. Let me do something that actually matters."

"You matter," he said. "You being safe matters."

"I know. But I can be safe *and* useful."

"Not on the front lines."

"I’m not asking to fight. I’m asking to heal."

"It’s the same thing." His voice went harder. "The moment you step into that space, you become a target. My father knows about you now. He knows what you mean to me. Do you understand what that makes you?"

"Leverage," I said quietly.

"Exactly." He cupped my face with both hands. "So forgive me if I’m not enthusiastic about putting you in the most vulnerable position we have."

I held his gaze. "What if this is why Moon Goddess brought me back? What if this gift—whatever it is—what if it’s meant for this?"

"Or what if it’s meant for something else entirely and we don’t know yet?"

"Then we figure it out together."

"Aria—"

"Kael, please." I put my hands over his. "I need to do this. Not just for the warriors. For me. For—" I stopped. "Moon Goddess said if I used my gift, my wolf would come back. That’s what she said. If I can figure out how to make this work—really work—maybe Artemis will wake up."

His expression changed.

That got through.

I could see it—the moment the argument shifted from *keeping you safe* to *getting your wolf back.*

He wanted that for me. I knew he did. He’d seen what it cost me, carrying this pregnancy without Artemis, being cut off from the part of myself that had been there since I was eighteen. He’d held me through the nightmares, the phantom pains, the loneliness of it.

He wanted her back almost as much as I did.

"How do you want to do this?" he asked finally.

Hope flared in my chest. "Let me come with you. To the checkpoints. To the meetings. Let me see what’s happening on the front lines—"

"No."

The word came out flat. Final.

I blinked. "Kael—"

"Absolutely not."