Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 216

Kael’s POV

She was going to be the death of me.

Not the enemies at the border. Not Magnus and his guerrilla raids. Not the wolfsbane-tipped arrows or the midnight ambushes or the slow, grinding pressure of a war fought in shadows.

Her.

My mate. My Luna. The woman currently sitting across from me at the kitchen table with her chin raised and that look in her eyes—the one that said she’d already made up her mind and this conversation was just a formality.

I rubbed my face with both hands.

"Say it again," I said.

"I’m going with you to the front lines today."

"And if I say no?"

"You already said yes. Two nights ago. In front of two very persuasive witnesses."

She wasn’t wrong.

I’d been outmaneuvered by two child. The Blood Crown Alpha, brought to his knees by a pair of children who thought their mother going to war while pregnant was *cool*.

I was never going to live that down. Fenrir hadn’t stopped laughing about it for two days.

"Aria."

"Kael."

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

She was wearing her hair pulled back, practical and simple. No jewelry. Low boots, easy to run in. A jacket that was loose enough to move in but dark enough to blend. She’d thought about this. Planned for it. She wasn’t being reckless—she was being strategic.

That almost made it worse.

Because it meant I couldn’t dismiss this as impulse. Couldn’t chalk it up to stubbornness or emotion. She was serious. Prepared. Ready.

And still pregnant.

Still carrying our child in a body that was still healing from what happened nine days ago.

My jaw tightened.

"One condition," I said.

She waited.

"If I say we leave, we leave. Immediately. No arguments. No ’just five more minutes.’ No ’but I can help.’ If I say go, you go. You don’t look back. You don’t hesitate. You run."

"Kael—"

"This is non-negotiable." I held her gaze. Let her see everything behind it—the fear I’d been swallowing for days, the images I couldn’t shake, the sound of her heartbeat on that hospital monitor getting weaker and weaker until I thought it would stop. "I need to hear you say it, Aria. If there is any danger—any at all—you listen to me. You retreat. You put yourself first. You put our baby first. No matter what."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what."

She was quiet for a moment. Studying me.

Then her expression softened. That shift she did—the one where the stubbornness melted just enough to let the tenderness through. The one that still, after everything, made my chest do something stupid.

"I promise," she said. Softly. Clearly. "If you say go, I go. No arguments. My life first. Baby’s life first."

I exhaled.

Some of the tension left my shoulders. Not all of it. Not even close. But enough.

"And you stay beside me the entire time. Not behind me. Not wandering off to inspect something interesting. Beside me."

"Beside you. Got it."

"And if anyone even looks at you wrong—"

"Kael."

"—I’m removing their head."

"That seems excessive."

"It’s proportional."

She stood up. Walked around the table. I watched her come, this woman who had somehow taken my whole world and rearranged it around herself without even trying.

She put her hands on my face.

Her palms were warm. Soft. I could feel the steady thrum of her pulse against my jaw, and something in me—something deep and primal and completely beyond my control—settled at the contact.

"I’ll be careful," she said. "I promise. I’ll listen to you."

"You’ve never listened to me a day in your life."

"That’s not true. I listen. I just don’t always agree."

She smiled. That smile. The one that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made her look like she was keeping a secret and the secret was that she loved me.

Then she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine.

She pulled back. Her eyes were bright.

"I knew you were the best," she said.

I closed my eyes. Took a breath.

This woman was absolutely going to be the death of me.

---

The front-line camp was louder than I expected.

Not the organized tension I was used to—the controlled hum of soldiers doing their jobs, running drills, maintaining positions. This was different. This was raw.

Angry.

I heard it before we even cleared the tree line. Voices carrying through the morning air, sharp and hot. Metal on metal—weapons being sharpened with more force than necessary. The heavy thud of fists on training posts, over and over, rhythmic and vicious.

We came through the perimeter checkpoint and I saw it immediately.

The camp was electric. Soldiers moved in tight, agitated clusters, talking fast, gesturing hard. Two wolves near the eastern watchtower were arguing about something—their voices low but their body language screaming. A group by the armory was checking weapons with the kind of grim, eager energy that said they weren’t preparing to defend.

They were preparing to attack.

Ronan met us at the command tent.

"Alpha." He nodded to me, then to Aria. "Luna."

"Report," I said.

"Three more raids last night." His jaw was set. "Hit-and-run. Same pattern. Small group, in and out before we can mobilize a full response. They targeted the supply route again—burned two wagons. Also hit the southern lookout post. Injured four, killed one."

The muscle in my jaw jumped.

Aria’s hand found my arm. A light touch. Barely there. But I felt it.

I felt everything she was feeling through the bond—the surge of grief, the anger underneath it, the fierce determination that tightened like a fist in her chest.

"The men are restless," Ronan continued. He glanced over his shoulder at the camp. "Honestly, Alpha, restless is putting it mildly. They’re furious. Every raid makes it worse. They want to push out, track the bastards back to their holes, and finish this."

"How many have requested deployment to the outer perimeter?"

"Forty-seven. Since last night."

I looked out at the camp.

I understood it. Every cell in my body understood it.

"Let’s walk the perimeter," I said.

We walked.

Aria stayed beside me. True to her word. She didn’t wander. Didn’t drift. She walked where I walked, stopped where I stopped, and watched everything with those sharp eyes that missed nothing.

I spoke with soldiers as we went. Checked positions. Reviewed the watch rotation. Inspected the fortifications along the northern ridge. Asked questions. Listened to answers.

Through it all, I felt Aria observing. Not just looking—*reading*. The way she read a room, the way she read people. That particular skill of hers that had nothing to do with wolf abilities and everything to do with a mind that was always, always working.

The perimeter walk took an hour. By the end of it, the sun had climbed properly above the trees, and the camp’s energy hadn’t dimmed one degree. If anything, it had intensified. Morning shift soldiers were waking up and joining the chorus of anger, feeding off the overnight soldiers’ fury.

We returned to the command tent.

I dismissed Ronan with orders to prepare a full tactical brief for the afternoon. He nodded. Left.

The tent flap fell closed.

I turned to Aria.

She was standing by the map table, but she wasn’t looking at the map. She was looking at me. That expression on her face—the one that meant she’d been thinking hard about something and had arrived at a conclusion she wasn’t sure I’d want to hear.

"Say it," I said.

"What?"

"Whatever you’ve been turning over in your head for the last hour. Say it."

She almost smiled. Almost.

Then she stepped closer to the map table. Placed her fingertips on the edge.

"The soldiers," she said. "They’re angry."

"Obviously."

"No, Kael. Listen to me." She looked up. "They’re not just angry. They’re being *made* angry. Deliberately. Systematically. Don’t you see the pattern?"

I frowned.

"Three raids last night," she said. "Hit-and-run. Small groups. Minimal strategic value—a couple of supply wagons and a lookout post. That’s not a military campaign. That’s provocation."

I was quiet. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"They killed one soldier," she continued. "One. A young man with a pregnant mate. Do you know what that does to a camp full of wolves? It doesn’t just make them sad. It makes them *furious*. It makes them want blood. It makes them want to charge out there and tear someone apart."

She tapped the map.

"And that’s exactly what Magnus wants."

The name landed in the silence like a stone in still water.

I looked at the map. At the positions marked in red—the raid sites. Scattered. Seemingly random. But as I stared at them, really stared, I started to see what she was seeing.

They weren’t random at all.

Each strike had hit a nerve. Supply routes that affected morale. A lookout post manned by younger soldiers. Targets chosen not for tactical value but for emotional impact.

"He was Alpha of this territory," Aria said. Her voice was steady. Certain. "He knows these soldiers. He trained half of them. He knows how they think, how they react, what makes them lose their heads. He knows the terrain better than anyone alive—every ridge, every ravine, every blind spot."

She traced a line on the map with her finger.

"And he knows exactly how to make them angry enough to abandon their positions and chase ghosts into territory he controls."

I stared at the map.

The red dots. The raid patterns. The way they clustered near the northern approach—where the terrain narrowed into a series of choke points that would be devastating for a pursuing force.

It was a trap.

And it was working.

"You need to talk to them," she said. "Not as their Alpha giving orders. As someone who understands what they’re feeling and is telling them the truth." She paused. "They need to know that charging out there isn’t brave. It’s exactly what Magnus is counting on. They need to hold. Stay disciplined. Don’t take the bait."

"If I tell them to stand down after a raid like last night—"

"They’ll hate it. They’ll push back. Some of them might not listen." Her eyes were steady. "But they’ll be alive. And they’ll still have positions worth defending."

I exhaled. Slow. Through my nose.

She wasn’t done.

"And the formation needs to change," she said. "Rotate the flank coverage. Pull units back from the northern ridge—not all of them, enough to rebalance. Close the gaps in the southern approach. Move the supply route checkpoint inside the secondary perimeter."

"That’s a full restructure."

I looked at her.

She looked back.

Patient. Calm. Waiting.

She was right.

About the trap. About the bait. About the need to change what Magnus thought he knew.

About all of it.

I looked at the map one more time. Traced the raid patterns with my eyes. Saw them now for what they were—not attacks, but invitations. Come find us. Come chase us. Come die in the places we’ve chosen for you.

Not anymore.

I nodded.