Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 188

Aria’s POV

I woke up before the alarm. Lay there in the dark for a few minutes just listening. Lina’s soft breathing from her room. The distant sound of the city starting up outside the window.

Kael appeared at exactly seven fifteen. Hair still slightly damp from the shower. Jacket over one arm. His phone already out, scanning through something with that small crease between his brows that meant the news wasn’t good.

He looked up when he saw me watching him.

"What?"

"Nothing." I turned back to the toast. "You have that face."

He made a sound. Not quite a sigh. "The border situation is escalating."

I set down the knife. Turned around properly. "How bad?"

"Nothing I can’t handle." But his eyes said something slightly different. Contained. Controlled. The way he always looked when something was bothering him that he hadn’t figured out how to solve yet. "I’ve been reading the overnight reports. This faction—whoever they are—they’re not acting like rogues. Rogues are messy. These people are deliberate."

"Deliberate how?"

"Targeted. Like they know where to hit to create maximum disruption with minimum exposure." He put his phone in his pocket. Glanced at the girls. Lowered his voice. "It’s starting to feel coordinated."

Something cold moved through my chest.

At the school gate, Lina hugged Kael around the middle. Fierce and fast, the way she always did now. Like she was trying to make the hug count.

He crouched down to her level. Fixed her backpack strap. Said something low and private that made her giggle.

Then he stood. His eyes found mine over both girls’ heads.

"I’ll be at the training grounds most of the day." His voice was careful. Even. "Phone will be off. Don’t worry if you can’t reach me."

"I won’t worry."

He gave me a look that said he knew I was lying.

He kissed me.

Short. Quiet. His hand cupping the side of my face for just a second.

Then he was gone. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

---

The office was busy.

Good busy. The kind where the hours disappeared before you could feel them, where there was always another call or another document or another problem to untangle.

I liked it that way today. Liked having somewhere to put my hands.

I went through Kael’s morning calls, rescheduled two meetings, fielded a particularly complicated query from the territory’s eastern boundary office, and spent forty minutes drafting a memo that needed to be precise enough to satisfy three different department heads simultaneously.

By early afternoon, I’d almost managed to stop looking at my phone every ten minutes.

Almost.

There was nothing to worry about. Kael was supervising military training. He’d told me to expect radio silence. Sophie was apparently deeply occupied with Cassius, which was—honestly, knowing Sophie—exactly how things were supposed to go.

See. Normal. Everything was normal.

---

The afternoon thinned out. The office quieted.

I pulled up the border incident reports Kael had been reviewing that morning. If he was going to brief me tonight—and he always did, eventually—I might as well have context going in.

I read carefully.

And the more I read, the less I liked it.

Kael was right. This wasn’t rogue activity. The pattern was too clean. The timing too precise. Three incidents in the past two weeks, all at different border checkpoints, all hitting at shift-change windows. Like whoever was planning them had studied the schedule.

That didn’t happen by accident.

That happened because someone had inside information. Or someone patient enough to watch and wait and map out the vulnerabilities over time.

My stomach felt tight.

I kept reading.

The combat reports were the part that stuck. The soldiers who’d encountered this group described them as fast. Highly coordinated. No clear identifying marks, no pack affiliation anyone could name.

*High combat effectiveness without formal training structure*, one report noted.

I stared at that line for a long moment.

Wolves who fought like they’d been trained, but didn’t fit into any known training model.

Something about that nagged at the back of my mind. I couldn’t quite place it.

I saved the reports. Made a few notes. Set it aside for tonight.

---

Kael hadn’t texted. But he’d said the phone would be off. Training days were like that. Long and focused and total.

I wasn’t worried.

Then the office phone rang.

I blinked.

The direct line. The one at Kael’s desk.

I dried my hands. Frowned at it.

It rang again.

The whole floor would know Kael wasn’t here today—he’d told his assistant, told the security team, blocked his schedule completely. No one should be calling this line expecting to reach him.

Still. Four years of professional habit won out.

I crossed the room. Picked it up.

"Blood Crown Alpha’s office."

Silence.

Then—breathing. Uneven. Wet.

Then:

"Kael..."

A woman’s voice.

My whole body went very still.

"Kael... you in there... you... where are you..."

Not angry. Not demanding.

*Crying.*

The kind of crying that was past the point of trying to stop. The kind that came from somewhere deep and exhausted and afraid.

My hand tightened on the phone.

I knew that voice.

"Hello?" I said carefully. "He’s not available right now. Can I—"

"Kael..." She wasn’t hearing me. Or wasn’t registering it. "You have to come... you have to... Kael..."

"This is Aria." I kept my voice even. Steady. "Kael’s not able to take calls right now, but I’m here. Can you tell me what’s happening?"

A sharp inhale on the other end. Like she’d only just heard me.

Then her voice dropped. Got quieter. More broken.

"Kael... you in there... you need to come home... your brother..."