Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 197

Aria’s POV

My head was heavy.

Like something was pressing down on it from all sides—thick, warm, slow. I tried to think and couldn’t. Tried to remember where I was and couldn’t do that either. The last thing I had was the car. Kael’s voice. The girls crying.

And then nothing.

Just white.

---

I blinked.

White everywhere. Not the white of a hospital ceiling or a blank wall. Something else entirely. Softer. Like light diffused through fog, coming from no particular direction, just all around me, underneath me, above me.

I was standing.

I didn’t remember standing up.

The ground beneath my feet was covered in flowers—pale ones, mostly, soft petals in every shade of white and cream and the faintest blush pink, growing thick between patches of grass that felt cool and real under my bare feet. Mist drifted between them. Curled around my ankles. Rose in slow, lazy spirals and then dissolved before it reached my knees.

It was beautiful.

It was also completely, utterly silent.

I turned in a slow circle.

Flowers. Mist. More flowers. The fog stretched out in every direction, far enough that I couldn’t see where it ended, and the light—whatever it was—stayed steady and soft and sourceless.

*Where—*

And then it hit me all at once, like cold water.

Lina.

"Lina!" I was moving before I finished the word, turning again, scanning, looking. "Lina! Lilith—"

Nothing.

No small voice calling back. No tiny footsteps running toward me. Just my own voice, swallowed by the fog, leaving nothing but a faint echo.

My chest seized.

"Kael!" Louder this time, panic starting to climb my throat. "Kael, I’m—" My voice broke on his name. I pressed my hand to my mouth and made myself breathe. *Think. Think.* "Kael—"

Only the echo.

I walked. I didn’t know which direction—there wasn’t one that looked different from any other—I just walked, because standing still felt impossible. The flowers bent slightly as I moved through them. The mist parted. Behind me, it closed again, seamless, like I’d never been there.

I called their names until my voice went raw.

Lina. Kael. Lilith. Kael. *Kael.*

No answer. Every time.

I was starting to shake when I heard it.

A voice.

Low. Female. Coming from somewhere ahead and slightly to the left, muffled by the fog.

"Aria."

I stopped.

It wasn’t any voice I recognized. Not Kael’s voice. Not Lina’s. But something about the way it said my name made my feet move toward it anyway, pulled like a thread being drawn through cloth.

I pushed through a thick curtain of mist.

And found her.

---

She was sitting in the middle of a small clearing—cross-legged on the grass, hands resting open in her lap. White dress. White hair, loose around her shoulders. She looked older than anyone I’d ever seen and younger at the same time, the way certain things do when they’ve simply existed long enough that age stops being the right word for them.

She was looking at me.

Her expression was—I didn’t have a word for it. Gentle. Sad. Something deep and patient in it, like she’d been waiting for a long time and had made peace with the waiting.

I approached slowly. Cautiously.

"Hello," I said. Because I didn’t know what else to say. "I’m sorry—do I know you? I think I might be lost."

She smiled. Just slightly. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"No," she said. "You’re not lost."

"I can’t find my daughter." My voice came out thinner than I wanted it to. "And I can’t find Kael. I don’t know where—"

"They’re not here." Her voice was calm. Not dismissive—just certain. "This place isn’t for them."

I looked around. The flowers. The mist. The impossible soft light.

"Then what place is this?"

She tilted her head. Looked at me the way you look at someone when you’re deciding how much truth to give them all at once.

"Somewhere between," she said. "You’ll go back. But you’re here for a little while yet."

Something about the way she said it made my skin prickle.

I studied her face. "I’m sorry, but—do we know each other? You said my name. You said it like—"

"Like I know you." She nodded. "I do."

"I don’t think we’ve met."

"We haven’t. Not like this." She shifted slightly, hands still open and relaxed in her lap. "But I’ve watched you, Aria. For a long time." A pause. "You have something of mine, you know. Or you did."

I frowned. "I’m sorry?"

"Your wolf." Her voice was gentle. Matter-of-fact. "Your abilities. That particular silver color." Something moved in her eyes—affectionate, maybe. Faintly amused. "Those came from me. I gave them to you."

The world seemed to stop for a second.

I stared at her.

"You’re—" The words stuck in my throat. I tried again. "You’re not serious."

She didn’t look offended. Just waited.

"I don’t have a wolf anymore," I said. The words landed like stones in still water, the way they always did when I said them out loud—spreading, sinking. "I lost her. She’s gone. Whatever you gave me, it—it doesn’t matter anymore, because she’s—"

My voice broke.

The woman in white watched me fall apart without flinching.

And then she lifted one hand.

And she waved.

Not at me. Past me.

I turned.

At the edge of the clearing, emerging from the mist like she’d been there the whole time, like she’d been waiting just out of sight—

A wolf.

Silver-grey. Small but perfect. Moving with that particular careful grace I’d know anywhere, in any lifetime, in any dream.

My throat closed completely.

"Artemis," I whispered.

She came toward me.

I didn’t think. I couldn’t. Every rational thing in my head simply *switched off* and I ran, stumbling through the flowers, knees barely bending fast enough, arms already reaching—

She met me halfway.

She was solid. Real. Warm—so warm, warmer than I remembered, the thick silver fur under my hands when I crashed into her, buried both arms in it, pulled her against my chest. She was bigger than I’d been thinking of her, somehow, the last year had made her smaller in my memory, and here she was enormous and present and *here*—

"You’re here," I choked out. "You’re *here*. I thought—I thought you were gone, I thought I’d—I thought I’d never—"

She pushed her head harder against me. Pressing back into my arms like she’d been waiting for this just as long as I had.

I held her so tight my arms shook.

My face was wet. Artemis rumbled steadily under my hands and I couldn’t let go. Couldn’t move. Just stayed there, face buried in silver fur, holding on.

A long time passed.

I don’t know how long.

Eventually—slowly—the shaking stopped. My breathing steadied. The grief didn’t go away, but it shifted into something else. Something lighter. Like a door that had been nailed shut for a year had finally swung open.

I lifted my face.

Artemis pulled back just far enough to look at me. Her eyes—silver, pale, depthless—met mine.

I pressed my forehead against hers.

"I missed you," I said. "I missed you so much."

She closed her eyes.

---

I straightened up slowly. Wiped my face with the back of my hand. Turned back around.

The woman in white hadn’t moved. She was still sitting in the clearing, watching me with that same expression—gentle, patient, like this was exactly what she’d expected and she’d been glad to wait for it.

I walked back toward her on unsteady legs. Artemis padded at my side, close enough that her shoulder brushed my hip with every step.

I stopped in front of the woman.

My eyes were still wet. My voice came out rough.

"Who are you?" I asked. "Really."

She looked up at me.

Smiled.

"Your Moon Goddess," she said.