All Chapters of AFTER THE DIVORCE, THE ALPHAS MADE THEIR CLAIMS ON ME. : Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

105 Chapters

CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

What Waking MeansNina’s POVFor a long moment, neither of us said anything.Whatever this was between us, bruised and unfinished and suddenly far too alive to keep pretending it wasn’t there.Axel held my gaze like he had nowhere else to be.Like seven days unconscious hadn’t changed the fact that he was still impossible.And because apparently the universe hated me, it was deeply unfair how much easier it was to breathe with him conscious.“You’re staring,” he said finally.His voice was rough. Scraped thin by sleep and pain and disuse.I crossed my arms.“You were unconscious for a week. I’m checking for brain damage.”The corner of his mouth twitched.“Find any?”“I’m still assessing.”“Thorough as always.”I exhaled sharply through my nose.It should have annoyed me, but relief still sat too raw in my chest to let irritation fully take hold.“How do you feel?” I asked.He looked faintly offended.“Terrible.”“Good.”That earned me a slower blink.“Good?”“If you said fine, I was

CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

What Fear Gives BackNina’s POVFor a long second, all I could do was stare at him.The room had gone too quiet.I stared at him across the bed, anger and relief and fear colliding so violently in my chest I couldn’t separate one from the other.“You knew this could kill me.”His expression didn’t shift. “I knew it could hurt you.”“That’s not what I said.”His jaw tightened. “No.”“No,” I echoed, stepping closer. “It isn’t.”He held my gaze. “I was trying to make sure it didn’t.”“It nearly killed you.”His voice hardened.“And it didn’t.”“That is not the point.”“It is when I’m still here.”My hands curled into fists at my sides. “You do not get to nearly die and then decide that makes this acceptable.”His eyes sharpened. “You think I don’t know that?”“I think you keep making choices for both of us and expecting me to be grateful.”“I expected you alive.”“I am not a problem for you to manage.”His voice dropped. “And I am not willing to bury you because I didn’t do enough.”That

CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

After the FallNina’s POVThe silence after the kiss felt louder than any argument we had ever had.Axel was still looking at me.Still breathing like the last thirty seconds had rearranged something vital in both of us.Which, judging by the way my pulse was trying to climb out of my throat, they had.His hand was still at my neck. I became painfully aware of it all at once.The heat of his palm. The scrape of his fingers.The fact that I was still leaning too close over the bed.The fact that I had kissed him.The fact that he had kissed me back.And worse, that I wanted to do it again.I pulled back another inch, then another.Mostly because if I didn’t, I was going to make another catastrophic decision in a room full of medical equipment.Axel’s hand fell away slowly.I crossed my arms because I needed somewhere to put my hands that was not on him.“Well,” Axel said, voice rough in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with injury now. “That clarifies some things.”I stared at h

CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

The Art of AvoidanceNina’s POVFor the next two days, I did not go to the clinic.That was not avoidance. It was a strategy.A measured, entirely rational use of time and distance in service of maintaining order and preserving my sanity.At least, that was what I told myself.Kieran had finally gotten one of Nate’s captured runners to talk, which meant there were statements to verify and names to cross-reference.There were things to do.And all of them were infinitely easier to deal with than the fact that I had kissed Axel in his hospital bed and then somehow let him look at me like that afterward.So I buried myself in work.Anything that required enough concentration to keep my thoughts from circling back to the clinic and the impossible, unbearable steadiness of Axel’s face when I left him.It worked.Mostly.A beat later, there was a knock at the door. Then Ryan walked in without waiting for permission.He took one look at me, one look at the folder I had nearly murdered, and l

CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

No More DistanceNina’s POVRyan left my office looking entirely too pleased with himself.Too full of everything I had been trying not to think about for the last two days.Ryan had a talent for doing that. For cutting through every convenient lie I told myself and leaving the truth sitting in the middle of the room like something I could no longer step around.I stared out the window for a long time after he left.Ryan was right.I wasn’t avoiding Axel because kissing him had been a mistake. I was avoiding him because it hadn’t been.Because it had been reckless and inconvenient and badly timed and deeply unfair. And because none of that changed the fact that I had kissed him and meant it.I knew what had changed. I just hadn’t wanted to look at it too closely.I exhaled slowly and pushed away from the window.If I were going to lead a pack through spies, attempted coups, unstable bonds, and Nate's increasingly suicidal campaign against me, then I could survive one conversation.The

CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

What Changes AfterNina’s POVI should have left.That was the first coherent thought I had after the second kiss.I should have left because staying was reckless.Because I had already made one emotionally catastrophic decision in this room and then, in a staggering display of poor judgment, followed it with a second.Not because it was bad. Because it wasn’t. The first kiss had been fear and relief and seven days of panic collapsing under pressure. The second had been deliberate.Which was infinitely more dangerous.Axel was watching me. Far too calm for a man who had just been kissed twice in a clinic bed by a woman who had spent the last two days avoiding him.It was deeply irritating. And, somehow, comforting.I exhaled slowly and stepped back just enough to put a safer amount of distance between us.Axel’s gaze tracked the movement.Then, because apparently he had decided surviving near death had earned him the right to be intolerable, he said, “You’re thinking too loudly again.

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

No More DisappearingNina’s POVI made it exactly halfway down the hall before Ryan stepped into my path.I stopped short, annoyance rising on instinct. “Do you live in the walls now?”Ryan leaned one shoulder against the stone archway, coffee in hand, entirely too relaxed for someone who was very obviously lying in wait.“Depends.”“On what?”“How honest you’re planning to be.”I stared at him.He stared back. Then his gaze dropped briefly to my face, sharpened, and the bastard smiled.“Oh no.”I narrowed my eyes. “What?”Ryan straightened. “That’s not your usual face.”“I’m going to need you to be more specific.”“That’s not your ‘I hate everything’ face.”I stepped around him. “Move.”He moved with me. Still in my way.“Nope.”“Ryan.”"That's your 'something happened, and now you're pretending you're fine about it' face."“I am fine.”“That’s also not your fine face.”I closed my eyes briefly. “Please develop a less invasive hobby.”Ryan’s grin widened. “Did you kiss him again?”I

CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

Restless ThingsAxel’s POVBy the third day of being conscious, Axel had decided he would rather be stabbed again than spend another full afternoon in Maris’s clinic.Unfortunately, Maris disagreed.Axel stared at her from the edge of the cot, one boot in hand and irritation already sharpening the edges of his patience.“I’m walking.”“You’re limping.”“That still counts.”“It does not.”He looked down at the boot in his hand. Then back at her.“I’m going to the courtyard.”“No.”“The hall, then.”“No.”“The doorway.”“No.”He narrowed his eyes. “The window.”Maris folded her arms. “You are one sarcastic remark away from me sedating you.”Axel held her stare for a beat. Then set the boot back down because she would absolutely do it.He knew this because she had already threatened it twice and once, years ago, had followed through after Kieran tore open his shoulder and tried to sneak out of her clinic before she finished stitching him.Axel leaned back against the pillows with all the

CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

What Ryan SeesAxel’s POVRyan did not leave.He stayed exactly where he was, sprawled in the chair beside Axel’s bed like he paid rent for the space, looking entirely too entertained by his own survival.Axel considered, not for the first time, whether friendship was simply a long-term exercise in tolerating someone you occasionally wanted to strangle.Ryan would argue yes. Axel was beginning to regret surviving this.“Leave,” Axel repeated.Ryan took another slow sip of coffee. “No.”Axel stared at him.Ryan smiled.There was no one Axel knew better equipped to make a simple expression feel like a calculated act of violence.It was a skill. A deeply irritating one."She kissed you," Ryan said again, as though Axel had not heard him the first time, and this required clarification.Axel looked at him flatly, now understanding how Nina felt when he did the same thing. “You’re enjoying this too much.”Ryan’s grin sharpened. “That’s not denial.”Axel leaned back against the pillows with

CHAPTER ONE-HUNDRED

A Message in BloodNina’s POVThey brought in six more before dawn.By sunrise, there were eight.By noon, ten.Rogue wolves.Two barely old enough to grow beards and one old enough to know better, all caught lurking too close to our borders with Nate’s scent on them and lies already loaded on their tongues.They were dragged into the lower holding cells, bloodied, snarling, and arrogant enough to think they still had room to negotiate.They didn’t.I stood in the cell corridor with my arms crossed, staring through iron bars at the ten men who had spent the last week circling my borders and waiting for another opening.Waiting for another weakness.One of them spat blood on the floor and smiled at me through split lips.“Alpha.”The title sounded like an insult in his mouth.I stared at him.He smiled wider. “Nate says…”“Cut his tongue out.”The words left me flat. Cold.The rogue froze.So did everyone else in the corridor.Then Ryan, standing at my right, let out one slow breath th

...

6 7 8 9 10 11

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP