Lahat ng Kabanata ng AFTER THE DIVORCE, THE ALPHAS MADE THEIR CLAIMS ON ME. : Kabanata 91 - Kabanata 100

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

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

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

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

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