TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 105

CHAPTER 71: THE WOLF AND THE FOX

EMBER’S POV

He’s quiet for a long moment. Something flickers through his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or fear. The shutters start to come down, that familiar wall rebuilding itself brick by brick.

“I don’t think I’d be a good father,” he says finally.

“Why?”

“The Volkovs weren’t exactly a stable family.” His voice has gone careful. Controlled. “Dysfunction runs in

my blood. Literally. I’ve seen what happens when damaged people try to raise children. I refuse to continue that cycle.”

There’s so much more underneath those words. I can feel it. Decades of history I know nothing about.

“What was your family like?” I ask softly.

He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it.

“You really don’t get enough, do you? Always pushing. Always wanting more.”

“You’re so closed off,” I admit. “Every time I think I’m getting somewhere, you build another wall. It makes

me want to know everything. Every secret. Every scar. Everything you’re hiding behind all that ice.”

He stares at me for a long moment. Something shifts in his expression, something vulnerable and raw that he usually keeps buried.

Then he moves.

Before I can react, he’s pulling me on top of him, rearranging us until I’m sprawled across his warm chest,

his arms locked around my waist like he’s afraid I’ll float away.

“Time for you to sleep,” he murmurs against my hair.

“I can’t sleep. I want to talk.” I know I sound childish. I don’t care. “You always do this. You deflect and

distract and-”

“It’s been a long day, baby.” His hand strokes down my spine, soothing despite my protests. “The longest.

You need rest.”

“But-”

“Tomorrow. I’ll answer one question tomorrow. Any question you want.” He presses a kiss to the top of my

head. “But right now, you need to sleep. And I need to hold you. Can you give me that?”

The fight drains out of me. He’s right. I’m exhausted down to my bones, and lying here wrapped around

him feels too good to argue with.

“Fine,” I mumble into his chest. “But I’m holding you to that. One question. Any question.”

34

KACTERIA–THE WOLF AND THE FOX

“Deal”

+25 Points

“And I want a real answer. Not one of your cryptic non–answers that technically satisfy the question while telling me nothing.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“I learned from the best.”

His chest rumbles with a quiet laugh.

Silence settles over us, warm and comfortable. I should be drifting off, but my mind is still buzzing, still reaching for something to hold onto.

“I can’t sleep,” I admit after a few minutes. “My brain won’t stop.”

“What do you need?”

“Tell me something. A story. Something that isn’t about councils or threats or ex–girlfriends or Nathaniel.” I shift closer, pressing my face against his chest. “Something to quiet my head.”

“I don’t do stories.”

“Then make one up. Something boring enough to knock me out.”

The sound he makes might be a laugh. Might just be an exhale. Hard to tell with Knox.

“Fine,” he says after a moment. “A story. But if you fall asleep before the end, I’m not repeating it.”

“Deal.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and I can almost hear him thinking, searching for something to say that isn’t classified information or traumatic backstory.

“Once upon a time,” he begins, and his voice has shifted into something lower, softer, almost hypnotic,”

there was a wolf who lived alone in a castle made of ice.”

“A castle made of ice?” I murmur against his chest. “That sounds uncomfortable.”

J

“It was. But the wolf had been hurt badly when he was young, and ice was the only thing that numbed the wounds. So he built his walls higher and higher, froze everything he touched, convinced himself that the

cold was better than the alternative.”

I go still, realizing this isn’t just a story.

One day,” Knox continues, “a small creature wandered into his territory. Not a wolf. Something softer. Something that should have been prey.”

“What kind of creature?”

“Does it matter?”

“I want to picture it correctly.”

WAPTER 24-445 WOLF AND

He considers this. “A fux, maybe. Silver fur. Eyes that saw too much. The kind of

run the moment it sensed the predator lurking in the ice castle.”

“But she didn’t run.”

“No. She was too tired to run. Too broken to care about the danger. She’d been running from something worse, you see. Something with teeth that had already torn her apart. The ice wolf seemed almost gentle by comparison.”

His hand is still stroking my hair, rhythmic and soothing.

“The wolf should have eaten her,” he says. “That’s what wolves do. That’s what the cold had taught him. Take what you want and leave nothing behind. But something about the fox made him hesitate. The way she looked at him without fear. The way she didn’t beg or cower or try to bargain for her life. She just sat there in his frozen throne room and waited to see what he would do.”

“What did he do?”

“He told himself he was keeping her for practical reasons. A fox could be useful. Foxes are clever. Foxes can reach places wolves can’t.” Knox’s voice drops even lower. “But the truth was simpler and more terrifying. The wolf kept the fox because when she was near, the ice didn’t feel so cold anymore. The walls he’d built so carefully began to crack. And for the first time in years, he felt something other than frozen.” I’m drifting now, the warmth of his body and the low rumble of his voice pulling me toward sleep despite my best efforts to stay awake.

“The problem,” Knox murmurs, “is that wolves don’t know how to love without consuming. Without claiming. Without destroying the very thing they want to protect. So the ice wolf kept his distance even as he wanted to pull her closer. Kept his walls up even as they crumbled around him. Because he knew the moment he admitted what she was to him, the moment he stopped pretending this was practical or temporary or anything other than inevitable…”

His voice trails off.

I’m too tired to ask how it ends. Too tired to do anything except press closer to him, letting his heartbeat

୮ sync with mine, letting the warmth of him chase away the last of the cold.

“He was terrified,” Knox finishes softly, and I’m not sure if he’s still telling the story or if he’s just telling me the truth. “Because the fox had done something impossible. She’d made him want things he’d sworn he’d never want again. Made him hope for things he’d convinced himself were beyond him. And the ice wolf didn’t know how to want without losing. Didn’t know how to hope without being destroyed by it.”

His lips brush my forehead.

“But he was starting to think maybe she was worth the risk. Maybe she was worth…”

I hear him say one more word, but sleep claims me before I can process it.

Something that sounds like everything.

HAPTERY POWERQUEST FROM HELL