TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 106

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CHAPTER 72: HOUSEGUEST FROM HELL

EMBER’S POV

I wake to shrieking.

It takes my brain a moment to process the sound, to drag itself from the warm depths of dreamless sleep and identify what’s happening.

Then Rayana’s voice cuts through the fog like a serrated knife.

“These pillows are absolutely unacceptable! They’re flat! Flat pillows, Knox! What kind of establishment provides flat pillows to a dying woman?”

I groan and bury my face in the pillow that is apparently not fluffy Enough for our royal houseguest. The clock on the nightstand reads 7:14 AM. It feels like I closed my eyes approximately thirty seconds ago.

Knox is already awake, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, and I can hear him counting to ten under his breath.

“I heard that,” I mumble into the pillow.

“Good. I want witnesses when I murder her.”

Rayana’s voice carries through the penthouse again, this time complaining about the curtains. Too much light. No, too little. Can someone adjust them properly? Is there no one in this establishment who

understands how curtains work?

“This is going to be a very long forty–eight hours,” I say.

Knox makes a sound that might be agreement or might be the beginning of a psychotic break.

When I finally drag myself out of bed and into the living area, I find Knox standing in the doorway of the guest room with his arms crossed and an expression that suggests he’s calculating exactly how much his freedom is worth versus how much trouble he’d be in for smothering his ex–girlfriend with her substandard pillows.

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A staff member hovers awkwardly nearby, tray in hand, clearly unsure whether to stay or flee.

“The eggs are overcooked,” Rayana announces from her throne of blankets and bandages. She’s propped up against approximately seventeen pillows, none of which are apparently acceptable, and she’s poking at her breakfast with the disdain of a food critic at a dive bar. “The whites are rubbery.”

“Then don’t eat them,” Knox says flatly.

“I’m simply providing feedback. How else will the so–called VIP kitchen improve?” She waves a dismissive hand at the staff member, who takes the opportunity to escape. Then she catches sight of me hovering behind Knox and her smile sharpens. “Ember! Good morning. You look… rested.”

The pause before rested is deliberate. I know it. She knows it. Knox’s jaw twitches because he knows it

CHAPTER 2 HOUSEDVEST FROM HELL

too.

“I slept fine,” I say carefully.

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“Did you? How lovely. I barely slept at all myself.” She adjusts her blankets with exaggerated wincing, but her eyes are sharp with mischief. “So much noise. Mysterious sounds in the night. Thumping. Creaking. The headboard kept hitting the wall at very…” She pauses, tapping a finger against her chin like she’s searching for the right word. “…consistent intervals.”

My face burns.

“And the moaning, goddess,” she adds dreamily. “At first I thought someone was injured. Then I realized it was just… enthusiasm.”

We weren’t loud last night. We weren’t even anything last night except our whispered conversations in the dark. But Rayana doesn’t need facts when she is dead–set on being a pain–in–the–ass.

Knox’s eye does something that might be a twitch or might be the beginning of an aneurysm.

“Stop talking nonsense. The penthouse is soundproofed.”

“Is it?” Rayana’s smile widens. “Fascinating. Perhaps I was imagining things then. The medication does make me suggestible. What a vivid imagination I have. Could someone bring me coffee? I’d get it myself

but, well.” She gestures at her bandaged abdomen. “Stab wounds.”

I escape to the kitchen before Rayana can find something else to complain about. The coffee maker is

already running and I pour myself a cup with hands that are steadier than they have any right to be given

everything that’s happened in the last twelve hours.

Rayana is in our home. Nathaniel is hiding something catastrophic. Logan Reeves is orchestrating attacks.

And somewhere in my phone, there’s a photo of my best friend that I still don’t know how to process.

I pour a second cup for Rayana because I’m not cruel, just exhausted.

When I bring it to the guest room, Knox has escaped to take a phone call and Rayana is examining her

breakfast tray like it personally offended her. She accepts the coffee, takes one sip, and wrinkles her nose.

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“Too weak.”

“It’s the same coffee Knox makes.”

“Yes. Too weak.” She takes another sip anyway. “I prefer a darker roast. Something with more bite. This

tastes like someone waved a coffee bean near some water and called it a day.”

I count to ten in my head. “I’ll make sure to note your preferences for next time.”

“Would you? That’s very considerate.” She sets the cup down and studies me with eyes that are far too

sharp for someone who was bleeding on the floor six hours ago. “You don’t like me.”

“Can you blame me?”

LES

DOM HELL

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“Not particularly, no.” She shifts against her pillows and grimaces, pain flickering across her features before she smooths it away. “But it’s more than dislike, isn’t it? You resent me. For being here. For needing Knox’s help. For existing in proximity to the man you’re clearly falling for despite all your better instincts telling you not to.“–

The accuracy of that assessment makes my spine stiffen.

“I’m not falling for anyone.”

“Please. You’re already mid–fall. I recognize the symptoms.” She waves a dismissive hand. “The way you watch him when he’s not looking. The way you lean toward him when he enters a room. The way your entire body softens when he reaches for you. You’re gone, sweetheart. Completely and utterly gone.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I fell the same way once.” Something shifts in her expression, the sharp edges softening into something that looks almost like grief. “He’s very easy to love. Knox. All that power and seduction and devotion stitched into a man who’s so deeply damaged he doesn’t even recognize his own wounds. Very easy to love. But… very hard to keep.”

The words land somewhere uncomfortable in my chest.

“I’m not trying to keep him.”

“No?” Her eyebrows lift. “Then what’s your endgame? This fake arrangement that’s become significantly

less fake? The thirty days of council observation where you’re supposed to be proving your relationship is

real? What happens when the thirty days are over and you’re still in love with a man who’s convinced he’s

incapable of loving you back?”

I don’t have an answer for that. She knows I don’t have an answer for that. The silence stretches between

us until it becomes its own kind of conversation.

“The curtains,” Rayana says finally, breaking the moment with a theatrical sigh. “They’re still wrong. More to the left. No, my left. No, back again. Yes, there. No, that’s too far.”

I adjust the curtains four more times before I finally get them positioned somewhere acceptable. By the time I escape the guest room, my eye is twitching almost as badly as Knox’s was.

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