TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 164

CHAPTER 109: MAGNIFICENT CREATURE

EMBER’S POV

(A MOMENT EARLIER)

I’m standing in a place that doesn’t exist

There’s no ground under my feet – just something soft and silver that feels like moonlight given form, like the surface of a still lake that forgot it was supposed to ripple.

The sky above me isn’t a sky at all but an endless swirl of stars and ancient mist, Stretching so far in every direction that the concept of distance loses all meaning.

Everything here is dead quiet in a way that the real world never is, peaceful in a way that feels older than time, like this place has been waiting for me since before I drew my first breath.

And there, sitting perfectly still with her head tilted in patient curiosity, is a wolf.

She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.

Her fur is silver–white, so pale it seems to glow against the darkness surrounding us, catching light that

has no source and throwing it back in soft ripples.

Her eyes are liquid gold – warm and ancient and achingly familiar, like looking into a mirror that shows not your face but your soul.

She’s massive, bigger than any wolf should be, yet there’s nothing frightening about her presence.

Looking at her feels like coming home after a journey I didn’t know I was taking, like finding a piece of myself I didn’t realize was missing.

Finally, Ember.

The voice doesn’t come from her mouth.

It resonates through my chest, my bones, the very marrow of who I am, vibrating in places I didn’t know could vibrate.

She’s not speaking to my ears – she’s speaking to something deeper.

We meet face to face.

“Sapphire.” I breathe the name without thought, without question, because it has to be her. “You’re my wolf.

But this can’t be right.

I’ve only ever known her through our mindlink, the way most omegas know their wolves at the back of my mind, unremarkable at best.

a faint presence

Even during the rare occasions I shift, she’s always been small. Ordinary. The kind of wolf no one looks

< CHAPTER DIG MA

ENT CREATURE

twice at.

The creature standing before me is anything but ordinary.

She’s ancient. Magnificent: The kind of beautiful that makes your chest ache just from looking at her. She steals my breath away.

I’ve always been here, Ember. Waiting. Fighting to truly reach you. But it takes a moment of life and death, a moment of true, visceral rage, to briefly break through our barriers.

She rises to her feet with liquid grace, muscles rippling under that silver fur, and pads toward me until we’re close enough that I could reach out and touch her if I dared.

Even when they tried to bury me. Even when they worked so hard to make you forget I existed. I was here, Ember. I was always here, fighting to reach you through the fog of your mind.

“Who tried to bury you? What are you talking about? I don’t understand-”

Instead of answering, the world around us dissolves.

The silver dreamscape melts away and suddenly I’m standing in a kitchen bathed in warm morning light.

Yellow curtains flutter in a breeze I can’t feel.

The smell of breakfast fills the air eggs and toast and something sweet – and there’s a woman standing

at the stove with her back to me, humming softly as she stirs.

My mother.

She’s younger here than I remember, her hair still dark, her face unlined. But even now, even in this kitchen that smells like cinnamon, she doesn’t look like a mother.

She looks like a woman going through the motions of being one.

I watch her reach for a small bottle tucked behind the spice rack, then comes a spoonful of a thick strange liquid, which she pours into the oatmeal bubbling on the burner.

Her expression doesn’t change. She could be adding sugar.

She stirs it in until it vanishes completely, leaving no trace it was ever there.

r

Every morning. Sapphire’s voice whispers through the vision, sad and resigned. Every single morning for as long as you can remember.

The scene ripples like a stone dropped in water, and suddenly I’m sitting at that same kitchen table.

My legs swing under my chair because they don’t reach the floor yet – I must be five, maybe six, small enough that the world still feels enormous and safe.

My mother sets a bowl of oatmeal in front of me without looking at my face, already turning back to whatever else matters more than I do.

I watch my younger self take a bite without hesitation, trusting completely.

CHAPTER 10 MAGNIFICENT CREATURE

Hremember this.

Not this specific morning, but the feeling that always came after breakfast.

That fog that rolled in like tide, soft and smothering, wrapping around my thoughts until everything felt muffled and far away.

The way something inside me always seemed to be trying to wake up but couldn’t quite push through the haze, like a voice calling from underwater.

I thought that was just what being young felt like. I thought everyone’s childhood memories had that same blurred quality, that same sense of reaching for something just out of grasp.

The vision shifts again, more violent this time, and I find myself standing in the living room of my childhood home.

My parents are fighting. Though that’s nothing new, something about it is different this time.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify