TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 167

CHAPTER 112: MORE THAN OMEGA

EMBER’S POV

(PRESENT)

We stay tangled together for a long time, neither of us willing to be the first to let go. His hand strokes through my hair.

My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt. The room is quiet except for our breathing and the distant hum of something mechanical – a generator, maybe, or heating system in whatever unfamiliar place we’ve ended up.

Eventually, when my heart has stopped trying to escape my chest and the worst of the shaking has passed, I pull back enough to really look at him.

He looks terrible.

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There are shadows under his eyes so dark they look like bruises, and his skin has a grayish pallor that makes my stomach clench with worry.

Bandages peek out from the collar of his shirt, and when I reach up to touch his face, he leans into my

palm like even that small contact is something he needs.

“You look awful,” I tell him softly.

His mouth quirks in something that’s almost a smile.

“Thanks. You really know how to make a man feel special.”

“Knox, I’m serious.” I trace the line of his jaw, feeling the stubble there, the exhaustion carved into every angle of his face. “How bad is it? Really?”

“I’ll live.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

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He sighs, catching my hand and pressing a kiss to the center of my palm. The gesture is so tender, so unexpectedly gentle, that it makes my chest ache.

“The arrows did some damage,” he admits finally. “Wolfsbane slowed the healing. And apparently there

a poison of some kind. The doctor said it should have killed me.” was some other compound mixed in

My throat tightens. “But it didn’t.”

“But it didn’t.” His eyes search my face, gold flickering at the edges, something that seems to be more often now. “The doctor said the same thing about you. That you had the same compounds in your system, the same levels of toxicity. He couldn’t explain how either of us survived.”

The dream rushes back – Sapphire’s voice, the visions of my mother drugging my food, the words the first mistake they made was thinking we would stay small forever.

< CHAPTER 11*MOM THAN OMEGA

“Knox” I hesitate, not sure how to explain something I barely understand myself. “I had a nightmare. Or a dream, or… I don’t know what to call it. I don’t know how to explain it, but it felt real.”

He goes still, all that restless energy suddenly focused entirely on me.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw my wolf. Actually saw her, face to face for the first time. And she wasn’t… she wasn’t what I thought she was.” I swallow hard. “She was magnificent, Knox. Ancient and beautiful and nothing like an omega wolf should look. And she showed me things too. Memories, I think. From when I was a child.”

His brow furrows, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“My mother was putting something in my food.” The vision is still so vivid that unmarked bottle tucked behind the spice rack, the way she stirred the amber liquid into my oatmeal without a flicker of hesitation. “Every morning. Something to keep me ‘stable, apparently. And there was a woman – I don’t know who she was, but my mother was terrified of her. She talked about ‘them‘ coming for their own if I ever

manifested.”

I pause, the next part harder to say.

“And my father… he knew something was different about me. He called me ‘that thing.‘ Said he didn’t want

what she brought into the house anywhere near him. He looked at me like I disgusted him, Knox. Like I

wasn’t even his child.”

His jaw goes tight. Something dangerous flickers behind his eyes.

“What else did Sapphire tell you?”

“That what I am is impossible to bury. That the first mistake they made was thinking we would stay small forever.” I let out a breath, shaky and frustrated. “But before she could explain more, the dream shifted into something else-”

I stop myself. Before I watched him slash through me with claws that didn’t recognize who I was.

I don’t tell him that part.

“Shifted into what?”

I shake my head. “It just… faded. And I woke up terrified.”

Knox nods slowly, and I can practically hear the gears grinding in his head. His brow furrows, that look he gets when he’s turning something over and over, examining it from every angle.

“This is actually rather intriguing,” he murmurs.

I let out a weak laugh. “What if it’s just in my head? Whatever Harrison drugged us with – maybe it was enough to knock me into some kind of traumatic delusional dream. Maybe none of it was real.”

But Knox is already shaking his head, his gaze sharp and intent.

CHAPTER 14 MW THAN OMERA

“Gould it really be a delusion, though? I don’t think so.” He shifts closer, his eyes searching my face. “What if there’s more to your wolf? More to you than just being an omega?”

“Knox, come on.” I laugh again, but it sounds hollow even to my own ears. “I can’t even run a long distance without getting drained. I can’t summon the strength to win a physical fight. I can’t even shift unless it’s a full moon because my link to Sapphire mostly exists in my mind and-”

“But last night,” he cuts in, his voice firm, “you did something beyond what any omega is capable of, Ember. You almost clawed off that bastard’s face. And those marks?” His jaw tightens. “Those claw marks could easily rival mine. That says something. That tells me you might not be all you assume yourself to be.

I open my mouth to argue, but he keeps going.

“And really, is it that unbelievable? You survived years of domestic abuse. You survived his violence while carrying your child. You survived Devika and that might be understated, but is it really that far–fetched that woman could have done something to you? Hidden something from you?” He tips my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Think about it, Ember.”

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