TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 169

CHAPTER 114: WASH IT ALL AWAY

EMBER’S POV

I remember the way he launched himself toward me. The way his body curled around mine, shielding me completely.

The way he took arrow after arrow into his own flesh just to keep them from reaching me.

“I know,” I whisper. “Thank you. You saved me. You somehow always do.”

We sit in the quiet for a while, just breathing together. Then I ask a question that has been at the back of my mind.

“What happened after I went out? Where is Harrison? Is he…“.

Goddess. I hope he was.

“Harrison went off the cliff,” he says, his voice hardening slightly. “We haven’t found a body. He might still

be alive.”

My heart drops.

“And Gale?”

Something dark and satisfied flickers through his expression.

“Well, you handled that yourself, didn’t you? He’s in the basement, and he is barely breathing.”

Good, I think, and the coldness of it doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

“There’s more.” Knox’s jaw tightens. “The transfer wasn’t random. Harrison didn’t act alone – the custody guards handed Gale over without any resistance. Someone signed off on it with an official order.”

My blood goes cold. “Who?”

“Elder James. He and Harrison have been working together. Same ideology, same agenda.” His hand finds mine, squeezing. “James knew I would chase when that tracker went off–route. The whole thing was designed to trap me – the archers, the ambush, all of it. If I had killed Harrison on that mountain…”

“You would have given them exactly what they needed to destroy you.”

“Yeah.”

“So what do we do?”

“Lie low until we know if Harrison made it. Figure out how deep this goes.” His thumb traces circles on my knuckles. “And when we leave Anchorage, Gale comes with us. I’m having him transferred to a maximum security facility in North America where I can personally ensure he rots for the rest of his miserable existence.”

“Won’t that cause problems?”

CHAPTER344 WASH IT ALL AWAY

Knox smiles, and there’s nothing wärm about it.

“Probably. But I find I’ve stopped caring about playing by rules when it comes to you.”

There’s something almost frightening about him like this cold and calculating, a king done pretending the game is fair.

But there’s something deeply satisfying about it too. Something that makes the dark part of me, the part that tore Gale apart with impossible claws, purr with approval.

He glances at me, at the dried blood still visible on my hands and arms, and something shifts in his expression. His eyes go dark in a way that makes heat curl low in my belly.

“You’re covered in him.” His voice drops low, rough, possessive in a way that sends shivers down my spine. “I want it off you.”

It’s not a request.

He helps me stand, steadying me when my legs wobble, and leads me to the small bathroom attached to

the room.

The mirror shows me a stranger – pale and wild–eyed, hair a tangled disaster, dried blood crusted on my skin and under my nails. Evidence of what I did. What I became.

Knox turns on the water without a word.

Steam begins to fill the small space as he helps me out of my ruined clothes, his movements careful at first, almost clinical.

But I catch the way his breath hitches when his fingers skim my ribs. The way his jaw tightens every time he uncovers another smear of dried blood.

The way his wolf presses against his skin, gold flickering at the edges of his irises.

The water is hot when I step under it, almost too hot, but it feels like absolution.

I stand under the spray and watch the evidence of last night swirl down the drain – brown–tinged water

Γ spiraling away, carrying Gale’s blood with it, washing away the proof of what I did.

Knox strips behind me, and when he steps into the shower, the feeling of his body against my back – solid, warm, alive – makes something in my chest flutter.

“Let me,” he murmurs, and then his hands are in my hair.

Goddess, they are soothing. Almost pleasurable.

He works through the tangles slowly, methodically, with a gentleness that seems impossible from a man who tore through men merely hours ago.

I close my eyes and let myself enjoy it – his fingers against my scalp, massaging softly, the heat of the water, the steam curling around us like a cocoon.

C CHAPTER WASHIT ALL AWAY

He washes me like it’s a ritual. Like he’s trying to erase every trace of that mountain, every reminder that we almost died.

His hands move over my shoulders, down my arms, across my back with reverent attention. When he reaches my stomach, his touch becomes even softer, more careful.

“Knox.”

“Mm.”

“Look at me.”

He turns me in his arms so we’re facing each other, water streaming down both of us, and the look in his eyes makes my breath catch.

There’s hunger there, yes – but there’s also fear. Relief. Something desperate and raw that he’s trying so

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