TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 179

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CHAPTER 123: I MADE YOU!

EMBER’S POV

“You actually thought I’d let you out?” I manage between waves of genuine amusement. “You thought your pathetic little performance would work on me? After everything?”

The mask rips apart completely.

“You fucking bitch.” The words come out low and vicious, dripping with vertom. “You stupid fucking whore. You think this changes anything? You think spreading your legs for that Lycan mutt makes you something other than the pathetic omega I scraped off my shoe?”

“Keep talking.” I’m still smiling, still crouched before his cage, completely and utterly unafraid in a way that seems to infuriate him more than anything else. “Tell me more about how pathetic I am. While you’re locked in a cage. In a basement. With your face rotting off your skull.”

“I’ll ALWAYS own you.” He slams his fist against the bars hard enough to make the whole structure rattle, hard enough that I see blood bloom from his already–damaged knuckles. “Do you hear me? Even if I die in

this fucking cage, even if you never see me again, I did something to you that can’t ever be undone, Ember.

I broke you into pieces and put you back together in my image and no matter how many kings you let fuck

you, that will never, ever change.”

He presses his ruined face against the bars, his voice dropping to a whisper that’s somehow more

threatening than his screaming.

“Every time he touches you, you’ll think of me. Every time he makes you come, part of you will remember what I taught you about pleasure and pain. I’m in your head, Ember. I’m in your bones. I made you what you are. And you will never. Be. Free.”

The words hang in the air between us, bitter with intended cruelty.

And I feel… nothing.

No, that’s not quite right.

I feel something, but it’s not what he wanted. It’s not devastation or despair or the familiar crushing pain e his psychological warfare.

What I feel is something closer to amusement. To pity. To the profound satisfaction of watching a once–terrifying monster reveal itself to be nothing more than a frightened, pathetic creature lashing out.

from behind bars.

I rise to my feet slowly, deliberately, letting him see every inch of the woman I’ve become.

The woman he tried to destroy and failed. The woman who tore his face open with claws that shouldn’t

exist.

The woman who is standing here, whole and powerful and completely beyond his reach, while he rots in a

S CHAPTER 12PT MADE YOU

eage like the animal he always was.

“You’re wrong,” I say softly, and my voice carries an ease that seems to press him back against the far side of his prison. “You didn’t make me. You tried to destroy me, and you failed, Everything I am now, every piece of strength and power and joy I’ve discovered since escaping you, I built from the ashes of what you burned down. And you know what the funniest part is, Gale?”

I lean closer, close enough that he could reach me if his chains allowed, close enough that he can see the absolute absence of fear in my eyes.

“I’m grateful to you. Because you taught me exactly what I don’t want. You showed me exactly what weakness looks like when it’s masquerading as strength. And now I have a man who actually knows how to touch me, how to worship me, how to make me feel things your pathetic hands never could.” I smile, slow and cruel and absolutely sincere. “So thank you. For being such a spectacular failure that I had no choice but to find something better.”

Footsteps on the stairs.

I don’t turn around. I don’t need to. I know that cadence, that particular rhythm of movement.

I’ve been learning Knox’s body in every way possible these past days, and I know him like I know my own

heartbeat now.

He descends into the basement with the controlled alertness of a man who woke to find his bed empty

and followed his instincts to find what was missing.

His eyes sweep the space, me standing before Gale’s cage, Gale screaming through the bars, the key glinting on the floor just out of reach, and I watch understanding dawn across his features.

“Ember?” He crosses to me with quick, purposeful strides, his hands finding my shoulders, turning me to

face him. “What are you doing down here? Did he hurt you?”

“No.”

The smile that spreads across my face is nothing like the one I wore for Gale.

This one is real. Warm. Hungry in a way that has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with

want.

“I’m perfect.”

And then I pull him into a kiss.

I fist my hands in the fabric of his shirt and drag his mouth down to mine with a ferocity that surprises us both, kissing him like I’m trying to consume him, like I need the taste of him more than I need air.

He makes a sound of shock against my lips that transforms almost instantly into hunger, his arms wapping around me, hauling me against the solid wall of his chest.

Behind us, Gale starts screaming.

< CHAPTER 122 MADT VISER

“Don’t you fucking dare! Don’t you touch her! She’s MINE, she belongs to ME-”

1 break the kiss just long enough to laugh, the sound bouncing off the concrete walls, blending with Gale’s impotent rage in a symphony that feeds something dark and satisfied in my soul.

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