TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 198

CHAPTER 137: TERRIBLE BETS

EMBER’S POV

Queenie and I exchange glances.

“We’re not conspiring,” I call back. “We’re bonding. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Rayana appears in my doorway, a champagne bottle dangling from one elegant hand and a smile playing at her lips.

She’s changed into something silky and expensive–looking, a loungewear set, and she moves with the particular grace of someone who has never doubted her right to take up space.

“I wanted exactly this,” she says, refilling both our glasses without asking. “Three women, some alcohol,

and absolutely no men allowed. This is how healing happens, darlings. Trust me.”

“Is that what we’re doing?” Queenie asks. “Healing?”

“Among other things.” Rayana settles onto my bed with the casual possessiveness of a cat claiming a sunbeam. “We’re also celebrating. Being alive. Being here. Being temporarily free of the endless parade of alpha male nonsense that seems to follow us wherever we go.”

“You invited Rafael,” I point out.

“Rafael doesn’t count. He’s civilized.”

“Knox seems to think otherwise.”

“Knox thinks everyone who isn’t Knox is a threat.” Rayana waves a dismissive hand. “It’s exhausting, really. I don’t know how you stand it.”

“I manage.”

“I’m sure you do.” Her eyes meet mine, sharp and assessing. “You’re tougher than you look, Ember Aragon. I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks. I think.”

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“It’s a compliment.” She raises her glass. “To tough women. To surviving things we shouldn’t have had to survive. And to three nights of peace before the world inevitably tries to destroy us again.”

It’s such a perfectly Rayana toast–dramatic, self–aware, just this side of morbid–that I find myself clinking glasses with her almost automatically.

Queenie does the same, though her expression suggests she’s not entirely sure she should be drinking anything this woman poured.

“I’m harmless, you know,” Rayana says, catching Queenie’s hesitation. “Mostly. I’m dying, which rather limits my capacity for villainy. And I’ve already accepted that Knox is-” She pauses, something flashing across her face. “Well. Knox is where he belongs. Which is not with me.”

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< CHAPTER 37 FRAMBLE RETS

“Could’ve fooled me,” Queenie snorts. “You two can barely stand each other.”

# {heft;

“Old habits.” Rayana’s smile goes brittle at the edges. “We were engaged, once. Did you know that? Ten

years ago. I was supposed to be the Lycan Queen.”

The words snap my eyes to Rayana. I knew she and Knox had been together for three years – he told me that much when she first arrived. But engaged? Actually engaged to be married?

I never actually….

My thoughts trail off with a painful tug in my chest.

“What happened?” The question leaves my mouth before I can stop it, and I hate the strained pitch of my voice. I clear my throat, trying to sound unbothered. “I mean, why didn’t you two…

you know.”

“Well. I happened.” Rayana takes a long drink, and the shame bites into her expression. “I got scared. Cold

feet, they call it, though mine were more like frozen solid. The night before the wedding, I got a call from

Paris. A Vogue cover. The opportunity of a lifetime.” She laughs, but it comes out hollow. “I looked at that

call, and then I looked at the life I was signing up for the danger, the politics, the constant responsibility – and I ran. Left him at the altar, quite literally. Disappeared for three months without a word.” She stares into her glass, and for a moment she looks smaller, younger, stripped of all that polished armor she wears

so well. “It was unfair. He didn’t deserve that.”

My heart twists. No, he didn’t.

“Holy shit,” Queenie breathes.

“Indeed.” Rayana’s laugh is even weaker. “I spent years convincing myself I’d made the right choice. Built a career. Traveled the world. Had affairs with entirely inappropriate men. And then I got sick, and suddenly all those adventures felt like running away, and the only thing I wanted was to see him one more time

before I died.”

She says it casually, like she’s discussing the weather, but I catch the tremor in her hand as she raises her

glass again.

“I’m not trying to steal him back,” she adds, looking directly at me. “I know that’s what you’re thinking. Both of you. Poor dying ex–fiancée, swooping in to reclaim what she threw away. But that’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?” I ask.

“Closure.” The word comes out soft. Almost vulnerable. “I want to apologize properly. I want to make things right, as much as they can be made right. And I want to do a few beautiful things before my body gives out completely.” She pauses. “Is that so terrible?”

I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know how to reconcile this version of Rayana – fragile, regretful, almost human – with the sharp–edged socialite who antagonized my stay at the Summit.

“No,” I say finally. “It’s not terrible. But you should prepare yourself for the possibility that not every closure leads to forgiveness. Sometimes it’s just… too late.”

< CHAPTER 137

Rayana’s expression falls apart for a moment before she pieces it back together.

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