TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 211

APTER 147: WILL YOU CATCH ME?

EMBER’S POV

“Thank you,” I say, taking the cup. The warmth seeps into my frozen fingers, grounding me in a way! desperately need.

Knox studies my face, and whatever he sees there makes his brow furrow.

“You look like you didn’t sleep.”

“I slept.”

“You look like you slept badly, then. And like something happened between then and now that made it worse.” He sets down his own cup on a nearby post and reaches for me, tucking a strand of hair behind

my ear before his hands settle on my waist, pulling me closer. “Talk to rne, Ember. Was it another

nightmare? Sapphire maybe?”

I open my mouth, then it closes on its own.

Where would I even start? Spying on Nathaniel? The thing he claims Knox is hiding? The flash drive Logan

is hunting? The bodies Nathaniel buried? The fact that your own beta is actively working to destroy us?

The words pile up in my throat and stick there, too heavy to move.

I should tell him. I know I should. But telling him right now means unraveling everything – admitting I was spying, confronting how deep this conspiracy goes, asking questions I’m not sure I want answers to.

So what comes out instead is something smaller and pettier and easier to voice.

“Last night. With Rayana.”

Knox goes still.

“What about that?”

“You were gone for almost an hour,” I say, voice small, almost pathetic. “And then you didn’t come back.”

Knox blinks, genuinely confused. “I did come back. Later. But the lights were off – I thought you were

asleep.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I know that now.” He studies my face, trying to read something there. “Ember, are you… angry with me?

Am I?

I don’t know. That’s the problem.

“Is it crazy,” I say slowly, “that I kept wondering what you could possibly be discussing behind those closed doors that needed an hour alone? That I lay there staring at the ceiling, imagining every worst–case

scenario?”

CHAPTER JAPWILL YOU GATE MARY

Knox’s expression shifts. Something softens there, and something else aches.

“We talked about Switzerland,” he says. “For some reason, Rayana is desperate to make this trip happen. She was trying to convince me on when I might be able to take her” He pauses, jaw working. “And then she pushed buttons. Said things designed to get under my skin – things I’d rather not remember right now. By the time I left, I was in a foul mood, and I didn’t want to bring that energy to your door.”

“I thought you were doing it again.”

The words come out before I can stop them, and Knox freezes.

“Doing what?”

“Running.” My voice cracks on the word. “That thing you do when things get too real. When it starts to matter. Those walls you throw up the second I get too close.” I swallow hard. “I thought you were pulling

away. I thought I thought maybe the aurora was too much, and you regretted it, and you were using

Rayana as an excuse to-”

“No” He says it fiercely, stepping closer, his hands coming up to cup my face. “No. Ember, no. That’s not- I wasn’t running. I was trying to protect you from my shit. I was standing outside your door like an idiot because I didn’t know how to knock and say ‘hey, your boyfriend is in a terrible mood because his dying ex knows exactly how to twist the knife, and he didn’t want to take it out on you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me from your moods, Knox. I need you to let me in.”

“I know.” His thumbs stroke across my cheekbones, and his eyes are desperate in a way I’ve never seen. “I know. I’m trying. I don’t- I don’t know how to do this right. I’ve never known how to do this right. But I’m trying, Ember. Tell me what you need. Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t know what I need.”

“Then I’ll figure it out.” He pulls me closer, his forehead dropping to rest against mine. “You don’t want me to go to Switzerland? I won’t go. No more playing nice. Fuck Switzerland. I’m not going anywhere with Rayana. I’ll stay here with you, and fuck the rules. I’ll come to your cabin tonight, and I’ll hold you and kiss you and- and read you a fucking bedtime story if that’s what it takes. I’ll do anything. Just tell me I haven’t lost you. Tell me you’re still here.”

My chest aches.

This man.

This impossible, infuriating, beautiful man who doesn’t know how to love without burning and doesn’t know how to stay without running and is standing here offering me bedtime stories like they might be enough to fix whatever these strange fears happen to be.

“I’m still here,” I whisper.

“Then talk to me.” His voice is raw. Pleading. “Whatever it is that’s sitting behind your eyes right now, whatever you’re not saying – just say it. I can take it. I’d rather have the hard truth than this silence that’s

killing are.”

And I want to.

Goddess, I want to-

I want to tell him about this morning about Queenie crying and Nathaniel’s cold voice and a 2016 deal that has something to do with Gale.

I want to ask him what he’s hiding, what Nathaniel meant about blood and bodies and things that can’t get

out.

I want to demand answers about my wolf, about the bloodlines Nathaniel mentioned, about why everyone seems to know things about me that I’m only beginning to understand.

But under all of that, buried under the fear and the confusion and the weight of secrets I don’t know how

to carry – there’s the genesis of everything ripping me apart.

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