TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 212

CHAPTER 148: THE ART OF BADLY FALLING

EMBER’S POV

He’s striding toward us across the snow, perfectly composed, like he wasn’t just dismantling my sense of reality way earlier this morning.

“I hope everyone slept well. We have a full day planned, so I suggest we fuel up at breakfast and then meet by the dog sleds in an hour. Rayana will be joining us to watch, assuming she’s feeling up to it.”

Knox is still looking at me, something unfinished in his expression.

“We should go,” I say, not meeting his eyes. “We don’t want to be late.”

I walk toward the main cabin before he can respond, leaving him standing in the snow with his cooling hot chocolate and a conversation that ended before it really began.

Breakfast passes in a blur of polite conversation and forced smiles.

Rayana presides over the table with her usual brittle elegance, but I can see the effort it’s costing her.

The dark circles under her eyes are deeper today, her movements slower, and twice I catch her wincing

when she thinks no one’s watching.

Queenie chatters brightly about nothing, filling silence with noise, and I watch her without seeming to

watch. Looking for cracks. For tells.

For evidence of the woman I heard crying this morning, begging her husband to let her confess.

Every time she touches my arm, I have to stop myself from flinching.

‘Did it have to be that recording? Did it have to be the one thing that would have broken her?‘

She catches my eye once and smiles, and the warmth in it is so genuine that I almost convince myself 1

imagined everything.

Almost.

But then Nathaniel’s voice slithers back in – the 2016 deal, Knox doesn’t even know I have it – and I find myself studying Knox across the table.

The way he butters his toast without looking. The way he answers Rafael’s questions with clipped, polite hostility. The way he glances at me every few minutes like he’s checking I’m still there.

What could he possibly have wanted from Gale in 2016? What kind of deal involves my ex–husband and the man I’m falling for, years before we ever met?

The questions circle like vultures, picking at the edges of my composure.

By the time we gather at the dog sleds, I’ve managed to construct something resembling calm.

The dogs are gorgeous, all bright eyes and wagging tails and infectious enthusiasm, and despite

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everything. I feel some of the tensiörrin my shoulders start to ease.

“Have you done this before?” Knox appears at my side, his voice carefully neutral.

“No. Never.”

Cathy

“It’s easier than it looks. The dogs do most of the work.” He hesitates, then: “I could show you, if you want. How to hold the reins, how to shift your weight on the turns.”

It’s an olive branch. A peace offering. A way back from the conversation Rafael interrupted this morning.

I should say no. Should maintain the distance I’ve been constructing since dawn. Should keep asking myself what a 2016 deal with Gale could possibly mean.

Instead, I hear myself say, “Okay.”

Knox helps me onto the sled, positioning himself behind me with his chest against my back.

His hands close over mine on the reins, guiding my grip, and his breath is warm against my ear when he

speaks.

“Hold them loose but steady. You’re not controlling the dogs, just communicating with them. Trust them

to know the trail.”

His thigh presses against the outside of mine, bracing us both as the sled lurches into motion.

The dogs surge forward with joyful barks, and suddenly we’re flying, the landscape blurring past in streaks

of white and green.

“Lean with me on the turns,” Knox murmurs, and his hands tighten on mine as we bank left. “Feel that? Let your body follow the movement.”

I do feel it. Feel the way his body guides mine, the easy synchronicity of moving together.

His arm comes around my waist to steady me, and I let myself lean back into his warmth, just for a

moment.

“You’re a natural,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

“I have a good teacher.”

“You have a teacher who’s easily distracted by the view.” His lips brush my ear. “You’re beautiful when you let yourself be happy, Ember. I don’t tell you that enough.”

Something loosens in my chest.

The fear, the doubt, the morning’s revelations – all of it fades to background noise against the simple pleasure of this moment. Wind in my hair. Speed under me.

Knox solid and warm at my back.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’ve been catastrophizing, building mountains out of molehills, letting Rafael’s poison take root in my mind.

CHAPTER WAP MUL VTT PAY FALLING

Maybe everything is fine.

Or maybe not.

Knox must feel me tense, because his arms tighten around me.

“Hey. Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere… Can we talk after this?”

“Of course.”

He pulls me closer, and I let him, but I’m not really here anymore. I’m somewhere else entirely, trapped in a maze of questions I don’t know how to ask.

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