TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 217

CHAPTER 153: AT MY LIMIT

EMBER’S POV

He’s standing in the snow about twenty feet away, his face a mask of barely controlled fury.

The cold bites at my skin, but it’s nothing compared to the ice spreading through my veins as Knox’s eyes take in the scene – me emerging from the house with Rafael, my tear–stained face, the handkerchief still clutched in my trembling fingers, the way Rafael’s hand hovers near my back.

For a moment, no one moves. The world narrows to just the three of us, suspended in the pale winter light, and I can almost hear the thread between Knox and me stretching taut, ready to snap.

“Ember.” Knox’s voice is too calm. The calm that comes before violence. The calm that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Step away from him.”

“Knox, please-”

“She’s fine, Volkov.” Rafael’s voice is light. Almost amused. Like he’s commenting on the weather and not standing in the crosshairs of a Lycan King’s rage. “I took good care of her while you were… otherwise occupied.”

Knox goes very still.

The kind of still that predators go before they strike. I’ve seen it before – in the dining hall when Harrison pushed too far. It’s the stillness of a man holding himself back by the thinnest of threads.

“Someone had to,” Rafael continues, and there’s something sharp under the casual tone now. “She was alone in the woods, freezing, having a panic attack/ But I suppose you were too busy holding your

ex–fiancée’s hand to notice.”

My stomach drops.

“Rafael,” I warn, but it’s too late.

The words have already landed. I watch them hit Knox like physical blows, watch his jaw tighten, watch his hands curl into fists at his sides.

“Tell me,” Rafael says, tilting his head with mock curiosity, that infuriating smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, “do you ever get tired of making women cry? Or is it just a hobby at this point?”

Knox moves before I can stop him.

One second he’s standing twenty feet away. The next, his fist is connecting with Rafael’s face with a brutal crack that echoes across the snow, snapping Rafael’s head to the side.

“Knox!”

Rafael staggers but doesn’t fall, and Knox is on him again, fist connecting with jaw, with ribs, with anything

he can reach.

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There’s no finesse in it or calculated fighting – what is unleashed is just raw, primal violence. The kind that comes from somewhere deeper than anger.

“Knox, STOP!”

He doesn’t hear me. Or doesn’t care. The wolf is in his eyes, gold ripping through blue like sunrise bleeding through night, and he’s hitting Rafael with a savagery that’s terrifying to witness.

A feral rage that turns my blood to ice.

This is what Nathaniel warned about. This is the man on the edge. This is what happens when the leash slips.

Rafael finally fights back, getting his arms up, deflecting some of the blows, but he’s outmatched and he knows it.

Knox is stronger, faster, driven by something that goes beyond rivalry or jealousy. Something broken and desperate and completely unhinged.

Blood streams from Rafael’s nose, from a cut above his eye, painting the white snow crimson. And still- still — that infuriating grin never drops from his face. Like he wanted this. Like he orchestrated exactly this

outcome.

Knox keeps coming.

I throw myself between them.

Knox’s fist stops an inch from my face. So close I can feel the displaced air against my cheek. So close that if he hadn’t stopped, if his reflexes had been a fraction slower-

“Move,” he growls. His chest is heaving, his knuckles split and bleeding, and up close, I can see the war happening behind his eyes.

The wolf fighting for control. The man fighting to hold on.

“No.”

“Ember, I swear to the Goddess–”

Γ

“What are you going to do? Hit me too?” I hold his gaze, refusing to flinch. Refusing to back down even though every instinct is screaming at me to run. “I’m tired, Knox. I’m exhausted. And I can’t watch you do

this.”

Something flashes through his expression. The fury wavers, cracking down the middle, giving way to something more wounded. More raw.

“He was touching you.”

“He was helping me. And I’m not a stupid child. I was fine.” I take a shaky breath, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to hold it steady. “And why do you get to be angry when you pushed me away? When you shut me out? When you slammed every door the second I tried to get close?”

That’s not-

can’t do this.” The words come out exhausted. Hollow. Like I’ve finally hit the bottom of whatever well I’ve been drawing strength from all day. “I can’t keep having the same fight. I can’t keep reaching for you and finding walls.”

“Ember-”

“I can’t keep being the woman you string along.” My voice cracks on the words, and I hate it. Hate how vulnerable I sound. Hate how much I still want him to fight for me even as I’m pushing him away. “The one who’s good enough to warm your bed but not good enough to trust with the truth.”

Knox flinches like I’ve struck him.

–

Behind me, Rafael spits blood into the snow and laughs – a low, dark sound that makes me want to

scream.

I turn to walk away, and Queenie materializes from somewhere, her face creased with worry, her hand

reaching for my arm.

“Ember, wait, what’s wrong-”

“Don’t touch me.”

Queenie freezes, her hand still extended. Her eyes are wide, confused, and somewhere under my exhaustion, I feel a flicker of guilt.

She doesn’t know that I know. She doesn’t know that her time has been an endless ticking bomb, and there is only so much patience that I can give.

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