TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 237

CHAPTER 172: MY DEAREST FLAME

EMBER’S POV

I storm into the main lodge and find him exactly where I expect to find him–seated in the dining area, coffee in hand, fresh shirt, hair combed, the bruises from Knox’s fists darkening along his jaw but groomed around like he’s styled them into an accessory.

He looks up when I walk in and the smile he gives me is warm and sweet, and it makes my blood curdle. “Good morning. You look rested.”

“Call off your men.”

“Ember-”

“Call them off, Rafael. Right now. I’m leaving.”

He sets his coffee down with such careful precision.

“The weather-”

“There is no weather. It’s clear outside. The sky is blue. There is no storm and there are no wolves and we both know this lockdown has nothing to do with my safety.” I drop my bag on the floor between us. “I am not your guest. I am not your responsibility. And I am not staying one more minute. Call off your men or I will walk through them.”

something patient and appraising

He studies me. The amusement in his eyes shifts to something else and cold under the charm, like a man watching an animal he’s been tracking step into the clearing at last.

“And go where?” He says it gently, like he’s asking a child what she wants to be when she grows up. “Knox is in Switzerland. Your friends are gone. Your mother is a nutcase, and I hear your father is not any better.

You have no pack, no home, no one waiting for you anywhere in this world.” He tilts his head, and the

tenderness in his voice is obscene. “Except me.”

“I would rather sleep in the snow.”

“Such fire.” He leans back and crosses one leg over the other, admiring me in an unsettling way. “You

know, that’s what first drew me to you. At the summit, when you told Gale he was dead to you – do you

remember? The FIRE. Every other ornega in that room would have crumbled and would have never

survived what you did. And I thought – there she is. There’s the woman deserving of my loyalty. Of my

devotion. Of my love.”

“Don’t romanticize this. You’re holding me prisoner, and if any of your devotion or bullshit love means

anything, you would let me leave. Now.”

“Now, why would I do that when you’re my sweetest flame? Away from me, the cold would kill your light and squench that beautiful fire. I’m only keeping you safe.”

Claun

“You’re keeping me TRAPPED. Those are very different things and you know the difference.”

He stands slow, unfolding himself from the chair with an easy grace I once found alluring and his face changes.

The warmth drops out of his expression like a mask falling and what’s under is something I’ve never seen on him before, something honest and cold and absolutely terrifying.

“You’re right,” he says, and his voice is a different instrument now, tuned lower and stripped of everything soft. “I am keeping you here. Because if I let you walk out those doors, you’ll fly back to Alaska and lock yourself in some miserable house and waste the next year grieving a man who abandoned you in the snow without looking back. And I refuse to watch that happen.”

“You REFUSE-”

“I have watched you question yourself – your mind, your worth, your identity – because of lesser men. Everything you are is exactly what I yearn for. Not a single bit less and not a single bit more. You are perfect for me, Ember, and yet you insist on wasting yourself on a man who can’t even say he loves you.” He steps closer and his eyes are burning with something that would be beautiful if it weren’t so terrifying. “ I won’t let you waste your heart on a coward anymore.”

I slap him.

Every ounce of strength in me connected with the bruised side of his jaw, hard enough to snap his head

sideways and spray spit across the dining table.

The smack echoes off the walls and every staff member in the lodge freezes mid–step and the guards at

the door reach for weapons they don’t quite draw.

Rafael turns his face back to me slowly. Fresh blood on his lip and his tongue slides out to taste it.

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