TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 269

CHAPTER 199: ONE MORE CHANCE

KNOX’S POV

Every fibre of the wolf, every instinct, every molecule of possessive territorial need that I have spent my entire life suppressing surges to the surface with a force that makes my vision go gold and my fangs extend and my mouth finds the curve of her neck where the mating mark belongs.

The precise spot, the exact location, the place where my teeth would sink and the bond would seal and she would be MINE in a way that transcends language and law and death itself.

My teeth graze her skin. She shivers. Whispers “please” again and the word is a key turning in a lock I have kept shut for a decade.

My jaw begins to close-

“STOP”

The voice comes from the riverbank and it’s Nathaniel, on his knees in the mud and snow, and beside him Queenie, also on her knees, both of them kneeling with their heads bowed and their bodies trembling in

submission.

The oldest form of it. The gesture a wolf makes when approaching an alpha in a state of feral possession

and hoping to survive the encounter.

My head snaps up from Ember’s neck, gold eyes and extended fangs.

Blood on my mouth from the fight and blood on my hands from the wolves I killed and every line of my body broadcasting a single message: approach and die.

“You have some fucking nerve speaking to me right now.”

“I know.” Nathaniel’s voice is strained. This is a broken man talking. “I know what I’ve done. I know what I

even a sliver, even the am to you right now. But if there is even a single part of you that still trusts me ghost of what we were you will listen to me and you will NOT mark her.”

Γ

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t rip your throat out for even suggesting-” “Because the compound is still in her blood. The heat was manufactured, Knox. Chemically induced. A bond formed under that influence could be corrupted–incomplete, unstable, dangerous in ways I have spent ten years researching. If you mark her now and the bond isn’t clean, it could trigger exactly what I’ve been trying to prevent. It could trigger the cascade. The same one that took your father.”

Phantom doesn’t care.

The wolf wants the mark and the wolf does not negotiate and the woman in my arms is baring her neck and BEGGING and every second I don’t bite down is a second of agony that makes the fight with Rafael feel like a gentle massage.

< CHAPTER ONE MORE CHANCE

“Knox”

Ember’s voice comes from below me, from the woman pressed against my chest in the river, and she’s looking past me to the bank where Queenie is kneeling with blood on her face and tears streaming and the expression of a woman who has thrown everything she has at the altar of a friendship she destroyed and is begging for one more chance.

“Maybe we should hear them out.”

I look at her. Past Phantom’s rage, past the feral haze, past the gold in my vision, to the woman under.

She’s not saying no. She’s saying not yet. Not like this. Wait until we’re sure.

Wait until the compound is gone and the choice is clean and the mark means what it’s supposed to mean.

She’s asking me to choose. Not the wolf’s choice. Not the gene’s choice. MINE.

Choose to stay, Knox. Even when staying is the hardest thing in the world.

I pull back from her neck.

My fangs retract and the effort of it is physical, muscular, a full–body fight against every instinct I possess.

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