TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 281

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CHAPTER 210: THE NIGHT OF CELESTE

EMBER’S POV

Nathaniel writes on the whiteboard. Two words at the top, in capital letters: CELESTE’S NIGHT.

“It was Christmas Eve.” His voice is mostly firm, but there’s a shakiness running through it that I can hear from across the room. “You and Celeste hosted a gathering at the Greenvale estate every year. It was an open house. Pack members, allies, friends, family, business associates. Everyone was invited. Celeste loved Christmas more than anyone I’ve ever met. She decorated the whole estate herself; every bannister and window was strung with lights through the garden until the place looked like it was breathing gold. She’d invite everyone she’d ever smiled at.”

“I remember that,” Knox says quietly. “I remember the decorations.”

“That year, the guest list was around ninety. It was a sit–down dinner, full of exotic cocktails and music in

the ballroom. Children chasing each other through the hallways while their parents drank mulled wine and pretended the world was kind. Staff working overtime because Celeste insisted on real china and fresh flowers on every table, even though it was the middle of December and the florist nearly had a stroke.”

Something shifts across Nathaniel’s face that might be the ghost of a fond memory, but he crushes it flat.

“It was a beautiful night. By every account, it was one of the best gatherings Greenvale had ever seen.”

He uncaps the marker and writes a number on the board.

Sixty–three.

The number sits on the whiteboard, and the room goes airless.

“Sixty–three confirmed dead between eleven PM and roughly one in the morning.” Nathaniel’s hand holding

the marker trembles, and he steadies it with his other hand. “Celeste. Kieran. Twenty–two household and

catering staff, some of whom had worked for the Volkov family since your father’s time. Fourteen of your personal security detail. And the rest were guests, Knox. Pack members who trusted you. Allies who brought their families because your home on Christmas Eve was supposed to be the safest place in the

territory.”

J

Knox has stopped breathing against my back. I press my body closer to remind his lungs how to work.

“No one survived inside the house. Not one.” Nathaniel lets that land before continuing. “By the time I reached the estate, the ground floor was…” He pauses and chooses his words with care, out of fear of what he couldn’t truly describe. “There was no room in that house that was untouched. The ballroom, the dining hall, the kitchen, the hallways, the staircase. Every room had bodies. Some in formal wear. Some mid–shift, caught between wolf and human. Some who clearly tried to run. Some who clearly tried to fight.” Another pause. “Some who were too small to do either.”

The silence that follows is so heavy it’s suffocating, every heart pounding.

“Two of the dead were children.” Nathaniel’s clinical composure finally bends, and what’s under is raw and

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grieving and has been grieving for a decade. “Their names were Mira and Sabias. Four and seven years old. They came with one of the guests, a woman I’ll get to in a moment. Mira drew horses on everything she could reach. The staff gave her a colouring book, and she filled it within the hour and started on the tablecloths with a crayon she’d smuggled in her pocket. Sabias was afraid of the dark, so one of the housekeepers set up a nightlight in the guest room they were staying in. The nightlight was still on when I found them.”

“Stop.” Knox’s voice is flat. The flatness is the warning.

“You asked me to-”

“I said, stop giving me their hobbies, Nathaniel. I killed them. Knowing what they liked to draw doesn’t change what I did to them. It just makes it harder to breathe.”

I lace my fingers through Knox’s on my hip and squeeze. He squeezes back hard enough to bruise, and I let him because the pain in my hand is the anchor keeping him in this chair.

“The woman they came with,” I say, because Knox can’t right now. “Who was she?”

Nathaniel hesitates and sets the marker down, then picks it up again.

“That’s where it gets complicated.” He turns to face us fully. “Celeste invited her. They were friends, had

been for a while, though I didn’t know the depth of it until I was processing the aftermath. I never learned

her name. Couldn’t find identification on the body. But when I was documenting the scene, I found

markings – a tattoo on her inner wrist. A crest that speaks of the old, eastern world. The kind of insignia

you only see on the ruling bloodlines, the ancient families that predate modern packs by centuries.”

He writes UNKNOWN EASTERN GUEST on the board with a question mark beside it.

“I couldn’t verify which family without drawing the exact kind of attention that would have buried us all.

But that crest meant she was someone significant. Someone powerful. Someone who would eventually be

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