TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 285

CHAPTER 214: COME BACK TO ME

EMBER’S POV

“THEY WERE QUIET.” The scream tears out of him, the gold in his eyes BLAZES, the claws punch through on both hands, and the chair creaks under the force of his body going rigid. “They were so quiet, and I still found them and the boy LOOKED at me, Ember, he looked at me right before I-”

He can’t finish. The sound that replaces words is something I hope I never hear again as long as I live. The sound of a man’s soul hitting a wall it can’t survive, and the impact echoes through every room he’ll ever walk into for the rest of his life.

He stands. I slide off. He crosses the room toward Nathaniel with a speed that isn’t human, his body moving on feral autopilot, claws fully extended, gold eyes burning with sixty–three deaths that just found their architect.

“YOU.” The word is barely recognisable through the shift. “You drugged me. You lowered the threshold. You made SURE the gene would overwhelm the bond. And then you pointed me at a room full of people, and you WATCHED.”

“I didn’t watch, I was trying to get to you, the team was-“!

“THEY WERE CHILDREN.” Knox’s hand closes around Nathaniel’s throat and LIFTS, and this time there is

no hesitation. “There were children in that house, and you put something in my coffee that morning

KNOWING what I might become and you rolled the dice on their lives for your RESEARCH.”

Nathaniel’s feet leave the ground. His face is going purple. Queenie is on her feet, screaming his name, and I am moving, moving, already between them-

“YOU made me into the monster.” Knox’s voice through the feral haze, gold eyes streaming tears that he can’t feel and wouldn’t acknowledge if he could. “I have carried the weight of that night for TEN YEARS, I knew there was blood. I knew I killed Celeste. I knew I killed Kieran. I have looked at my own hands and seen their blood, and I couldn’t even REMEMBER their faces, and now you’re telling me it was SIXTY–THREE. Now I can see them. Now I can hear them. Children, Nathaniel. CHILDREN hiding under a bed. And the reason they’re dead is not the gene, and it’s not Celeste, and it’s not even ME. It’s YOU. You killed them. You killed every single one of them the moment you put that shit in my coffee and decided that my life was a laboratory and their lives were acceptable collateral for your fucking HYPOTHESIS.” Nathaniel can’t speak. Knox’s grip is crushing his windpipe, and his eyes are bulging, and Queenie is pulling at Knox’s arm and screaming and getting nowhere.

I step into the space between Knox’s body and Nathaniel’s dangling legs, and I press myself against his

chest.

I take his face in both hands, and I look directly into the gold.

“Knox.”

Phantom snarls, teeth bared at me. And Sapphire stirs in my chest with a warning I ignore completely because I am not afraid of this man.

Not even like this.

“Come back to me. Right now.”

The gold wavers.

“Those children know, Knox.” My voice is steady and firm, and it’s costing me everything I have because inside I am shaking apart. “Wherever they are right now, they KNOW. They know it wasn’t you. They know the man who walked into their room that night wasn’t the man standing in front of me. He was drugged and manipulated and used like a weapon by someone he trusted, and THAT is what happened. Not you. Not your hands. Not your choice. You were a victim that night, too. Nathaniel had sixty–three victims, and you were the sixty–fourth.”

“Don’t.” Knox’s voice cracks through the growl. “Don’t make me a victim. I don’t get to be a victim. I KILLED them-”

“Because you were DRUGGED. Because the threshold was lowered. Because the test was rigged. Knox,

the mate bond with Celeste might have HELD if Nathaniel hadn’t poisoned it. You might never have

shifted. Those people might be alive right now, those children might be alive, and the reason they’re NOT

is hanging from your right hand, turning purple.” I press my forehead to his. “This is not your guilt to carry alone. It was NEVER yours to carry alone. And I am so angry right now, Knox, I am so FURIOUS at the man behind me that I could let you kill him and sleep soundly tonight. But I won’t. Because you are not a murderer. You are the man I love, and you were used wrongly, and the person who pulled the trigger is choking in your grip, and if he dies, the guilt stays YOURS forever. It never transfers. It never lands where it belongs. He dies, and you carry sixty–three people alone for the rest of your life with no one to hold accountable except yourself.”

The gold shifts, lightly, with a glimpse of blue bleeding through.

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