TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 287

CHAPTER 216: WHAT IS SAPPHIRE?

EMBER’S POV

“Sapphire told me to scream.” The words come out simpler than the memory deserves. “Rafael was on top of me. I couldn’t fight him. My wolf had been silent for days, and then suddenly she was THERE, louder than she’d ever been. She said trust me. She said scream. So I opened my mouth, and what came out wasn’t my voice. It was something older and bigger, and it came from a place in me I didn’t know existed. It hit everyone in the room, like some form of wave. Rafael flew off my body. The guards dropped. And then they just… turned. On each other. Like whatever I’d released had scrambled something fundamental in them. Their training, their loyalty, their ability to tell friend from enemy all of it was gone. They started firing at each other, fighting each other, and I ran.”

Nobody speaks for a moment. Nathaniel writes on the board: SAPPHIRE – COMMAND / OVERRIDE.

“That’s consistent with ancient texts about a specific type of wolf that hasn’t existed in generations,” he

says. “A wolf with the ability to command other wolves. To redirect instinct. To override bonds of loyalty

and training through sheer force of will channelled as sound.”

“Sapphire,” I say. “She’s done things I can’t explain since she properly woke up. But the scream wasn’t me. I was just the vessel she used.”

He circles SAPPHIRE on the board.

“These wolves were described as carrying a secondary consciousness far more powerful than normal wolf–human partnerships. They were like a force. Ancient, fully aware, operating on a level that modern wolves can’t access because the bloodline was hunted to near–extinction and chemically suppressed in the survivors by councils that feared them.”

Knox speaks from behind me, his voice still rough but steady.

“The suppressants. Ember mentioned her mother drugged her food for years, possibly to keep the wolf

dormant.”

Nathaniel nods. “Which makes sense if Devika knew what Ember carried and was terrified of it surfacing. You don’t chemically suppress a normal omega wolf. There’s no reason to. You suppress something you’re

afraid of.”

The room settles into a brief silence. Everyone processing. And I realise that if this is the room where secrets come to die, I’m still holding one.

The biggest one.

The one I’ve carried alone since the convoy, locked inside my chest, too afraid to pull, because I didn’t know what would bleed.

“There’s something else.” My voice comes out quieter than I intend. “Something I haven’t told anyone. Not even Knox.” I feel him tense behind me. “No one.”

2

“Ember,” Knox says carefully “What do you mean?”

“After the convoy, Sapphire showed me things. Visions.” I stare at the whiteboard because looking at Knox right now would break my nerve. “My mother drugging my food. My parents fighting. Maurice calling me that thing‘ and saying he didn’t want what my mother brought into the house. I saw a woman arrive with a bottle of drops and tell my mother that if I ever manifested fully, someone she called ‘the lady‘ would come. That they would come for their own. And come for my mother too.”

Nathaniel is writing.

“The lady. Did she give a name? A title? Anything identifiable?”

“No. Just ‘the lady. And she was scared. Genuinely, physically scared of whoever she meant.” I pause. “But that’s not the part I’ve been keeping.”

Knox’s arms tighten around my waist. He can feel my heartbeat picking up through the contact between

us, and his thumb presses harder against my hip, grounding me.

“Sapphire showed me one more thing. A vision. Something that hasn’t happened yet.” My throat tries to close, and I force it open because this room deserves the truth, and Knox deserves the truth, and I am done carrying this alone. “Snow and blood. A clearing in a forest. Rafael dead on the ground. And Knox standing over him.”

I feel Knox go still behind me. Completely still.

“His eyes were gold, and there was nothing behind them. No recognition or humanity. He seemed fully feral in a way I’ve never seen.” My voice is steady, and I don’t know where the steadiness is coming from, but I hold onto it with both hands. “And then he turned toward me. And he didn’t know me. He looked at me the way he’d look at a stranger. And he-”

I stop and breathe.

“He slashed me. Collarbone to hip in one motion. And Sapphire’s voice said: ‘This is what he becomes. This is how it ends if you don’t-” I swallow. “And then it cut off. She never finished the sentence.”

The silence that follows is different from the ones before.

“If you don’t WHAT?” Knox asks, and his voice is careful in a way that tells me he’s working very hard not to spiral about the image of himself slashing me open in a prophetic vision.

“I don’t know. She was cut off. Or I woke up. I never got the rest of the sentence.”

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