TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 343

CHAPTER 271: ABOUT RAFAEL

EMBER’S POV

He swallows hard.

“I made her carry my secrets and clean my messes and defend my choices to people who questioned them, and not ONCE did she ever refuse, because she trusted me that completely, and I have damned thi

trust in ways I can’t undo.”

The janitor has stopped mopping again. I don’t blame him.

“There has to be something,” Nathaniel says, and the begging in his voice is so naked it makes my chest hurt despite everything this man has done. “One last chance at doing right by her. Before the council decides my fate, before Knox decides my fate, before everything I’ve built comes down around me – I

need to know I did ONE thing that was for her and only her. Not for Knox. Not for the mission. Not for

anything.” He looks at me and the look is the look of a drowning man. “What do I say to her, Ember? What words exist that could possibly be enough? Help me. Please. Anything.”

My heart breaks, rips in ways I can’t explain. Is it too late for them? Was it too late for Knox and I? How do

you heal a bond this damaged?

I sigh.

“I can’t tell you what to say, Nathaniel. I can’t write you a script or engineer your outcome because that’s

YOUR instinct, not mine, and it’s the instinct that got you here. I can’t tell you what Queenie will do or how

she’ll respond or whether the door is still open, because that’s her decision and she’s earned the right to make it without either of us putting a thumb on the scale.”

His face starts to crumble and I hold up my hand.

“But I can tell you this. Think back to the first moment the Goddess revealed the mate bond between you

The very first moment. Not the wedding, not the ceremony, not anything else that came after. The moment you FELT it. The moment your body knew before your brain caught up and everything inside you rean anged

itself around this one woman.”

He goes still. Completely still. And I can see it happening behind his eyes the memory surfacing the feeling returning, the echo of whatever he felt the first time his wolf recognised Queenie as his

“Think about how that felt,” I say “And then reach for her with that Reach for her with every blood and

breath and bone in your body Reach for her the way you’ve been reaching for Knox for twenty years. except this time, reach HARDER Reach with twice the energy twice the devotion, twice the everything. and for once in your life, show this woman that she matters more than anything else in your world. More than Knox, more than the mission, more than the gene more than the crown

I lean forward

“And if that’s true if she really does matter more than all of it

then your love will reveal it She’ll feel it

CHAPTER 27ABOUT RAFAEL

+25 Points

The bond will carry it. You won’t need the right words because the right feeling will say everything the words can’t.” Thold his gaze. “But Nathaniel, if you reach for her and the reach is half–hearted, if even in that moment some part of you is calculating the angle or managing the outcome, she will know. Queenie has spent years reading the difference between your performance and your truth, and she is DONE with the performance. So don’t you dare reach for that woman unless you mean it with every cell in your body. Because a half–reach will be the last thing she ever lets you do.”

The words seem to suck the breath out of him. He sits there, emptied, staring at the table, and I can see the gears turning but for once they’re not the strategic gears, not the Nathaniel machinery.

They’re the human ones. The rusty, neglected, almost–forgotten ones that live under the beta and the

engineer and the chess player.

“Thank you,” he says finally. “For being honest with me.”

“Thank you for asking me instead of engineering a solution behind everyone’s back. That’s growth,

Nathaniel. Hold onto it.”

The ghost of a smile appears. Faint, pained, barely surviving the journey to his mouth. But there.

I leave him in the cafeteria and walk back to Knox, who is leaning against the wall outside Maurice’s room

because of course he is, because this man’s natural resting state is leaning against walls and waiting for

1. me.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Nathaniel just went to his knees in the cafeteria and asked me to help save his marriage.”

Knox’s eyebrows climb. “He did WHAT?”

“On the linoleum! Would you believe it? He did that in front of a janitor. It was the most human I’ve ever

seen him.”

“That’s a low bar,”

“It is. But he cleared it.”

The tarmac is cold. Flat. Grey. Ahead of us, the plane waits.

The morning light is thin and pale in that specific Alaskan winter way, looking like the sun isn’t even fully committed to showing up

Knox is handling the final logistics – Maurice’s transfer arranged for when he’s stable enough to move, the crown seal on the house, the security detail assignments

Rayana is being wheeled toward the plane in a wheelchair that she is openly, vocally furious about

“I can WALK,” she’s telling the orderly pushing her “I have a terminal illness, not a broken leg. My legs are the one part of me that still functions with any degree of competence”

“Hospital protocol, ma’am.”

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