TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 360

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CHAPTER 287 RAYANA’S TIMER

CHAPTER 287: RAYANA’S TIMER

EMBER’S POV

“Eat something first-”

“I will. After.” I won’t, and she knows I won’t, and she lets me go anyway.

I find the medical wing by following the smell of antiseptic, and I get there just in time to catch worst possible thing, which is them rolling her in.

Rayana

On

ed fast and careful by two people in scrubs, an IV pole rattling beside her, a monitor already ticking out the small green proof that she’s still here.

air is spread against the pillow and her face is slack in a way I have never once see er wit and dramatics, gone.

small. Rayana has never in her

I’m moving before I think, re

y back, please.” A nurse, kind

te touching me. “Let us get

They wheel her through a s

sides.

The doctor come

“You can’t se

increase b

her no

small.

Jurney rail. “Rayana – can I just—”

outs herself between me and the gurney without

nover at the threshold, useless, my hands empty at my

to-”

Les his voice.

journey took a great deal out of her, and we’ve had to

–

nconscious resting, properly, for the first time in days. Waking we could do.”

which is almost worse. “Sit with her tomorrow. Today, let her rest.”

I don’t.

hing.” I make myself hold his eyes. “By some miracle. Is there any chance – any

hat she makes it past this week?”

m decide not to lie to me and I almost wish he would.

S, gently. “I’m sorr

r comfortable, and we’re buying what

ATRIYA O TIMER

time we can, but the disease is past anything we can turn back. She asked me not to soften it for her, and I don’t think she’d want it softened for you.” A pause. “Days. I’d be doing you a disservice t say more.”

The hallway tilts. I put my hand flat against the doorframe to keep myself level.

“Does she know,” I say. “How bad.”

“She’s known longer than any of us.” Something almost like respect crosses his tired face. “She made her peace with it before she ever boarded that plane. She told me and forgive me for repeating it – that she’d already had more than her share. That she got to be somebody’s friend at the end, properly, for the first time in her life, and that was worth more to her than a few extra weeks of being nobody’s.” He hesitates, like he’s deciding whether to give me the rest. He gives it to me. “She left instructions, in case you came asking. She said to tell you you’re not allowed to waste a single good day grieving her early. Her words. She was very firm about it. She made me say it back to her twice.”

And that’s the thing that takes my legs out from under me.

I press the heel of my hand against my mouth, and I hold the sound in, because if I let it out here!

won’t get it back.

“Come tomorrow,” the doctor says, softer. “When she can know you’re there.”

Then he’s gone through the doors, and they close, and I’m alone in a hallway.

But I made her a promise.

That’s the thing that won’t let me stand here and accept this.

I told her I would help her, I would find a way, I would not let her go- and even now, with my mind gone empty and something cold and hopeless rising up to fill it, I can’t take it back.

I refuse to. Because backing down now isn’t just losing her.

It’s breaking a promise to a dying woman, and worse than that, it’s hurting her twice over-

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