TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 365

CHAPTER 29THE WRONG FORM

CHAPTER 292: THE WRONG FORM

EMBER’S POV

I don’t trust the tea.

That is the first thing I want on record. A woman who shoots fragile things out of the air for sport, who looks at a dying animal and feels absolutely nothing, is not someone I am ever going to trust.

Hale presses a warm cup into my hands and steers me to a chair by the fire, clucking over the blood on my face like a woman who actually cares. I sit, and I hold the cup, and I watch her over the rim of it the way you watch a snake.

“You don’t have to drink it,” she says. “I can see you looking at it like it’ll bite you. It’s only chamomile and a few things my grandmother swore by. Smell it, if you don’t believe me.” She settles into the chair across from me, unbothered, tucking her feet up. “I’m not offended. People have always been suspicious of me. I’m used to it. It’s the face, I think. I’ve got a face that makes people feel watched.”

It is exactly the kind of disarming thing a dangerous person says. It is a flawless, calculated piece of manipulation designed to make me feel foolish, to push me into taking a sip just to prove I’m not

intimidated.

Fine, I think.

If I want to find out what game Hale is actually playing, have to let her think she’s winning.

I deliberately drop my shoulders, softening my posture to mimic a girl who has just been successfully reassured. I bring the cup to my lips and take a sip.

It’s warm, faintly bitter, and highly herbal. Nothing happens. No swimming head, no loosening. Just warmth going down into a body that’s been cold since the lawn.

“There,” she says. “Not poison. Just tea.”

“I didn’t think it was poison.”

C

“You did a little.” She smiles, and for once it doesn’t crawl; it just looks tired. “It’s all right. I’d think it too, in your shoes, especially after my whole speech about weakness out there. Plus, you’re in a new house. surrounded by strangers, with a man who looks at you like you’re his last meal on earth and a cousin who pinched your face at supper.” She winces. “I really am sorry about that. I told you, I poke. It’s a failing.”

I don’t answer. I just take another sip, playing the quiet, traumatised girl, waiting for her to make her real

move.

She tilts her head.

“You were doing something out there,” she says, her tone shifting into something softer, sharper “On the lawn. Before Knox came tearing across the grass like the house was on fire. Meditating, were you? Sitting in the cold with your eyes shut? I sensed something

(CHAPTER 292 THE WRONG FORM

frown. A sudden, heavy unease settles over the warm tea in my stomach.

*25 Poulte

Why is she constantly watching me? How much had she actually seen before Knox dragged me back? Did she see the gold magic? Did she see the flames?

I search her face for a threat, but I can’t tell a thing from the easy, relaxed expression she wears.

“Something like that,” I lie carefully. “Trying to. I’m not very good at it.”

“Mm.” She considers me. “Can I tell you something, and you won’t laugh?”

“I’m not really in a laughing mood.”

“No, you’re not, are you?” She leans forward, elbows on her knees, and her voice drops into something almost conspiratorial, almost kind. “I used to do it. Sitting quiet, trying to reach down into yourself for the still place. My grandmother taught me. She was – well, she was a difficult woman, my grandmother, she’d

come from out east, and she kept the old ways, and half the family thought she was mad. But she knew

things. About quieting the mind. About reaching the parts of yourself that don’t speak in words.” She

studies my face. “And I watched you out there, sweetheart, and I’ll be honest with you, because nobody

else in this house will – your form was all wrong.”

“My form?”

“No offence though. I couldn’t see you so clearly from the window, but I could tell a lot from your god-awful form. You were fighting it. Shoulders up around your ears, jaw locked, reaching with your whole body like you could grab the still place by force.” She shakes her head. “That’s not how you meditate. You don’t reach into the deep of your soul that way. You can’t take it. In fact, it’s not a thing you take. You have to make a quiet enough room for it to come to you. And you can’t do that in a cold open field with the whole world watching and a makeshift cemetery of dead birds. You need stillness. You need a still room.”

I just stare at her. I don’t know the first thing about meditating, or reaching deep into my soul, or whatever theory she is spinning.

I look for the trap. I look for the sneer, the trick, the game in hex eyes. But there is nothing in her expression giving away a lie. She is just sitting by the fire, effortlessly stating a fact.

And here is the thing I keep turning over afterwards, the thing I can’t quite forgive myself for: she’s right. That is exactly what went wrong. I grabbed. I flooded. I reached with my whole body and took by force, and the bird paid for it.

The most dangerous woman in this house has just, casually, by the fire, named the exact mistake I made in a way nobody else has been able to.

I don’t trust her. I want what she knows anyway. Both of those things are true at once, and I’m a grown woman holding both of them with open eyes.

“There’s a room,” she says, watching me decide. “Upstairs, east side. Quietest room in the whole house. sit in it sometimes when the house gets loud.” She rises, brushing down her skirts, and holds out a hand.

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