TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 366

CHAPTER 293 THE EMPTY ROOM

CHAPTER 293: THE EMPTY ROOM

EMBER’S POV

Once upon a time, I would have. I used to be the kind of girl who blindly trusted a kind voice and a helpfu offer, right up until the exact moment it put a knife in my back.

I look at Hale, and the pieces suddenly snap into place with cold clarity.

She doesn’t know. She said she sensed “something” on the lawn, but she didn’t see the fire. She doesn’t know about the gold, or the healing, or what exactly happened out there.

She’s not trying to be useful.

She’s fishing. She wants to put me in a quiet room, poke the bear, and see what kind of monster crawls

out.

“If it’s ju

Hale

al trick,” I say, my voice dead-level, “you can show it to me right here. By the fire.”

urns a fraction patronising.

ute stillness to find the bottom of your own well, Lady Ember. This room is an intersection. the King himself walking through-the air is too disturbed. That room upstairs is dead the world out. But suit yourself.”

ess excuse. It’s a trap, and I know it’s a trap, but it is also the absolute only lead I have to save

aking a choice, with my eyes wide open, to use a monster to get what I want.

e,” I say. “But we do it my way.”

ale tilts her head, intrigued.

And what is your way?”

“You show me the room, and you explain the trick from the hallway. You do not step inside.” I hold her bright, unblinking gaze, letting the ice bleed into my voice. “And if that door locks with me inside it, or if you linger in the hall to watch, you need to understand something. Knox doesn’t need to hear me scream. If I panic, he feels the spike in my heart rate through the bond. He is already looking for an excuse to tear you apart. And if he’s not, I’ll give him one.”

The faux-vulnerability vanishes. The flat, cold thing surfaces in her eyes, and then she smiles-wide, genuine, and terrifyingly pleased.

“Oh,” she breathes. “I really like you. I meant it when I said we’re alike. Maybe we didn’t go in such different directions after all.”

Her smile widens before I can tell her we are nothing alike.

“All right. Yes. I’ll keep to my side of the house. Cross my heart.” She makes a little childlike gesture over

CHAPTER 293 THE EMPTY ROOM

her chest. “Come on, then.”

I don’t just blindly follow her.

+25 Points

“You lead,” I tell her, stepping back to angle myself out of her immediate reach. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

The east wing is colder than the rest of the house, which is saying something.

The hall up here is darker, the doors all shut. I map the route in my head as we walk. Three lefts, one right. Bare hardwood floors. I’ll hear her footsteps if she tries to sneak back.

Hale walks the hall like she owns it, trailing her fingers along the wall, humming sweetly to herself.

She stops at a door near the end. There’s nothing remarkable about it. A door like any other.

But the air in front of it sits different, heavier, the way a room feels when it’s been closed a long time and doesn’t want to be opened.

The back of my neck prickles before she even touches the handle.

上

“Here we are,” she says, reaching for the knob.

I step back, entirely out of striking distance, pulling on a thin thread I desperately hope leads back to

Sapphire.

“Open it,” I command her. “And step away.”

The room beyond is dim and still and full of dust-soft furniture under sheets, a four-poster bed, a vanity with a clouded mirror, the shape of a life packed away and not quite let go of.

There’s a faint smell and a record player in the corner, an old one, the kind with a horn, and something about the whole space makes my skin want to crawl right off and walk home.

I don’t know whose room this is.

“It smells-” I start.

“Old,” Hale says smoothly. “Everything up here smells old. Now.” She moves to the centre of the room, brisk and businesslike, and I notice she doesn’t sit, doesn’t settle, stays standing near the door like a woman who has no intention of staying, “Sit. On the floor, in the middle, where I’m standing. Spine straight but not stiff – there’s a difference; you were stiff. Hands open on your knees, palms up. You’re not grabbing. You’re receiving. Say it back to me.”

“I’m receiving,” I say, lowering myself to the cold floor.

“Good girl.” She crouches in front of me, and her voice changes, drops into something low and even and almost a chant, the brightness draining out of it into something stranger. “Now close your eyes. And here’s you don’t empty your mind. Everyone tells you to empty your grandmother’s trick, the part nobody knows

mind, and it’s nonsense; you can’t empty a mind; it’s like telling water not to be wet. You don’t empty it. You give it one thing. One small thing to hold, and you hold it, and you hold it, until the room behind your

CHAPTER 293 THE EMPTY ROOM

her chest. “Come on, then.”

I don’t just blindly follow her.

“You lead,” I tell her, stepping back to angle myself out of her immediate reach. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

The east wing is colder than the rest of the house, which is saying something.

The hall up here is darker, the doors all shut. I map the route in my head as we walk. Three lefts, one right. Bare hardwood floors. I’ll hear her footsteps if she tries to sneak back.

Hale walks the hall like she owns it, trailing her fingers along the wall, humming sweetly to herself.

She stops at a door near the end. There’s nothing remarkable about it. A door like any other.

But the air in front of it sits different, heavier, the way a room feels when it’s been closed a long time and doesn’t want to be opened.

The back of my neck prickles before she even touches the handle.

“Here we are,” she says, reaching for the knob.

I step back, entirely out of striking distance, pulling on a thin thread I desperately hope leads back to

Sapphire.

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