TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 368

CHAPTER 295: WEAK AND UNWORTHY

EMBER’S POV

“It’s not they’re not-”

“They are commoners,” she says, and the word drips. “That is precisely what they are. I am not a balm, Ember. I am not a kindness you dispense. I am the Silver Wolf. My power is an art, the highest there is, elegant and old and earned across a thousand generations, and it is not – it has never been-meant to be SPENT on prolonging the lives of the weak. The weak die. That is the function of weakness. You keep trying to make me an instrument of mercy, and I keep telling you I am not built for it, and you keep not LISTENING.” It’s Hale’s words.

It’s Hale’s words coming out of the beast in my own chest: the weak die, that is the function of weakness, and the horror of that runs through me cold and sick.

That the proud thing inside me, and the dangerous woman by the fire believe the exact same thing about the world, and I am alone in believing otherwise.

“Then you’re wrong,” I snap. “Both of you. You and her, you’re wrong. I’m not going to stop helping people because you think they’re beneath the art.”

Sapphire goes very still.

“Her,” she says softly. “You said ‘both of you.’ The one who taught you the path. She believes as I believe.” Something flickers in the silver, calculating. “How interesting. How very interesting, that the hand which led you down into the rot speaks with my

Then she shakes it off, contempt rising again. “It changes

nothing. Listen to me, child, because I will say it once. You want to save your dying friend. You cannot. Not than mend one failing body – but because YOU can’t.

because the power can’t – the power can do far

You are not strong enough to hold me. You proved it on the lawn. A dove nearly killed you. A DOVE. You think you’ll stand over your friend and meter out the exact measure and take her with you and leave your precious Knox to bury two women instead of one.”

“Then teach me-”

f a life and survive it? You will burn to ash

“I am NOT a tutor for the unworthy.” Her voice !

AM? You call me Sapphire. You call me downcks cold.

“Do you even understand what you carry? What

a serving-girl to mend your dying friends and your shot

birds, as though that is what I am for.” The silver of her flares, vast and terrible, and the rotten air seems to draw back from it. “I have a name older than this house. Older than the bloodline you stumbled into. In the east, where your blood comes from, they do not call me Sapphire. They call me the Carrion Maiden of the Long War. And they do not call me down to heal. They call me down to END things.”

“I didn’t know-”

“You didn’t know.” Contempt drips from it. “No. You didn’t. You have been handed the oldest and most elegant power left in this rotted world and you have used it to bleed yourself dry over a sparrow. You cannot

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CHAPTER 28

win a fight on your own you never have. You stand on nothing but a mate bond you cling to like a child to a railing, and you think yourself worthy to wield ME?” Her teeth bare. “You are not worthy to know my name. And now you do. Much good it will do you.”

“Then how do I learn?” The words tear out of me, and I don’t care how they sound. “Give me something How am I supposed to figure any of this out on my own? Where am I even from? You keep saying the east, the east, my blood – and then you tell me nothing. Who was the woman who always found Devika? Who is my father? How do I even find my mother? I am trying, I am trying my best, Sapphire, or Carrion Maiden, or whatever the hell you want to be called, to be worthy of you and you won’t help me. Help me. Help us.”

She laughs.

Hote

It’s a cruel, mocking sound, and it goes through the rotten air like cold water, and it makes me feel about six inches tall.

“I have helped you,” she says, “a time too many. I have healed you. I have pulled you out of more trouble than

you have the wit to count. I have lent you the strength to survive fights you should have died in. And now now, for the smallest stretch of road on your own two feet – you stand here and expect me to walk the extra mile and place every piece in your soft little hands.” Her silver eyes narrow. “I will give you one hint, Ember. One. You are weak. Your flesh is weak. Powerless in a fight. Powerless in danger. Powerless on its own, the moment there is no one bigger standing in front of you. You are an embarrassment to the blood you carry.”

“That’s not-”

“And if your precious family ever finds you?” She talks over me, smooth and pitiless. “Then let me tell you exactly how that goes. They will not embrace you. They will not weep over the lost daughter. They will take one look at what you’ve made of yourself – this cringing, sobbing, bleeding-hearted little child – and they will end you themselves, and feel they did the bloodline a mercy.”

The words land somewhere deep and hurtful.

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