TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 375

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CHAPTER 301: CAN WE RUN AWAY?

EMBER’S POV

He takes my entire weight, sinking to the floor with me until we are tangled together on the thick blank right in the centre of that warm, golden pool of candlelight.

He pulls me across his thighs, shifting his massive frame until I am completely caged in his lap.

He is overwhelmingly large, a man built for violence, handling me like I am made of spun glass.

One of his heavy, warm hands slides under my hair, his long fingers cupping the sensitive nape of my n to tuck my head under his chin.

His other arm bands tight around my waist, pressing me flush against the solid wall of his chest.

He buries his face in the curve of my neck, inhaling deeply as if my scent were oxygen, holding me securely.

I grip his shirt, utterly enveloped by his blinding heat and the grounding, intoxicating scent of him.

His thumb traces slow, devastatingly gentle circles against my spine, anchoring me to the floor, to the

room, to him.

Under my ear, his heartbeat is a steady, enormous drum, and slowly, tucked inside the arms of the most dangerous man in the world, the shaking finally starts to ease.

“It’s not a messed-up way to feel,” he says finally, into my hair. “For someone who’s lived the life you’ve lived. It’s the sanest thing in the world. You learned it because it was true. Every time you let your guard down, something came. So you stopped letting your guard down.” His arms tighten. “But you’re allowed t put it down now. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, even if I’m doing it like an idiot with a hundred candles and a heart attack. You don’t have to brace here. I know it doesn’t feel like that yet. I know I haven’t made it feel like that; I’ve been-” He stops. His jaw works against the top of my head. “I’ve been so busy trying to keep the catastrophe away from you that I forgot to actually be with you. And that’s worse, isn’t it? That’s the thing that’s been making you feel sad.”

I go very still against his chest.

Because that’s it.

That’s the exact thing, named, the thing I didn’t even have words for, and hearing him say it out loud

cks something open in me all over again, but softer this time, a different kind of crack.

been gone,” I say, small. “Even when you’re here. You’ve been in that study, on those calls, hunting

kroach, and I get it, I do, I’m the one who told you he might be alive, this is my fault as much as-”

your fault.”

and I understand it, I understand why, but I just-” My voice wobbles. “I miss you. That’s the stupid,

الكلية حديثة

• 25 Prents

selfish truth of it. There’s a dying wornan upstairs, and a wolf in my chest who probably hates me and so

much weirdness, and the thing I cried about is that I miss my fiancé. Who’s right here. In the same house.

I’m pathetic.”

“You’re not pathetic.” He tips my chin up so I have to look at him, and his eyes are doing something soft and beautiful. “You’re lonely. In a strange house full of strange people, with the one person who’s supposed to be your home walking around with his head somewhere else. That makes perfect sense, baby. We fought, I allowed distance to grow between us, and I have been entirely too distracted. Closing that gap is

completely my job.”

His words burrow deeply into the tenderest part of my chest, easing the heavy tension I have held onto

since yesterday.

He floods that space with a golden warmth, burning bright enough to light up every room in this house.

I sniffle. “Can we just run away?”

“What?”

“I mean it.” And I half do. “Can’t we just – change our names and go somewhere no one’s ever heard of us? Somewhere with no councils and no cockroaches and no drama. You could be – I don’t know. A baker. You’d be a terrible baker. I’d love it. We’d have a tiny apartment and a normal life, and I’d never have

to brace for anything ever again.”

Knox laughs, low and warm, the rumble of it going right through me.

“I would be a catastrophic baker,” he agrees. “I’d burn the place down in a week. We’d be the couple the whole town gossips about, the giant terrifying man and his tiny feral wife and their perpetually-on-fire bakery.” He kisses the top of my head. “Tempting. Genuinely tempting. Give me a fake passport and a

reason, and I’d think about it harder than I should.”

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Then, quieter, he adds:

“But you’d hate it, in the end. You know that, right? You’d last about a month before you found some small weak thing that needed protecting and went to war for it. It’s who you are. You don’t get to run from it any more than I get to run from being what I am. We’d just be us, somewhere with worse bread.”

I laugh, despite everything.

“Worse bread.”

“Significantly worse bread”

We sit with that for a moment, the candles flickering, the music low, his arms warm around me, and it’s the first genuinely peaceful breath I’ve taken since we arrived.

And inaybe that’s why I say the next part, because I feel safe enough to, because the bracing has finally, for one moment, stopped.

“Can I ask you something? And you have to be honest.”

“Always”

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Really heard it. The shape of the words. The way they’re too sharp, too rehearsed, too cruel to be mine.

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