TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 390

CHAPTER 316: OUR ROULETTE

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CHAPTER 316: OUR ROULETTE

EMBER’S POV

The two of them look at each other.

And then, slowly, both of them smile, the same smile, and I understand I’ve done the one thing in this shop that could genuinely interest them, which is refuse to play the board the way they laid it. “Tricksters,” Penelope murmurs, almost fond. “She thinks we’re tricksters.”

“She’s not wrong,” the old man says.

“She’s not wrong at all.” Penelope spreads her ink–stained hands. “Very well, girl, Your game. Your rules. We’re listening.”

I reach past them, to a shelf of clean empty cups, and take three more. Eight now, on the counter.

And I start to pour.

I split each brewed cup in half and I mix them, a little of the first into the fourth, the second into the fifth, the third into the eighth, then back the other way, around and around, until I’ve honestly lost track of which began as what, until all eight cups hold a measure of all three brews.

Identical.

Whatever poison sat whole in two of the three is now spread thin through every one of the eight,

watered down, but present.

“There.” My hands are steady, which feels like a small miracle. “Now they’re all poisoned. A little, anyway. Diluted across eight instead of sitting full in two. Which means none of them might be strong enough to stop a heart, or one of them still might, depending on how heavy your husband’s hand was. You’d know that. I wouldn’t.” I line them up neat. “We play roulette. You and me. We take

turns. We drink.”

“Ember.” Queenie’s voice is a thread.

“And here’s my rule.” I look at Penelope, only Penelope. I play it against you. Not him. Woman to woman. Because if anyone alive can tell which of these will stop a heart and which will only burn, it’s the one who’s spent years brewing them. So if anyone at this counter walks away from my stupid game, it’s you. You trust your own work that much, you’ve nothing to fear.” I tilt my head, and I give them their own little gesture back, the same degree, the same direction. “Unless you don’t.”

The silence stretches.

And then Penelope laughs, a real one, short and delighted and surprised out of her, and she drags

CHAPTER 316: OUR ROULETTE

+25 Points

her stool flush to the counter and sits properly, folding her hands like a woman who has just been offered front–row seats.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, I like her, Penny. I do.”

“I can see that.” There’s a thread under the old man’s voice now that I don’t have time to name, something tight under all the amusement. “Be careful, my heart.”

“I’m always careful.” Penelope lifts the first cup and holds it up to the dim light, considering it like wine. “To the dying friend, then.”

And we drink.

She goes first.

She tips the cup back without ceremony, swallows, sets it down, and looks at me with her pale eyes glittering, and nothing happens to her, nothing at all, and my pulse climbs.

“Bitter,” she says. “Your mixing’s clumsy. You’ve bruised the whole lot of it.” She nudges a cup toward me with one finger. “Your turn, girl. Don’t dawdle. The dawdlers are always the ones who

lose their nerve.”

I pick it up. Queenie makes a sound behind me, a small high involuntary thing, and I lift the cup and

I drink.

It’s foul.

A scorch goes down my throat, bitter and chemical, and for one horrible second my whole body braces for it to be the one, for my heart to stutter and stop, and it doesn’t, it just burns, and I set the cup down and breathe.

“There,” Penelope says. “Not so hard. One each. Four to go.” She lifts the next without hesitation and drinks it, and watches me over the rim the whole way down. “You’ve got steady hands, I’ll give

you It’s that. Most of them are spilling by now. You’ve done frightening things before, haven’t you.

all over you. The stillness.” She sets the cup down. “Your turn.”

“Don’t,” Queenie whispers. “Ember, please, you’ve made your point, they’ve seen you’re brave, please, that’s enough-

“It is not nearly enough,” Penelope says, not even looking at her. “Drink, girl.”

I drink.

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