TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 401

HAPTER 32 WEYDE HAPPY

+25 Points

CHAPTER 327: WE ARE HAPPY

EMBER’S POV

Daxon’s gone before I finish the word, melting into the crowd after the grey coat, and then it’s just Reyes and the flower lying on the grey stone between us.

I crouch over it.

The impossible cold-blooming thing, white petals edged in pale pink, exactly the same as the one Rafael pressed into my hand a lifetime ago.

“Reyes.” I don’t take my eyes off it. “Bag this. Don’t touch it with your bare hands, tape it up properly, and get it to whoever runs forensics for Knox. I want every print on it that isn’t that man’s.” I straighten, finally

looking at him. “Fast as you can.”

And under the cold, under the fear sitting heavy in my chest, there’s one clear thread pulling at me, steady

and certain: home.

I want to be home. I want Knox. I want to walk through that door and put all of this in his hands, the rose and the scarred stranger and the message I think Rafael just sent me through a man in traffic, every piece of it, and watch him go still and furious and mine and not have to hold it alone for one second longer than

I have to.

I can’t get to him fast enough.

Reyes produces a bag from somewhere – these men have bags for everything, apparently, the way Knox has guards for everything – and he gloves up and lifts the rose into it and seals it, and just like that the most frightening thing that’s happened all day is a/small white flower in a plastic bag.

And I’m standing in a bridal district with my heart slamming.

“Ember!” Queenie catches up, breathless, her face creased with worry. “What was – why did you run off like that? What happened? Are you okay? You went white, I thought-”

I

And I look at her. My friend. Who begged me, an hour ago, for one day without hurting. Who has spent months bracing for her own catastrophes and just wanted a few stolen hours of fantasy.

Who would absolutely, instantly, drop her whole carefully-rebuilt brightness if I told her I think I just saw the man who tried to forcibly bond me, except his face was wrong, except it might have been nothing,

except I’m not sure I’m not losing my mind.

So I smile. I make it real, or real enough, and I tuck the cold thing down deep where I’ve gotten so good at putting things.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “I thought I saw someone I knew From the council, and I did not want him cornering me about Gale’s death, so I bolted. Turned out to be a stranger I scared the poor man half to death Froli

my eyes at myself, light, easy. “Total false alarm I’m an idiot”

(CHAPTER 327WE ARE HAPPY

+25 Points

Queenie searches my face for a second – she’s not stupid, Queenie, she’s never been stupid — and after a moment she lets out a breath, and the worry eases.

“Goddess, don’t do that, you took ten years off me, that’s twice today-”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You owe me. You owe me so much frivolity now.” She loops her arm back through mine, steering me firmly toward the bridal boutique, the brightness flooding back in, the fantasy resuming, the door closing once more over the things we’re both carrying. “Come on. We are going to go in there, and you are going to try on the most ridiculous, enormous, expensive dress in the entire shop, and i am going to cry, and we are going to take a photo that makes your terrifying fiancé lose his composure completely, and we are not going to think about awful council members or anything else for the rest of this beautiful day. Deal?”

I let her pull me toward the door.

“Deal,” I say.

And before we go in, I let my eyes sweep the street once, checking for anyone whose gaze lingers a second too long, wondering if my worst nightmare is standing right there, watching me, tracing my every step, woven into my afternoon without my knowing.

It sends my heart rate climbing.

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