TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 404

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CHAPTER 330: A SPARK IN YOUR EYES

EMBER’S POV

Catherine doesn’t so much as glance at him. She’s looking at me.

“When I met you,” she says, slower now, “you were a woman being taken apart by procedure. You stood in that chamber, and you told the truth, and they very nearly buried you alive for it. And by the end you had the look of someone who’d already given up on being saved.” Her voice gentles, and it’s worse than if she’d been cruel. “I know that look, Ember. I’ve seen it on more women than I could ever count. It’s the look of someone who stopped expecting good things a long, long time ago – because in her experience, every good thing was only ever the quiet part before the next bad one.”

I can’t speak. The bag is crushed flat against my chest.

“And now.” She spreads one hand, taking in the whole absurd scene – the bags, the ribbon, me. “Now I walk into this house, and there is an abomination at the front gate, and I was informed by a staff member that there are five hundred rubber ducks somewhere in this building-”

“In the master tub,” Queenie supplies helpfully from the doorway.

“-five hundred rubber ducks in the master tub, and a woman standing in the foyer who was laughing so hard when she came through her own front door that she walked directly past a member of the Council of Elders and didn’t see her.” Catherine shakes her head, and her pale eyes have gone bright again, but not with laughter this time. “That is not the woman I saw in that chamber. That woman would not have dared. She didn’t believe she was permitted to take up that much room in the world. She certainly didn’t believe

she was allowed to be happy that loudly.”

She leans forward and takes my hand, her old fingers cool and dry, and I feel the tears coming up hot and fast and fight them with everything I’ve got, because I refuse to cry in front of a council elder over a

marble p***s and a spark in my eyes, I refuse –

“There’s a light in you now,” Catherine says quietly. “It wasn’t there before. I’d have remembered it. And I

have sat across from a great many frightened women in a great many terrible rooms, and I know precisely

what that light costs to earn, and precisely how rare it is, and precisely what it means that you found it in

this house, with this man, after everything that was done to you.” She squeezes my hand once. “So. No. I

wasn’t a fool. I was right. And I’m gladder than I can tell you that I was.”

And that’s the thing that finishes me.

The tears spill over, and I blink hard, look at the ceiling, and will them back.

And Catherine watches me lose the fight with something like tenderness, and Knox’s hand finds the small of my back, steadying, grounding, here, and I have to breathe through my mouth for a second just to stay in one piece.

“I’ve done this a long time,” Catherine says, sitting back, letting me collect myself. “Watched couples

<CHAPTER 330SPARK IN YOUR EYES

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paraded in front of me for a stamp of approval. Most of them are performances. Alliances in fancy dress. You develop an eye for the seams.” Her mouth curves, dry. “There are no seams here. A woman does not fill a man’s bathtub with five hundred rubber ducks to keep up appearances. She does it because she feels

safe enough to be ridiculous. Because somewhere along the line she stopped bracing and started playing. “She accepts her tea from Marjorie with a nod. “It’s the healthiest thing I’ve laid eyes on from that seat in twenty years. Two people who are genuinely, catastrophically happy, and a front gate that is going to send the High Council to an early grave.” She takes a sip, satisfied to her bones. “Keep the giant penis.”

“… Keep it?” I echo, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand, entirely sure I am hallucinating this

conversation.

“Right where it is. A house should have some absolute nonsense in it. The ones without any nonsense are the ones I worry about.” Her eyes crinkle, and then, over the rim of the cup, they change-go sharper, cooler, and I understand the warm part of the visit is closing its doors and something else is opening.” Now. While I have the King’s ear. And while I’m in a generous enough humor to have laughed at his gate instead of fining him for public indecency.” She sets the cup down with a small click. “There’s something the two of you should know.”

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