TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 405

CHAPTER 331: ALL BEHIND YOUR BACK

EMBER’S POV

Knox goes still. The King comes up behind his eyes.

“Catherine.”

“You didn’t hear it from me.” She folds her hands. “But you’ve a right to rt, and there are those on the

council who’d very much prefer you didn’t have it, which is exactly why I’m the one giving it to you.” Her

pale gaze locks onto his. “Elder James has been busy.”

And just like that, the warmth drains out of the room like water out of a cracked glass, and ! feel Knox

change beside me.

“Busy how?” he asks.

“Alphas.” Catherine’s voice has gone flat and precise. “They are moving. Quietly. From packs that have no

earthly business speaking to one another – the northern territories, the western coast, and some from a

great deal further afield than that. They’ve been coming and going for weeks, meeting in places that

appear on no official record, and every one of those meetings has James’s fingerprints somewhere close

by, though never quite on it. He’s careful. He’s always been careful, that man. It’s his one real talent.” Her

jaw tightens. “I don’t know what he’s building. That’s the plain truth, and it’s precisely why I’m here in your

foyer instead of raising it in chambers – because I have suspicion and not one shred of proof, and

suspicion without proof is exactly how a man like James destroys you and calls it procedure. But I’ve sat

on that council long enough to recognise the shape of a thing being assembled in the dark. And I do not

care for the shape of this one.”

The silence has seized all air now.

“He’s kept the crown out of it,” Catherine goes on. “Deliberately. Every last one of these movements has

been routed carefully around your office, Your Majesty, which tells me one of two things. Either he doesn’t want you to know – or he’s doing something he knows perfectly well you would stop the instant you found out.” A pause. “Possibly both. Possibly a great deal worse than either.” She holds Knox’s eyes. “I think he may be into something that crosses a line even the council can’t look away from. Something outright illegal. And I would like the crown to look into it before it becomes the sort of thing that can no longer be

looked into at all.”

Knox is very still.

“Why bring this to me? You have allies on that council. If they can’t even hold their own to the oaths they swore before the Goddess, what exactly are they good for?”

“Some days, I ask myself the exact same thing. The council is chained to the old ways. To them, a pristine bloodline will always matter more than actual honor or merit. But I will tell you this, Your Majesty-you

possess something not a single one of them does.”

CHAPTER 32ALL BEHIND YOUR BACK

+25 Point

Catherine says it simply. “You have a reason to look that isn’t political. James tried to end you both. He very nearly succeeded, and he did it through her-” a smal! nod at me “–and he’s still standing. Still smiling. Still arriving at scenes to play the concerned elder while his allies do the ugly work with their sleeves rolled up. Men like that don’t stop, Your Majesty. They gather. And a king with a personal stake will dig a great deal harder than a council bound by its own procedure.” She gathers her heavy coat and rises, slow but sure. “So. Consider it a gift. Alongside the finest laugh I’ve had in a decade. Look into James. And for the love of the Goddess, do it before he’s finished building whatever it is he’s building down there

in the dark.”

Knox stands with her. “I’ll walk you out.”

“You’ll walk me out past that gate,” Catherine says, and the sharpness cracks clean back into delight, just like that, quicksilver, “and I intend to enjoy every step of it. I want one more good look before I go. I may take a photograph for my records.”

“Your records,” I say weakly.

“My personal ones.” She pauses at the door and turns back to me one last time, and the softness returns to her weathered face, and it lands somewhere deep. “Be happy, Ember Aragon. Loudly. For as long as you’re able, and to hell with anyone who tells you to keep it down. Take up all the room in the world.” Her eyes crinkle. “And keep the sundial. I meant it. It’s high taste.”

And then she’s gone, sailing out on Knox’s arm, and I’m left standing in the entrance hall with a crushed shopping bag in my lap and tears drying on my face and a laugh still trying to climb up out of my chest, and Queenie sinks down into the chair beside me.

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