TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 435

My Vampire Professor

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CHAPTER 360 MAP ORIE AGAIN

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CHAPTER 360: MARJORIE AGAIN

EMBER’S POV

And there it is. The thing under all of it.

Because Nathaniel isn’t just his beta.

They’ve fought every fight together, been there for each other through every chapter, and now, he

would be damning all that.

He would be losing his brother.

I pull him in. I wrap my arms around him tight and press my face into his chest and hold on, and I feel him fold around me, his chin dropping to the top of my head, his arms banding tight like I’m the

only solid thing in the room.

“It hurts because you love him,” I say into his chest. “That’s the whole answer, Knox. It’s not a sign

you made the wrong choice. It’s a sign you made the right one, and it cost you something real, and

it’s supposed to.” I tighten my hold. “The right thing isn’t the thing that feels good. Sometimes the

right thing is the thing that guts you, and you do it anyway, because you’re the kind of man who

does the hard right thing instead of the easy wrong one. That’s why you’re a good king. That’s why

you’re a good man.” I pull back just enough to look up at him. “It’s allowed to hurt. You’re allowed

to grieve him even while you send him away. Both things are true. You can do justice and still love

your brother and still cry about it. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human, which is the one thing your whole life taught you a king isn’t allowed to be.”

He stares down at me, wet–eyed, and something in his face just – breaks open, softly.

“I hope this is a good thing,” he says, small and childlike, so unlike him it aches. “I’ve turned it over a

hundred ways, and I keep landing on the same answer, and I hope it’s the right one, Ember. I hope

this is good.”

“It’s good,” I say softly. “It’s just also hard. Those aren’t opposites.”

And he pulls me back in and holds me for a long time in the doorway, the great and terrible Lycan

King grieving a brother he hasn’t lost yet, and I hold him through it, and I think – not for the first

–

time that the strongest thing about this man is that he lets me see the parts of him no one else

is allowed to know exist.

Knox does go out that night.

He leaves with Nathaniel just after dark, the two of them off to the comms setup and the northern

business and whatever else fills a king’s night, and the estate goes quiet around me, and I’m left

15

OOG

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CHAPTER 36T MARJORIE AGAIN

alone with the thing I’ve been not–thinking–about all day.

+25 Prince

The casino. Friday. Walking into the most dangerous room on the continent as a woman I’m not, to

get a truth my mother has spent my whole life burying.

And I’m scared.

Sapphire had said that my origins lie in the east, and they’d end my life if they ever found me. Was Devika, by any chance, protecting me by keeping me hidden? Had she been doing the right thing?

What if I don’t like what I hear? What if I’m unwanted by my biological father? What if this chapter

is better off untold?

Sapphire is restless inside me.

I sit in our room, and I feel the fear building, the old familiar dread, and I know from experience that the only thing that ever quiets it is doing something with my hands, something that makes me feel

less helpless.

Unfortunately, Hale’s voice is still in my head. My mind goes back to the blood from her eyes, to the moment Sapphire did not respond to my call. Had I imagined that? Had I not been strong enough?

Was Knox right? Was it a concussion?

Nonetheless, the shame of losing four times still sits sour in my chest, and I think: I’ll practice.

I’ll go down to the training room, and I’ll drill the things Knox taught me until my body stops feeling

like a thing that fails me.

So I go.

The house at this hour is dim and hushed, most of the staff gone to their quarters, and I pad down through the quiet halls toward the sub–level stairs, and I’m nearly there, nearly to the training room,

when I see her.

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