TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 468

CHAPTER 391: THE CAELORA ROYALS

EMBER’S POV

I reach deep into my mind, past Knox, past Gale, past a great many memories, and I find something that brings a familiar ache back to my chest. I force my voice to remain steady when I speak.

“I wager a grey afternoon with clouds gathered, and rain on the hot pavement. I was ten years old in a blue dress. The first time I’d ever worn a dress that pretty.”

The scale glows bright, but does not move yet.

Across the table, my mother watches it carefully, and I can see her doing the math she’s done her whole life, weighing what my truth is worth against what it costs her to bury it.

Her chin comes up.

She’s going to block me.

“I wager my first designer dress,” my mother says, her voice hard and defensive. “The exact moment I put it on in the dressing room, and felt more alive than I had in years.”

I almost smile to myself.

She took the bait.

I had disguised my own wager to sound like a simple, innocent memory of waiting on the porch in a pretty dress.

But the house must know the truth.

It was my tenth birthday. In the years before Maurice entirely surrendered to the bottle, I used to wait on the porch for him in my best clothes, waiting for him to take me for ice cream sundaes.

But on that dreadful birthday, I waited for hours in the pouring rain. I stood out there shivering, gripping an umbrella so he wouldn’t get wet when he finally walked up the path.

But that was the first of many birthdays he never showed up for. \

Neither of them did.

It was the day I realised I was entirely, completely unloved.

The silver scale comes to life, the light buzzing as the two pans sway, tasting the gravity of our offerings.

With the grind of metal, rny side of the scale soars. Devika’s pan sinks.

I win.

But a deep frown instantly cuts across my face, my eyes locking onto the silver pans.

I won, but only by mere inches.

A chill crawls up my spine.

HARTER THE CAELORN BOY

+25 Points

How? How could her memory of trying on a piece of designer clothing almost rival the absolute, gutting abandonment of my worst childhood trauma?

What on earth did that dress actually mean to her?

But there is no time for answers.

Devika stares at the pan, and absolute panic breaks through her poker face.

“Wait! No–not that memory-”

The house doesn’t care.

Instantly, her eyes gloss over with a dead, milky white. Her head is thrown up as the scale blazes with a blinding light, ripping her memory out by the root.

Just as quickly, the light dies.

Devika slumps forward, gasping for air. Her eyes are wide, blinking rapidly in total disoriented confusion, frantically searching for a piece of herself she doesn’t even know is missing.

Her jaw grinds, and a word is forced out of her lips.

“Caelora.”

The temperature in the room drops.

Wait. I’ve heard that name before.

The familiarity takes form in my mind.

I

Back when I went into the trance in Celeste’s room, Sapphire had called me by that strange name.

Caelora.

Beside me, I feel Knox go completely, terrifyingly still.

I frown, looking between Knox’s rigid jaw and my mother’s furious eyes.

“What is Caelora?”

Devika lets out a vicious, mocking breath. She looks at me like I am something scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

“Goddess, did you learn nothing in all your years of schooling? Let me spell it out for your slow brain, little girl. Caelora is the royal bloodline. The heart of the Great East. The seat of the Alpha Queens. It is the single most powerful treasure the East has. The Caelorian bloodline.”

My uncle stands up, blood draining from his face until the scars stand out stark and white.

“Caelorą,” Silas breathes. His palms come down flat on the black wood, leaning his chest over the table. “I knew you were stupid enough to cross the eastern border, Devika, but I never once thought you were suicidal. Are you insane? How the fuck do you make enemies of the Caeloran royals? No one without true eastern blood is allowed to set a single foot inside those walls! How the hell was I supposed to find you

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