TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 57

CHAPTER 35: THE COUNCIL CALLS

EMBER’S POV

The Council of Elders exists because power unchecked becomes tyranny.

I’ve learned this in the past eighteen hours, piecing together information from Queenie’s whispered explanations and Knox’s terse answers.

Centuries ago, a Lycan King went mad with power and nearly drove our species to extinction.

The survivors built institutional restraints. Rules. A council that could file formal complaints, hold hearings, demand accountability from even the man who commands us all.

Knox is the undisputed authority in the kingdom. His word is law in most matters. But even he answers the council when formal complaints are filed.

And Gale has filed a formal complaint.

I sit in Simone’s chair, watching my reflection fracture in the triple mirror as she approaches my hair wit heated iron. Steam rises in delicate clouds.

The fear lives in my chest like a cold stone that hasn’t shifted since Knox told me about the council meeting.

Since he explained what Gale’s pack is claiming: that Knox abused his power by filing a restraining order against a lower-ranking Alpha over a personal dispute

That our relationship violates pack law because I’m still technically married. That the Lycan King is

compromised, acting out of lust rather than judgment.

If the council rules against Knox, if they determine our relationship violates some ancient statute I don’t

fully understand, the consequences ripple outward in ugly directions.

Sanctions. Loss of standing. His authority undermined by the very institution designed to support it.

And me? I’ll be sent back.

Back to Shadowmoon Pack Back to Gale’s cold hands and colder eyes.

Back to that house that smells like expensive furniture and despair, where the walls know exactly how loud I can scream before the neighbors hear

The thought makes my throat close I can’t breathe through it, not really. I can only sit very still and force myself to stop imagining

“You’re clenching your jaw again,” Simone says, tugging a section of hair through the iron with decisive precision. “You’ll get wrinkles. Then you’ll look less like a queen and more like you’ve been sucking lemons your whole life.”

I deliberately relax my face. Simone watches me in the mirror with the intensity of someone inspecting a

CHAPTER 35 THE COUNCIL CALLS

painting before delivery to a museum

My phone buzzes on the vanity.

I should ignore it.

I’m already anxious, already drawn tight from the council news and the unresolved tension still hun under my skin from this morning.

But I reach for it anyway because I’m too fucking nosey anyway.

The gossip blog notification loads slowly. Then the photos fill my screen, and all the air leaves my lu

Knox and Rayana.

Knox and Rayana. At a café somewhere in the resort. Heads close together. Her hand on his arm lik belongs there.

He’s leaning toward her, his body angled in a way I recognize because he angles toward me the same when we’re alone.

Except we’re never really alone, are we? And maybe that lean, that closeness, that intensity-maybe it never special. Maybe it’s just what he does.

The headline screams: LYCAN KING’S REUNION WITH MODEL EX: Is the New Girlfriend Just a Placeholder?

I read the first comment before I can stop myself.

‘She’s a rebound. A distraction from his actual love. Poor omega doesn’t stand a chance.”

The phone trembles in my hands. I set it face-down on the vanity.

“Let me guess,” Simone says without looking up from her work. “The internet has opinions about your relationship and your worth as a person?”

I nod because I can’t manage words. Because if I open my mouth, something ugly will spill out that I can put back together.

The hurt is genuine. Sharp and humiliating and exactly the kind of wound that festers if you let it.

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