TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 70

CHAPTER 43: FATED MATES AND FROZEN KINGS

EMBER’S POV

Nathaniel’s jaw tightens. “If the council rules in Gale’s favor, he has legal grounds to demand your return. Physically. The council can competit-they have enforcement mechanisms that even Knox would have trouble circumventing, especially if it’s a formal ruling. You’d be back in Shadowmoon Pack territory as Gale’s legal mate, and there might be no room for divorce.”

My hands start to shake.

Back to Gale. Back to that house that smells like expensive furniture and despair.

Back to watching him leave in the middle of the night to meet Logan, back to feeling myself shrink smaller with each passing day until there’s nothing left of me but a shell that knows how to smile on command.

“That’s not happening.” Knox’s voice is brutal ice. “Run through their evidence. All of it.”

Nathaniel does. He outlines the charges, the testimonies they’ve gathered, the “documentation of

instability” that Gale’s team has somehow manufactured.

Witness statements from pack members who barely knew me. Text messages taken out of context. A psychological evaluation I never consented to.

It’s masterful, really. The way they’ve made a rescue look like a kidnapping. Made protection look like

coercion.

Made me look like a hysterical omega who threw herself at a powerful alpha and is now being rewarded

for bad behavior.

“We can counter most of this,” Nathaniel says. “Knox’s legal team is already working on documentation of Gale’s abuse patterns, witness statements from familiar faces and others who observed concerning behavior. But it’s going to be a fight. And honestly? I’m not certain we win.”

The silence stretches, suffocating the air in the room.

And that’s when the idea hits me.

It arrives fully formed, terrifying in its clarity.

We could argue about impropriety. We could defend against the charges. We could probably build a case

strong enough to create reasonable doubt.

But reasonable doubt isn’t enough.

What I need is something unimpeachable. Something sacred. Something that pack law protects absolutely, without exception.

“We should claim we’re fated mates.”

The words leave my mouth before I can think better of them.

Netharvel stops mid-swipe on his tablet. His eyes cut to me with something that looks like alarm

Knox doesn’t move or react visibly to my words. But I watch has shoulders turn to stone, watch every muscle in his body lock to place like he’s been flash-frozen

If the council believes we’re true mates,” I press forward, “they’ll forgive everything. The timeline, the

impropriety, all of it. Fated mate bonds supersede every other law in pack statute. They’ll never rule to separate us. They can’t”

“No.”

Knox’s voice is flat A door slamming shut so hard the hinges rattle.

“Why not? It’s the only defense they can’t argue with-‘

“I said no

He still hasn’t turned around He’s standing at the window, staring out at the mountains, and I can see his

reflection in the glass

His jaw is clenched so tight it looks painful. His hands are fisted at his sides.

“Knox, please ” I stand, moving toward him “Just listen to me If we claim the bond-

“I know what claiming the bond means’ He turns then, and his eyes are that dangerous frozen blue, the

one that means he’s locked everything away behind walls so thick I’ll never breach them. “I know what it

costs. I know what it requires. And I’m telling you no

“Why?”

The question hangs between us.

I can see Nathaniel in my peripheral vision, very deliberately not looking at either of us, giving us what

privacy he can in a room that suddenly feels too small.

“Because I won’t lie about that.” Knox’s voice is raw in a way we never heard before. “I won’t stand in front

of a council and claim something that significant. I won’t use that bond as a weapon when it already-—”

He stops. Swallows. Looks away.

And I understand.

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