TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 83

CHAPTER 55: WORTH SO MUCH MORE

KNOX’S POV

She pulls back to look at me, her wide brown eyes searching my face.

“Knox… you can’t destroy your position for me. You can’t sacrifice everything you’ve built-”

+25 Points

“Watch me.” I cup her face in my hands, force her to see the truth in my eyes. “You are worth more than the

crown. You are worth more than my position. You are worth more than every single person in that council

chamber combined, and if they can’t see that, they don’t deserve the loyalty I’ve given them.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “You don’t mean that.”

“I’ve never meant anything more in my entire life.”

I kiss her then–soft and desperate and full of everything I can’t say out loud.

The fear that tomorrow will destroy us. The rage that I couldn’t protect her better.

The devastating realization that my wolf years for this woman more than my next breath, and in the end,

that might not be enough to save her.

“Get some sleep,” I tell her when we finally break apart. “Tomorrow is going to be difficult. You need to

rest.”

She nods, too exhausted to argue. I help her to bed, watch her curl under the covers, wait until her

breathing evens out before I slip away.

Nathaniel meets me in my private office with the kind of expression that tells me everything I need to

know before he opens his mouth.

“You made the call?”

He nods grimly. “Seattle General Hospital. I searched for any records under Ember Aragon or Ember Crawford from December two years ago. Pregnancy–related injuries. Emergency admissions. Anything.”

“And?”

“Nothing.” The word falls like a stone. “No records exist.”

For a moment, I can’t process what he’s saying. James was gloating about the Traditionalists‘

predetermined decision, but he didn’t say anything about the records being destroyed.

He assumed the evidence would exist–he just said it wouldn’t matter because they’d already decided.

But if the records are gone…

“Someone erased them,” I say slowly, the horror of it settling into my bones. “Someone got to the hospital before we could verify. Someone destroyed the one piece of evidence that could have proven she was telling the truth.”

CHAPTER 56 WORTH SO MUCH MORE

“Who has that kind of access?” Nathaniel asks. That kind of reach?”

+25 Points

–“Logan has the resources. Devika has connections, maybe.” i stop, recalculating. “But James didn’t know. When he was gloating, he assumed the records would be there. He just said it wouldn’t matter because the Traditionalists had already decided.”

“So someone else destroyed them.”

“Someone who wanted to make absolutely certain we couldn’t win. Someone who isn’t relying on James’s

faction to deliver the verdict they want. Someone playing a longer game than we realized.”

The implications spiral outward.

“What do we do?” Nathaniel asks.

“We don’t tell her.” The words come out harder than I intend. “Not tonight.”

“Knox, she has a right to know-”

“Know what?” I turn to face him, and I can feel the desperation bleeding through my carefully maintained

control. “That I failed to protect her? That someone destroyed the evidence and I can’t do anything about

it? That tomorrow when the council calls that hospital, they’ll find nothing, and she’ll look like a liar, and

she’ll be sent back to the man who killed her baby?”

Nathaniel is silent.

“She broke today,” I continue, quieter now. “She stood in front of that council and told them the most painful thing she’s ever experienced, and it broke something in her. I saw it happen. I saw the moment she realized she was going to have to say those words out loud, and I saw what it cost her to do it anyway.”

I run my hand through my hair–a gesture of frustration that I rarely allow myself.

“If I tell her the records are gone, it will destroy whatever’s left of her hope. And I can’t do that to her. Not

tonight. Not after everything.”

“So what do we do?”

“We wait.” The word tastes like defeat. “Tomorrow the council calls the hospital, finds nothing, makes their

ruling. And I pray that somehow, some angle I haven’t considered, something I’ve missed, saves us.”

“And if nothing saves us?”

I don’t answer. I can’t.

Because if the ruling goes against us, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I know what I want to do–take Ember and run, disappear to somewhere the council can’t reach, start over

in a country that doesn’t recognize pack law or council authority.

But I’m the Lycan King. I have responsibilities. I have subjects who depend on my leadership.

I can’t abandon everything I’ve built for one woman who should barely matter this much.

CHAPTER 56 WORTH SO MUCH MORE

Or can I?

~“We’re staying up tonight,” I tell Nathaniel. “We’re going to keep digging until we finds something.”

**

+25 Peints >

I return to Ember just before dawn. She’s sleeping fitfully, her expression troubled, her fingers clutching the pillow like she’s holding onto something solid in a world that keeps trying to shake her loose.

I slip into bed beside her as carefully as I can, trying not to wake her.

But the moment I’m close enough to touch, she turns toward me instinctively, curling against my chest like

I’m the safest place she knows.

“Knox?” Her voice is sleep–rough and confused.

“I’m here.” I pull her closer, press my lips to her forehead. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

She settles against me, her breathing evening out within seconds.

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