TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 96

CHAPTER 65: BLOOD ON THE FLOOR

EMBER’S POV

The medical team arrives in under four minutes. Three of them in crisp uniforms carrying equipment that

looks too advanced for a resort.

The lead one, a woman with silver threading through dark hair, drops beside Rayana without bothering

with introductions.

“Dr. Patel. I need light here. Someone get pressure on this wound while I assess the damage.” She’s

already cutting away the blood–soaked fabric of Rayana’s dress, revealing two deep gashes in her lower

abdomen. “How long has she been bleeding?”

“Don’t know.” Knox steps back to give them space but his hands are still covered in red. “We found her like

this. Maybe five minutes ago.”

Dr. Patel works quickly, her fingers probing the wounds with clinical precision.

“Stab wounds, both to the lower abdomen. Deep but they missed the major organs. She’s lucky or her attacker had terrible aim.” She glances up at one of her assistants. “Get an IV started. I need saline and

antibiotics. We’ll stitch her here and monitor for the next twenty–four hours.”

“Can she be moved?” Knox asks.

“Not immediately. Any jostling could make the bleeding worse.” Dr. Patel is already threading a needle. ” She stays put until I’m confident the wounds are stable.”

I watch from the doorway as they work, my body still thrumming with champagne and the memory of

Knox’s hands on me less than an hour ago.

Now those same hands are covered in his ex–girlfriend’s blood and I’m standing here feeling jealous and

guilty and scared all at once.

The phone in my clutch vibrates. Another text from the unknown number. I don’t look at it.

Knox crosses to where I’m standing, his shirt ruined and his expression carved from stone.

But he pauses, glancing back at Rayana on the floor where Dr. Patel is working.

“The door was locked,” he says quietly, almost to himself. “I always lock it.”

A frown tugs at my face as my eyes drift back to Rayana. He’s right. The door was locked. Knox is religious

about security. So how did a bleeding woman end up inside our penthouse?

Knox moves back toward Rayana, crouching just outside Dr. Patel’s workspace.

“Rayana. The penthouse door. How did you get in?”

Her eyes flutter, glazed with pain.

CHAC TRAS POOD ON THE FLOOR

“I was open.” she manages. “Already open. I just needed… somewhere safe…”

+25 Pents

“Knox’s jaw tightens. A slight narrow to his eyes, and I can practically see the gears turning, the suspicion

taking root.

“Something doesn’t add up, he mutters. He glances at me, and we both know it. The door should NOT

have been open.

But Dr. Patel cuts in before either of us can push further.

“I need space to work. Questions later.”

Knox stands, his expression dark. He crosses back to me.

“Someone was in this penthouse before her,” he says, voice low. “I need to talk to Nathaniel. Security

sweep, camera footage, the whole protocol.”

“Of course.”

“Stay with her.” It’s not a question. “Until I get back. She shouldn’t be alone.”

The request lands wrong in my chest.

He wants me to babysit his dying ex–girlfriend while he handles the actual crisis. But Rayana is genuinely hurt and I’m not cruel enough to leave a bleeding woman alone just because she used to fuck my

boyfriend.

“Okay,” I hear myself say.

Knox kisses my forehead. The gesture is automatic and somehow that makes it worse. Then he’s gone, already pulling out his phone as he strides toward his office.

Dr. Patel and her team work for another twenty minutes. Stitches and bandages and monitoring

equipment that beeps steadily in the quiet.

When they’re finally done, Rayana looks smaller somehow. Paler. More fragile than I’ve ever seen her.

“She’ll need to stay in bed for at least forty–eight hours,” Dr. Patel tells me as she strips off bloody gloves.” The wounds are clean but deep. Any movement could reopen them. I’ll check on her every few hours.”

“Thank you.”

The medical team files out, taking their equipment but leaving the monitoring setup behind. The door

closes and suddenly it’s just me and Rayana in a room that smells like antiseptic and blood.

Her eyes are closed. I think she might actually be asleep until she speaks.

“You can stop hovering by the door. I’m not going to bleed out in the next five minutes.”

So much for unconscious.

I move closer but don’t sit. “How are you feeling?”

MARTTELS

NO ON THE FLOOR

+25 Pointa

“Like umeune stabbed me twice and I crawled halfway across the hallway to get help.” She opens her eyes, and even drugged and pale she manages to look cutting. “How do you think I’m feeling?”

“Dr. Patel said you were lucky. The wounds missed everything vital.”

“Lucky.” She laughs and immediately winces. “Yes, I’m just overflowing with good fortune lately.”

The sarcasm is so thick I could choke on it. This is a different Rayana than I’m used to. Theatrical and sharp even when she’s genuinely suffering.

I study her in the low light. The bandages stark white against her skin. The IV drip running into her arm. The blood that’s dried on her neck and collarbone where they didn’t bother clearing it yet.

And then I notice something that makes my stomach tighten.

The blood on what’s left of her dress isn’t uniformly wet. The parts near the wounds are darker, crusted.

Some of it has already dried completely.

Dr. Patel said the wounds were deep. She said Rayana was lucky they missed vital organs. But she didn’t comment on timing because Knox said we’d only found her five minutes before the team arrived.

Except that’s not quite true, is it?

“The blood on your dress is partially dried,” I say quietly. “Those wounds are hours old, not minutes. You weren’t just attacked twenty minutes ago. You’ve been sitting on this.”

The room goes very still except for the steady beep of the monitoring equipment.

Rayana’s eyes are open now, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read.

For a long moment she doesn’t say anything. Then, slowly, she starts to laugh. It’s soft and bitter and ends

with her wincing from the pain it causes.

“You’re smarter than you look.”

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