TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 434

+25 Pointe

CHAPTER 359: THE GLASS OF WATER

EMBER’S POV

We follow, because we’re only human, and we catch it from the doorway of the sitting room –

Queenie on the sofa with her tablet, and Nathaniel standing in front of her, holding out a single glass of water like it’s a diamond ring, his whole body rigid with the terror of a man who has faced

down feral wolves and never once looked this scared.

“I brought you water,” he says.

Queenie looks up.

She looks at the glass. She looks at him. She looks at the glass again.

And the expression that moves across her face – I will treasure it forever – is the specific, profound incredulity of a woman who has just watched the man she married attempt to win back a decade of love with a beverage.

“…Water,” she says.

“You were – I noticed you didn’t have-” He falters. The machine has no subroutine for this. “It’s –

hydration is important. For – the planning.”

Queenie stands up. Slowly. She takes the glass out of his hand. She sets it down on the side table

with a small, precise click.

And then she scoffs – one sharp, disbelieving breath- and she walks out of the room without a

single word, leaving Nathaniel standing there with his hand still slightly extended, holding a glass

that is no longer there.

There’s a silence.

Then, from the hall, muffled, comes Queenie’s voice – she’s face–planted into something on her way past, apparently, because it comes out flat and despairing:

“A glass of water. He brought me a glass of water.”

Knox loses it.

He actually loses it, a low, helpless rumble of a laugh, leaning against the doorframe, and Nathaniel

turns to us with a frown, and Knox just shakes his head.

“He’s unhelpable,” Knox says, wiping his eyes. “Ember, he is genuinely beyond help. A glass of water. We are watching a man defuse bombs for a living fail to hand a woman a drink.”

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CHAPTER 359 THE GLASS OF WATER

“I told him to be present-”

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“You told him to be human, and his brain translated it to deliver fluids.” Knox is still laughing, and he

crosses to me and slides his arms around my waist from behind, tucking me back against his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck. “This is the man who engineered the most complex cover–up in pack history. And he can’t figure out that a glass of water is not a love language.”

“You’re one to talk,” I say, leaning back into him. “Your love language was a home invasion.”

“That was romantic.”

“It was a war crime, Knox. There are treaties about the thing you did to me.’

He laughs against my throat, warm, and his arms tighten, and for a moment we just stand there in the doorway, watching Nathaniel pick up the abandoned glass of water and stare down into it like it holds the answer to a question he cannot parse, the smartest man either of us knows completely undone by a woman and a cup.

–

“I might be out late tonight,” Knox murmurs against my ear. “With him. There’s – I need to walk him through the comms setup, and there’s other business, northern reports, James.” His thumb strokes

my hip. “Don’t wait up.”

“I never wait up. I sleep like something out of a painting, remember.”

“You do.” He presses another kiss below my ear, and then his voice changes, goes quieter, and I feel the shift in his body before he even speaks. “Ember. I have to tell you something. And I need

you to not – I need you to just let me say it.”

I turn in his arms so I can see his face.

“What is it?”

“I spoke to a facility today.”

I frown. “A facility?”

“A containment facility. Council–affiliated but not – not under James. Somewhere secure. Somewhere fair.” He’s not quite looking at me now, his eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder, and his jaw is tight in a way I’m learning to read. “It’s about Nathaniel. I’ve made the arrangements. When this is over–after the casino, after we’ve got what we need from him – he’s going to be taken into custody. For his crimes. He’ll answer for what he did. The massacre. The cover–up. The sixty–three.” His throat works. “He’ll be placed under arrest, and he’ll face judgment, properly, lawfully, and I won’t stop it. I’ve decided.”

I go still. “Knox. Are you sure?”

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CHAPTER 349 THE

WATER

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“No,” he says. “I’m not sure of anything.” And when he finally looks at me, there’s something in his

face I’ve never seen there before, something raw and confused and almost – small. “He

engineered the death of sixty–three people, Ember. Children. He drugged my coffee, and he covered up a massacre, and he lied to me for a decade. He has to answer for that. There’s no

version of me that’s a just king if I let the man I love most walk free because I love him.” His voice

cracks, just slightly. “So I’ve decided. He faces justice. It’s the right thing.”

“Then why do you look like that?”

And Knox – the Lycan King, the man who has never once let me see him uncertain looks at me with wet eyes and says, in a voice so quiet and so lost it breaks something in my chest,

“That’s the question, isn’t it? If it’s the right thing, why does it hurt so much? If I’ve made the right choice, why does it feel like I’m about to lose my brother?”

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