TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 457

CHAPTER 380 MOTHER

CHAPTER 380: MOTHER

EMBER’S POV

The VIP court is quieter, richer, sealed behind another set of black doors- a private room of luxury low gold light, a single low table, chairs that cost more than I made in a year of my old life.

Cassian settles me in with a drink I have no intention of touching, murmurs that the mistress will atten me shortly, and withdraws.

And then it’s just me, and Knox, and the pounding of my own pulse.

Knox steps in close behind my chair, mask still on, and his voice comes low and rough and just for me

“Whatever she is when that door opens – don’t let her get her hooks in you. You get your questions. Your get your answers. We get out. That’s all this is.”

“And if she won’t answer?”

“Then she answers to me.” His hand brushes my shoulder, brief and possessive. “Sit. Be the heiress I’ve got your back – I’ve literally got your back, I’m standing behind it.”

Despite everything, I nearly laugh, and it steadies me, and I settle into the chair.

I cross one leg slowly over the other, and I arrange myself like a woman who owns this mountain and everything inside it.

Knox takes his position at my shoulder.

The door opens.

“My sincerest apologies for the delay,” comes the voice – that voice, warm and smooth and utterly performed, the voice that narrated my entire childhood in lies -“I’m told there’s a discretion matter and do so pride myself on tending to my most valued guests personally, so whatever the little trouble is, I’ve no doubt we can smooth it right-”

She looks up from the tablet in her hand,

And Devika sees me,

I watch it happen in real time, and it is glorious, and it is terrible

I watch her eyes track over the darkened hair and the makes and the stranger’s de casual, the hostess smile already fixed and gleaming-and then watch the lug

I watch them go from bared to sharp to anormous, watch the colour drain clean our on flawless makeup as recognition stars into her like a train coming off to

The tablet lowers, forgotten in a hand gone bing

wathes

debylibing, art grows quo f

CHAPTER 30 MOTHER

And for a moment, she simply stares at me like I’m a demon that’s wandered up off the street and into beautiful new life.

“Hello, Mother,” I say, and cross my other leg, and take a slow sip of the drink I’ve been ignoring. “You lo well. Somebody else’s money suits you.”

And she comes completely apart

“What-” She takes a step back, then a step forward, then seems not to know what to do with her own body, her hands, her face. “What are you doing here? What in the Goddess’s name are you-” Her voice climbs, shaking at the edges. “You’re supposed to be – you’re supposed to be under Volkov’s thumb, playing house, and instead you’re how did you find me?” Her eyes dart to the door, to the walls, to me, wild now, calculating and panicking in the same breath. “No. No, no. I told you. I told you to your face! never wanted to see you again – I made myself perfectly clear, I have never in my life been clearer about anything – and now you turn up here, in this place, dressed like-” She gestures at me, at the disguise, and something dawns behind her eyes, something that drains her paler still. “You lied your way in. You lied your way onto my floor. Do you have the faintest idea-do you have any conception-”

“Mother.” I keep my voice low and even, hands loose, everything about me calm, because I can see her spiralling and I need her off the ledge. “Breathe. Sit down. I’m not here for you.”

“You’re not-”

“I’m not here to be your daughter.” I hold her wild eyes, steady as I can make myself. “I don’t want a reunion. I don’t want an apology – I know I’m not getting one; we can skip that part, we both know your script. I’m not going to make a scene. I’m not going to cry on you or drag up one single thing about my childhood. I have questions. That’s all. A few questions, you answer them, and I walk out of here, and you never lay eyes on me again – exactly the way you always wanted it.” I spread my hands, slow unthreatening. “Ten minutes. That’s the whole ask. Just talk to me.”

But she’s already shaking her head, faster and faster, and the fear in her face is curdling into something uglier, something cornered and mean.

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