TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 471

< CHAPTER 39EORD RHOVAN OF CAELORA

CHAPTER 394: LORD RHOVAN OF CAELORA

EMBER’S POV

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And her whole face transforms, and this is a thing I have never once seen on my mother in twenty–six

years.

Before my eyes, Devika’s gaze sparks and dilates.

The arrogant lines of her face melt away completely, leaving her looking startlingly helpless and almost shy. It is the most terrifying thing I have ever seen her do.

Pure horror grips me as the truth finally dawns on me.

My mother was in love.

“Oh, he was the most beautiful thing I ever laid eyes on,” she says, smiling. “Black hair down to his shoulders. A smile like a charming devil. Gold on every single finger, and he put it on me, Ember. He draped me in things I’d only ever watched other women wear on TV. He looked at a rogue girl carrying drinks in a mountain and saw something worth claiming.” Her eyes shine, wet and far away. “I was eighteen. He took me to his bed on the Night of the Amber Eye, and I have never, before or since, felt so alive. In the morning he kissed me goodbye and rode out with the caravan, and once again, I stood in the cold watching the man of my dreams get smaller, and I thought the soul–deep yearning would kill me where I stood.”

“Who was he?” My voice has gone paper–thin.

She looks at me, and something crosses her face that’s the nearest thing to tenderness she has ever once pointed in my direction.

And it is unbearable, because I already know that whatever she says next is going to tear the floor out from under my whole life.

“His name was Rhovan,” she murmurs, the name slipping past her lips with that terrible, dreamy softness.” Lord Rhovan of Caelora.”

Lord?

Beside me, Knox catches it in the exact same half–second.

“Lord?” Knox asks sharply, his eyes narrowing. “Not a king? Not an Alpha? What was he, an Alpha king’s son?”

Devika actually laughs.

“There are no kings in the East, Alpha. No Alphas at all. The East is a matriarchy, and it always has been. The women rule. The Alpha Queens, the Lunas, the matriarchs of the old blood–they hold a power colder, darker, and older than any crown you’ve ever worn. The men are just kept things. Beautiful, titled possessions. Powerful only through the women who own them. They’re called Lords out of courtesy, and every last one of them knows it in his bones.”

Devika’s eyes suddenly glaze over, the cold silver light of the scale pulling at her, physically forcing her to satisfy the rest of my wager.

CHAPTER 3RD RHOVAN OF CAELORA

To tell me exactly what she did next.

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“But I didn’t know any of that back then,” she continues, her voice smoothing out into a haunting rhythm. ” Back then, he was just a man dripping in Caeloran gold who took a rogue girl to his bed on the one night a year the goddess turns her eyes away.” Her jaw tightens. “And then, come morning, I did the stupidest thing a girl in my position could possibly do. I waited for him.”

I almost laugh at her naivety.

“You have to be joking,” I say flatly, my eyes narrowing at her. “You thought he was coming back? He was a royal lord passing through a rogue mountain. You really thought a one–night stand was enough to make him stay?”

“Well. I waited a whole year.” The bitterness begins to bite into her dreaminess, turning her tone toxic. “Do you know what that year was, Ember? It was our mother getting sick. It was Silas and me working ourselves to the bone to keep this Slaughterhouse breathing. I watched him fall more in love with the rot of this place every single day, while I hated it more with every hour I gave it. This dungeon. This hideous grave of a place.” She shoots Silas a glance. “But at the time, I was far more patient than I am now. Some might even say I was the perfect daughter. The perfect sister. I could stand anything they threw my way, because I had one thing keeping me sane. A plan. A western colony of rogues was forming. Some outcasts were gathering past the border, and someone needed to go with my mother to build shelter for them. A new safe haven for rogues. It was going to be me. I was finally going to leave this mountain. I was finally going to see the world.”

Silas goes completely still.

He knows this part of the story.

“And then Mother’s health worsened,” Devika says, her lip curling. “And my dear brother decided the plans had changed. He insisted that he would go. He insisted that I must stay behind to take care of Mother and run this mountain. He insisted that he must be the one who left, after all the western colony of rogues was too wild for me to handle alone.” Her voice climbs, breaking on its edge. “He took the one door out of this place I had ever been offered, walked through it himself, and told me it was for my own good! That I was needed here! That this was my legacy!” She’s actually shaking now, the raw, ugly resentment spilling out You killed my dream, Silas. And I have never once forgiven you for it.”

“Devika,” he breathes. “I–I didn’t know…”

“And then came the night of the next Amber Eye.” She easily talks over him, and her eyes go glassy again. “ The East came back. The whole world rode into the mountain again, and I stood at the gates in my best dress. There came the colours again. The luxuries and gold. And I waited for him. I waited for Rhovan, because he was the absolute last thing I had left to hope for.” Her voice drops to a hollow whisper. “And he never came. I stood there half the night like a fool while the carriages emptied out, and he simply was not among them. Our night had meant nothing to him. I had meant nothing.” A brittle, terrible laugh leaves her lips. “So I had lost the colony. I had lost him. And I was going to lose the rest of my life to this pit, all in the exact same night. And I just could not take it anymore. I was done.”

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