Babysitting The Amnesiac Lycan King

CHAPTER 117

Silence.

Fucking silence.

The kind that doesn't ring in your ears, no-that'd be merciful. This is the kind that weighs, presses, crawls up your skin like mold and shame and exposure. The kind that tells you you've just made a god bleed in front of his kingdom.

And I didn't even touch him.

The projector flickers once and then it goes black. No final credits. No music. It's just that goddamn hum in the air and all those wolfish, hungry murmurs slithering up from the crowd.

"He's weak."

"She has control over him."

"Is this who we follow? Someone who dies with a woman?"

A tight breath lodges itself in my ribs and doesn't leave. I feel like I'm breathing

through a straw jammed down my throat. The murmurs grow teeth.

"He's a liability."

"The Lycan King is ruled by a woman's tears."

"Kill him now while he's soft."

I glance at Enoch before I try to step forward, maybe say something, scream, tackle the fucking screen, anything-

"That wasn't the video I-"

He doesn't even flinch.

Enoch stands on the dais as though he's carved out of glacier rock. No twitch, no eye shift, no indication that the walls are cracking behind his eyes. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.

He's gone cold. My mate has gone cold.

His jaw ticks once. His hands are fisted at his sides, but the rest of him is still. Unreadable. Unreachable. Untouchable.

Then he turns.

I wish he hadn't.

Because when he turns to face me-those forest-green eyes, eyes that used to soften when they found mine, even in the dark, even when he forgot my name- are nothing now. It's just... empty. As if I was a dream he forced himself to wake up from.

He doesn't yell. That would've been easier to take.

No. He speaks. One word.

"Twice."

It slices through me and I immediately try to step forward.

"Enoch, I-" My voice cracks like glass. "I swear, that wasn't-"

"Twice now," he says, stepping forward, "you've fed them pieces of me."

The ballroom stretches and sways, too bright, too sharp. I feel it closing in. All the eyes, all the whispers. None of them matter. Just him. Just his voice-quiet, but heavier than any scream.

"It wasn't intentional-"

"Does it matter?" he says, and this time it's not a question. It's a sentence. A fucking death sentence. "The result is the

same."

I try to move. My legs are moving-I think. But he's already stepping off the dais,

the sound of his steps trailing behind him like a funeral shroud.

He's leaving.

He's leaving as if I'm nothing but smoke he's done breathing in. "Enoch, wait-"

Successfully unlocked!

I shove past a group of nobles, ignoring the way the people sinks as though they are already composing the article in her head: 'Lycan King Brought to His Knees by Omega Whore.'

I follow him. Into the side corridor off the ballroom. I don't even know where I'm going, I just chase the scent of him-warm pine and ash and destruction.

1/5

CHAPTER 117

"Enoch!"

halfway through the door to a side chamber when I grab

fucking listen to me-" I try

he roughly yanks

angry. It's

"Is this what I deserve for not

No, it's not like that.

Hollow. The kind of sound that doesn't belong in his

"Again. In front of the very people waiting for

is not mine this time. I was going to show them the truth- about how much I love you and-and everything

says. "And now

the floor before

dress, but I don't care. My palms press into it as if I can make

he would hear my desperation. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, or who's behind that video, but I love you. Please, baby." I look

a long time. Too

are rimmed in red. His lips are pressed into a line so tight it's white. He looks like he's two seconds

"Not anymore."

sound that leaves

it rip from my chest, raw and

And leaves.

pause. No backward

on cold marble, a ballroom full of jackals, and the

I just lost him.

And this time?

might not come

***

heels click too loud against the marble floor as I walk, or stumble-fuck if I know anymore. My breath is hitching, shaky, uneven. I press my fingers against the side of my neck as if that's gonna keep the pain

left. He fucking

like I was a smear under his boot. Like none of it meant shit. The Maldives. The cave. Every whispered word when

Or maybe someone was.

what Brooke told me.

my chest burns

struck a match. iSo this is

this late. It's quiet, abandoned, with nothing but long windows and statues too ancient to feel real. The silence presses down as

a

I don't get

a rustle. A shift of shadow

My whole body jerks.

"What the-?"

Then it happens.

CHAPTER 117

slicing zing-steel against air-and the flash of

from the shadows towards me. Holy

even scream. I fucking move. Instinct, panic, training from every

kingdom.

slices across

Wet. "Ah!"

blooming beneath my

back, one hand clutching the gash, the other

groin, I don't care. They grunt, stagger, and

knees hit the

meet my

of my dress, and all

my own ragged breathing. And the

into my nose.

video. The ballroom.

all fucking know Enoch's not

that video said, they know I'm the way to get to

wound the King.

hand to my side, clenching my teeth. "Enoch..." I

tastes like iron and shame and

anything-if he feels it like I

He has to.

the hall, each step

blurs. My palm slips off

room-our room-spins into

face-first, dress sticking to my

as I stare up the ceiling.

A hollow, cracked sound.

held his

me as if I was the only fucking thing

holds nothing

trembles that won't stop, no matter how tightly

blankets. I wait.

for the door to slam open. For his voice to snarl my name, worried about

Maybe help me bandage it while

hours and hours and hours ticked and