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!"

the door to a

Just fucking listen to me-" I try to

yanks his arm

angry. It's worse. It's

beneath. "Is this what I deserve for not loving you right the first

nothing comes out at first. Then-"No. No,

laughs. Hollow. The kind of sound that

gesturing toward the ballroom. "Again. In front of the very people waiting for me

this time. I was going to show them the truth- about how much

says. "And now everyone sees

floor

fabric of my dress, but I don't care. My palms press into it as if

don't know what the fuck I'm doing, or who's behind that video, but I love you. Please, baby." I look up at him as tears

stares. For a long

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

"Not anymore."

sound that leaves

it rip from my chest, raw and

And leaves.

pause. No backward

knees on cold marble, a ballroom full of jackals,

I just lost

And this time?

not

***

walk, or stumble-fuck if I know anymore. My breath is hitching, shaky, uneven.

left. He

was a smear under his boot. Like none of it meant shit. The Maldives. The cave. Every

Or maybe someone was.

was what Brooke told me. It

but my chest burns like someone dumped

iSo this is what she

cut through the west wing-nobody uses it this late. It's quiet, abandoned, with nothing but long windows and statues too ancient to feel real. The silence presses down as a weight I didn't ask

a fucking second

I don't

a rustle. A shift of

My whole body jerks.

"What the-?"

Then it happens.

CHAPTER 117

slicing zing-steel against air-and the flash of silver catches the

the shadows towards me. Holy

don't even scream. I fucking move. Instinct,

to defend myself in this goddamn kingdom. My arm comes up, but not

slices across

Wet. "Ah!"

spills, warmth blooming beneath my ribs. It's not a nick-it's deep,

I gasp, stumbling back, one hand clutching the gash, the

don't care. They grunt, stagger, and then they're gone, slinking into the shadows

hit

meet

satin of my

breathing. And the faint,

into my nose.

video. The ballroom. His

now. They all fucking know

know I'm the way

wound the King.

my side, clenching my teeth.

word tastes like iron and

means anything-if he feels

He has to.

each step worse than

off

room-spins

face-first, dress sticking to

on it as I stare up the ceiling. Before I knew it, I'm

A hollow, cracked sound.

held

as if I was the

it holds nothing

trembles that won't stop, no matter how tightly I grip

blankets. I wait.

for the door to slam open. For his voice to snarl

now. Maybe help

hours and hours and hours