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!"

a side chamber when I

listen to me-" I try

turns before he roughly yanks his arm free. And his

It's

this revenge?" he asks, his voice flat but wild beneath. "Is this

comes out at first. Then-"No. No, it's not like that.

off when he laughs. Hollow. The kind of sound that doesn't belong in his

fool," he says, gesturing toward the ballroom. "Again. In front of the very people waiting for me

I was going to show them the truth- about how much I love you and-and everything

let you in," he says. "And now

floor

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

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

a long time.

eyes 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 me isn't

my chest, raw and

And leaves.

pause. No backward glance.

marble, a ballroom

just lost

And this time?

not

***

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

He

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

Or maybe someone was.

what Brooke told me.

my chest burns like someone

a match. iSo this is what she meant.

this late. It's quiet, abandoned, with nothing but long windows and statues too

need a fucking

don't

shift

My whole body jerks.

"What the-?"

Then it happens.

CHAPTER 117

sharp, slicing zing-steel against air-and the flash of silver

lunges from the shadows towards

move. Instinct,

to defend myself in this goddamn kingdom. My arm comes up, but

slices across

Wet. "Ah!"

my ribs. It's not a nick-it's deep,

gasp, stumbling back, one hand

My heel lands hard-somewhere near their gut or groin, I don't care.

hit the

tiles meet

of my

ragged breathing. And the faint,

into my nose.

The ballroom.

all fucking know Enoch's not

they know I'm the way to

wound the King.

hand to my side, clenching my teeth.

word tastes like iron and shame

means anything-if he feels

He has to.

the hall, each step

blurs. My palm slips off the wall, leaving a

room-spins into

bed, face-first, dress sticking to my skin. The

too soft. I land on it as I stare up the ceiling. Before I knew it,

A hollow, cracked sound.

bed held his

kissed me as if

it holds nothing but

won't stop, no matter how tightly

blankets. I wait.

for the door to slam open. For his

Maybe help me bandage

and hours and hours ticked