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

to me-" I try to

turns before he roughly yanks his arm

angry. It's worse. It's

"Is

No,

laughs. Hollow. The kind of sound that doesn't

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

time. I was going to show them the truth- about how much I love you and-and everything we went through. The Maldives, the fight, the cave, your

let you in," he says. "And

knees hit the floor before I

but I

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 up at him as tears began to slid out of my eyes. "Isn't that worth anything

stares. For a

His lips are pressed into a line so tight it's white. He looks

"Not anymore."

that leaves me isn't

it rip from my chest,

And leaves.

No backward

a ballroom

I just lost

And this time?

not

***

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 from

left. He fucking

smear under his boot. Like none of it

Or maybe someone was.

Brooke

my chest burns like someone

match. iSo this is what she

uses it this late. It's quiet, abandoned, with nothing but long windows and statues too ancient to feel

a

don't

rustle. A shift of

My whole body jerks.

"What the-?"

Then it happens.

CHAPTER 117

slicing zing-steel against air-and the flash of

from the shadows

fucking move. Instinct,

defend myself in this goddamn kingdom.

blade slices across

Wet. "Ah!"

blooming beneath my ribs. It's not

one hand clutching the gash, the other swinging

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

knees hit

meet

me, staining the satin of my dress, and all I can hear is

ragged breathing. And the faint, metallic scent of blood

into my nose.

The ballroom.

know now. They all fucking

know

wound the King.

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

iron

still means anything-if he feels it

He has to.

down the hall, each step worse than the last. The world

My palm slips off the wall, leaving a

room-our room-spins

face-first, dress sticking to my skin. The

it as I stare up

A hollow, cracked sound.

bed held

kissed me as if I was the only

it holds nothing but

stop, no matter how

blankets. I wait.

to slam open. For his

help me bandage it while

and hours and hours ticked and