Babysitting The Amnesiac Lycan King

CHAPTER 127

I should've said no.

I should've pretended I didn't understand Italian or tripped and broken the fucking tray or set the whole goddamn wine rack on fire-anything but this.

But no. Teresa Savelli-wine girl for the evening-has her shit together. She wears her badge with a tight smile and a bigger lie.

She keeps her dyed auburn hair tucked behind her ears and her chin low. She doesn't speak unless spoken to. She smells like expensive florals, doused in enough perfume to suffocate a fucking alpha.

And she doesn't flinch when she's ordered to walk straight into a fucking landmine.

My fingers clench tighter around the silver tray, shaking just slightly from my arms and maybe a little more from my soul slowly attempting to evacuate my fucking body. Six crystal glasses.

A bottle of 2008 red that probably costs more than my liver. And a direct path to the table I should've sprinted away from the moment I saw him sitting there.

keep my eyes on the tray. Not the men. Not him.

If I see his face, I'll combust. If I hear his voice, I'll crumble. If I breathe him in, I'll vomit, faint, or worse-say his name a goddamn prayer and ruin everything.

Don't look up. Don't breathe him in. Don't react.

My disguise isn't perfect. It never was. But I pray to every fucking Moon Goddess and minor deity that Ser's knockoff Chanel perfume is still clinging to my skin and masking my scent.

Because if even one whiff of me slips out...

Game over.

There are five of them seated at the long mahogany table-two I recognize from the palace's security council, one I think is an ambassador, and Jacob... of course Jacob's here too.

All sharp lines and steel eyes and that resting bitch face that screams "I know you're hiding something."

And then there's him.

I don't even need to see him to feel it. That gravitational pull. That fucking energy that crawls up my skin like static under my disguise. He's in the middle of the group, a goddamn throne was carved just for his arrogance. I feel his stare the moment I step into the room, a heat-seeking missile that locks onto my spine. My pulse jumps,

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traitorous bitch that it is.

My fingers twitch, and one of the glasses clinks too loud against the tray. I want to

scream.

Or cry.

Or faint.

I do none of those things.

Instead, I take a single step forward. Then another. Then another.

Keep it together, Taryn.

“Buona sera,” I murmur, voice barely a whisper as I reach the table. It's the only Italian I allow myself to say because if I speak too much, I'll fuck up the accent. If I fuck up the accent, I'm dead. Metaphorically. Maybe literally.

Jacob's eyes narrow. His brows knit. I think he's caught the perfume trick. Or maybe he's just constipated. I hope it's that.

I start on the left, pouring wine like a proper little servant, pretending my hands aren't shaking. I don't look at their faces. Not even when one of them says, "Grazie, bella."

Breathe.

I pour faster, not trusting my hands not to shake too much. Each glass I pour is a second closer to Enoch. And with every second, the tension wrapping around my throat gets tighter.

The fourth man-older, maybe mid-sixties with liver spots on his hand and a gold ring that looks too tight for his bloated knuckle-reaches for his glass ... and then for my fucking wrist.

"Pretty little thing," he mutters in English, voice low and gross, like he thinks he's charming. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

I freeze.

His fingers brush my skin and something in me fucking snaps.

"Touch me again, and I'll snap your fucking fingers off," I hiss, swatting his hand away without thinking. "Do I look like a goddamn escort to you?”

Dead silence.

Fuck.

The tray wobbles. One of the glasses sloshes over. I freeze. I spoke English. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I don't need to look to know he's watching me now. I feel it. That fucking wildfire stare. And then I do look. Just for a second. One second too long.

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Just for a second.

And that second is enough.

Enoch's eyes are on me.

Dead center. Locked. Forest green. Cold and sharp and... stunned. Just for a beat.

give out. He's staring at me like I just

gone. Wiped. Like it didn't matter. Like I didn't

recognize me. Of course he doesn't fucking care. He blinks once, slowly. His jaw tics.

yelled at starts to rise, face turning a shade of red that screams You'll

That's when Enoch growls.

Low. Dark. Fucking primal.

Everyone stills.

to be. It cuts deeper because it's quiet.

older man stops mid-motion and slowly sinks back into his seat like a

only the table to hear. "Don't cause a scene, Anthony. She's

course I'm

mouth a silent thank you to Enoch

it's

out of my chest. My hand trembles when I reach for it. He's watching me-really watching now, and I can feel that his stare digging under my skin, carving

the bottle.

Our fingers brush.

Fucking hell.

That fucking spark like a live wire snapping between

hands. His spine stiffens, not visibly, not to anyone else-but I feel it. I know it. His fingers freeze around the stem

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His nostrils flare.

Oh, fuck.

it. That flicker of something ancient. Hungry. Waking up

No. No, no, no-

Not now.

my heel, ignoring the way my vision blurs and my lungs seize, trying to pretend like I didn't just almost lock

when-

Crack!

and I went down hard, elbow screaming, glass explodes under

"Fuck-!"

hisses through my teeth and my knees hit the floor hard enough to rattle my spine, My palm slams right into a

Hot pain.

Hotter blood.

hand. The glass is in there, alright,

not the pain that has me

It's the smell.

the I feel the panic

Familiar.

Shit.

can smell me

myself invisible for weeks-no scent, no trail, nothing-but I forgot

forgot

Mateblood.

three ways to know someone's

feel their spark once you touch them-an arousal that spreads in every crevices of your body like electricity. And the

made by the Goddess herself to make it known that you will

different voice,

the same to the one you're

all

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push myself up with the

like some kind of

I don't look up.

I can't look up.

But I feel it.

The shift.

The click.

The recognition.

air spikes like a snapped powerline, and then...

boots on marble as he

I mumble again, heart punching against my ribs

I know-I know it's him before

Then comes the hand.

Broad. Veined. Battle-scarred.

palm open, like I'm some lost fucking child on the

he's been trying to destroy for

in a breath and

are already

Not casual. Not suspicious.

Hungry.

the person I

seeps into the rim of his irises.

His fucking wolf.

stares at me like I just cracked open his ribcage

inside it.

No words. Just the sound of his nostrils

he smells me again.

The blood.

His blood.

He knows.

freeze there–me on the ground, bleeding and

like a loaded gun

the bile crawling up my throat and slowly push off the

shaking