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.

breath seizes in my throat. My legs almost give out. He's staring at me like I just ripped the universe in half and made him

it didn't matter.

Of course he doesn't fucking care. He

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

That's when Enoch growls.

Low. Dark. Fucking primal.

Everyone stills.

It doesn't have to be. It cuts deeper because it's

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

to hear. "Don't cause a scene,

course

thank you to Enoch in my head like the idiot I

it's

out of my chest. My hand trembles when I reach for it. He's watching me-really watching now, and I can

tilt the bottle. Red wine

Our fingers brush.

Fucking hell.

instant. That pulse. That lightning. That fucking spark like a live

catches. The tray nearly slips from my hands. His spine stiffens, not visibly, not to anyone else-but I feel it. I know it. His fingers freeze around the stem of the glass. He inhales sharply through

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His nostrils flare.

Oh, fuck.

it. That flicker of something ancient. Hungry. Waking

No. No, no, no-

Not now.

my lungs seize, trying to

when-

Crack!

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

"Fuck-!"

teeth and my knees hit the floor hard enough to rattle my spine, My palm slams

Hot pain.

Hotter blood.

my hand. The glass is in there, alright,

the pain

It's the smell.

hits the I feel the

Familiar.

Shit.

smell me

made myself invisible for weeks-no scent,

I forgot about

Mateblood.

someone's your mate. You

them-an arousal that spreads in

by the Goddess herself to make it known that you

a different voice, a different face. Their

same to the one

now mine's leaking all

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whisper, trying to push myself up with the clean

like

I don't look up.

I can't look up.

But I feel it.

The shift.

The click.

The recognition.

a snapped powerline, and then... the slow

boots on marble as he stands

heart punching against

me and I know-I

Then comes the hand.

Broad. Veined. Battle-scarred.

like I'm some lost

the one person he's been trying to destroy

a breath and lift my

eyes are already

Not casual. Not suspicious.

Hungry.

the person

flash of crimson seeps into the

His fucking wolf.

like I just cracked open his ribcage and made myself

inside it.

No words. Just the sound of his nostrils

he smells me again.

The blood.

His blood.

He knows.

the ground, bleeding and exposed, and him

gun finally recognizing

up my throat and

shaking