Babysitting The Amnesiac Lycan King

CHAPTER 116 CHAPTER 116 Of course it's him.

Kallias fucking Morrigan.

The second I turn around, I already know. It's the scent-like cedar and arrogance—and the way my skin goes prickly, like my body still remembers every fight, every kiss, every betrayal.

He looks good. Too good. That kind of good that makes you want to punch a mirror just to stop yourself from looking twice.

Navy tux. Crisp. Jawline sharp enough to gut a deer. And that smirk-God, that smirk-sas the one he used to wear when he'd sneak into my room and say I was his secret.

"Found you," he says, low and smooth like whiskey, and I hate that I still remember how his voice used to sound when he whispered my name.

I blink, giving him my best you've-got-to-be-kiddinglook. "What, did you crawl here from Riverstone just to make things awkward?" "You look... different," he says, gaze sliding overlike I'm a fucking museum exhibit.

I raise a brow. "Yeah, well. Trauma has a way of turning Omegas into bombs." He huffs a breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. "Where's your shadow? Seraphina? Don't tellshe's still clinging to your ankles." Kallias shakes his head, smirk twisting a little sad now. "We split. She's actually working now. Secretary to sCEO in the North. She always did love order." "She was good at color-coding. And at being a backstabbing manipulative bitch," I say, smiling sweetly.

He chuckles. "Still sharp." "And you?" I ask. "Letguess. Finally got that Alpha title you were jerking yourself over back when we were nineteen?" "Riverstone's mine now," he says, tipping his glass toward me. "No more Alpha's son. Just Alpha. Official and all." "Congrats," I say, and mean it, weirdly. "Bet the wolves are thrilled." He doesn't reply. Just watcheslike I'm spuzzle piece he used to own but can't figure out how it fits anymore.

"You really do look different," he murmurs.

I tilt my chin, already bored of this. "I look like a queen." He smiles, and it's not cocky this time. Just... reflective. "Not yet crowned. But I'm good at predicting things." The room's heat shifts. I feel it before I see it.

That invisible string pulling tight from across the ballroom. That unmistakable weight in the air, like the forest right before a storm.

I know he's watching.

don't even have to look. I can feel the heat of it burning into my neck.

I grab the glass from Kallias's hand-on purpose, slow and deliberate-and sip. Champagne. Cheap. Not worth the calories.

He leans in, close enough I can smell his cologne. Expensive. Desperate.

"You ever change your mind about ruling beside a different kind of Alpha..." he says, voice just above a whisper, brushing the shell of my ear.

I laugh. Not the sweet kind. The dangerous kind. The kind that reminds him I'm not the girl who begged him to stay anymore.

"You had your chance. You blew it. Literally and metaphorically." We both laugh, but something about the way his eyes linger onmakes my skin crawl.

Not because I'm scared.

But because part ofremembers. How stupid I was. How much I believed he'd be the one.

Funny how the men we used to cry over are now nothing more than past tense. A "used to be." A ghost in a tux with too much pride and too little power.

A flash of blonde hair pulls my attention. Zoe appears besidein heels way too high for her drunk ass.

"You're killing it," she says, kissing my cheek. "Duty calls. I'll be back before the scandals break." 1/3 CHAPTER 116 Then she disappears into the sea of suits and perfume.

I exhale, alone again.

That's when the murmurs start.

Always the fucking murmurs.

"She planned this event?" "She did. She even seduced the King on our own meeting!?" "What a vicious woman. She's got the King wrapped around her finger." "Do you think she even knows what she's doing?" "She doesn't belong here." I hear every word.

Every venom-dipped syllable.

I don't even flinch. I've been through worse. Had worse thrown at me-rocks, lies, fucking death threats.

But hearing it from these people? These noble wolves who wouldn't know what real pain looked like if it slapped them across their over-powdered faces? Yeah, that shit still stings.

I walk past them slow, holding my chin up high. Spine straight. Each step daring them to say it to my face.

They don't.

Of course they don't.

Until- "There's something I want you all to know before the night ends." We all turn to the dais where the King is. It's Enoch. All eyes are onto him.

His voice doesn't rise. Doesn't need to. The fucking floor goes still at the first word out of his mouth.

I feel it before I even turn to him-this heavy, magnetic pull in the air. As if the molecules shift to make room for him. It really doesn't make any sense tothat the Goddess decided to pairwith someone like him.

The Alpha King.

The ghost. The myth. The dead man walking who just burned every whispered rumor to the ground by showing up in the flesh, wrapped in a black-on-black suit like sin decided to dress up and throw a ball.

He steps beside the council elders on the raised dais, gaze cutting through the fog of silence, until it slams into mine as a damn blade.

And then he says it. Loud. Clear. And with no room for bullshit.

"The woman you're talking about all night... is not just an Omega." He turns toand nods, signaling forto cup the dais with him.. "She is the last living descendant of the Lancaster bloodline. The Betas who stood beside my family for centuries." My lungs seize.

Gasps ricochet like firecrackers across the marble walls. Dresses rustle. Councilmen pale. One of them visibly chokes on air like the words are too sacrilegious to breathe in.

"The Lancaster line was thought to be dead," one mutters. Pretty sure he just pissed himself.

Jacob? He's leaning back against the pillar with the smug energy of a man who's been dying to watch this trainwreck for months. His grin could slice egos. Another noble, whispering way too loud to be subtle, "Does this mean she'll replace Beta Jacob?" Enoch hears it.

His smile is feral. "She won't replace anyone. She'll rule beside me." Fuck.

My heart is not ready for this. My chest might as well have its own percussion section. Is that my rib cage? Or a goddamn war drum? Then his eyes-green, wild, and locked onlike they're chained to my soul-flare with something untamed.

He turns toward me, and I already know what's coming. His jaw ticks, voice thick like honey and ruin. "Taryn Lancaster, my queen-" "Wait." CHAPTER 116 I blurt it like it's being yanked out of me.

He stills.

The ballroom reacts in layers. Gasps. Whispers. A few nobles clutch their pearls like I just spit in the holy wine.

I lift a hand. It's not trembling. I thought it would be. I thought I would crumble under this pressure, with all these eyes on me, but I don't.

I fucking rise.

"Before you say that... I need to show you all something."

My voice is steady. Steadier than it should be considering my lungs feel like someone vacuum sealed them. Enoch's brow tightens, but he nods once, slowly. Reluctantly.

The ballroom lights dim, throwing everything into cinematic suspense. This is everything I've prepared for last night. The one Zoe and I prepared for. I press the remote in my hand.

The massive scream descends down the center of the ballroom and all eyes lifts up to it.

"This video will explain everything," I say. "It's something a lot of you should know about the King."? It's a m mytter. It's a dedication of my love for him. I turn to Enoch smiling and mouthing, "You're gonna love this." I hit play.

Static crackles and I freeze. White noise fills the video before it flashes something else. The two of us in his room. This isn' t it.

No.

The operator must be playing the wrong file.

Wrong fucking file.

The projector clears-and there we are.