Claimed by the scarred Alpha

LUCIAN

The Beta’s house was the sort of place that broadcast its owners’ ambitions more boldly than their true status allowed. Not flashy, but striving, the architecture chosen by people convinced that appearing successful was nearly as important as being so.

Martha answered the door.

She had the kind of pleasant face shaped by years of making others feel at ease, and her surprise at finding me on her doorstep flickered for only a heartbeat before she smoothed it into practiced warmth.

"Gamma Lucian." She stepped back to let me in. "This is unexpected."

"I apologize for the hour," I said. "I heard the children were back and I wanted to check in personally."

"Yes, they came back late." She closed the door behind me, her brow carrying the particular furrow of a mother who had not yet received the explanation she was owed. "They have not said where they were. Not a word between them."

"Family business can be like that sometimes," I said pleasantly. "Is Anthony in? I thought I might speak with him as well."

"He is probably still with the Alpha." She gestured toward the sitting room. "He has not come home yet."

I nodded, feigning mild inconvenience, though this was exactly the outcome I had orchestrated.

"The real reason I’m here," I said, softening my tone to a gentle sincerity I kept for occasions that called for it, "is that my niece asked me to check on her friends while she’s territories away. She worries about the people she cares for, and since she couldn’t be here herself, she made me promise." I offered a knowing smile. "You know how she is."

Martha’s face softened. "That’s very kind of her."

"She’s always had a generous heart," I replied. "Would it be possible to see the children? Even if just for a moment—I only want to make sure they’re safe or fine, and then I’ll leave you in peace."

"Of course." She was already turning toward the corridor. "Shanelle is asleep, poor thing; she looked exhausted. But Chris is awake. Let me get him."

She disappeared.

I surveyed the sitting room with the easy attentiveness of someone well-practiced at reading the stories homes tell. Every detail revealed a family that had climbed recently, not inherited their place, still learning the unspoken codes of their new world. I filed these observations away for later.

Martha returned with Chris behind her, and a tray of tea that she had clearly organized in the thirty seconds she had been out of sight.

"Here he is," she said, setting the tray down. "I will leave you to it. Boy talk."

"Exactly," I said.

She withdrew with the practiced grace of someone who knew exactly when to disappear, while I settled into the chair and poured myself tea with the unhurried confidence of a man claiming the space as his own.

Chris stood in the doorway.

He wore the exhaustion of someone who had not only missed sleep but was still wrestling with something unresolved. His eyes held the wary calculation of someone who, in the short walk from the door, had decided my visit was not what I claimed to his mother.

Smart boy. Always had been.

"Gamma Lucian," he said. "What is this actually about?"

"Your father was nearly beside himself when it became clear you had gone somewhere without telling anyone," I said. "I had to ring the alarm bell eventually. I hope you understand."

He scoffed. "My sources say we were not missed much until a certain someone made it known."

"Your father was managing his concern privately," I said. "As he tends to. I was managing it more visibly. Different approaches to the same worry." I smiled. "My niece made me promise to look out for you both while she was in Valcourt. I take those promises seriously."

He took a seat, not out of comfort, but because remaining on his feet made the imbalance between us too stark to ignore.

"Your sister," I said, setting my cup down, "took something to Valcourt. A file. Do you know which one?"

His face did not change. He had better control than most people his age.

"Yeah," he said. "I know what was in it."

"The Archambault family file," I said.

"Why do you care?" he said.

I looked at him with the specific expression I used when I wanted someone to believe they had caught me in something genuine.

"Because I do," I said simply. "Perhaps I just do, Chris."

He stood. "Then we are done here."

My hand gripped his arm before he could take two steps, firmer than I meant, and I felt him freeze in that particular way young men do when weighing whether to push back.

I released him immediately.

"I apologize," I said. "That was out of line. I am worried, and I let it override my judgment." I settled back. "There is incriminating material in that file. Not just about the Archambault family. About people connected to how they fell." I paused, watching his face. "Including your family."

He laughed. Short and sharp. "Why would anything about the Archambaults concern us? They have nothing to do with my family."

I let the silence sit for exactly the right duration.

"You did not know," I said.

He looked at me.

"The Archambault family had to fall," I said, keeping my voice even and almost regretful, as if I were delivering difficult news I would have preferred not to carry, "for your family to rise into the position it now occupies. That is the nature of the game of power. You do not play it fairly, especially not when your enemy holds something that could destroy you." I folded my hands. "Your father did what he needed to do for his family. I understood that. Because of that understanding, I kept my mouth shut and helped bury certain things. The Archambaults had material on me as well. A mutual enemy makes for convenient friends."

Chris had gone very still.

"When I heard what your sister had done," I continued, allowing a note of something almost paternal to enter my voice, "what she took to Valcourt, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to understand why. I thought perhaps Anthony had developed a conscience late in life, wanted to make some kind of gesture. So I looked into it quietly, without drawing attention, because the last thing any of us needed was Anthony finding out and reacting the way Anthony reacts to surprises." I shook my head. "But he has no idea. He is completely unaware of what his daughter did."

The sweat was just beginning to form at Chris’s temples.

"My concern," I said, leaning forward slightly, "is what happens if that file ended up in the wrong hands. Valcourt has agendas against this pack. Everyone knows that. No one in their right mind would hand them ammunition." I looked at him directly. "You brought it back. From Valcourt. Before you came home." I let the statement sit in the air between us, not quite a question, fully a trap. "Right? There is no way you would leave something like that with people who could want to use it against Beaumont."

Chris said nothing.

But his face said everything I needed to know.

"What happened?" I said quietly. "Did something go wrong?"