Claimed by the scarred Alpha

SÉVERINE

It didn’t.

I dodged all three, my body moving faster than he anticipated, unseen hands moving with me, intercepting trajectories before his understanding of them could catch up.

Then I stopped retreating.

I went on the offensive.

Invisible fingers closed around his skull through the trees, tightening with deliberate pressure. His body jerked as he realized what had hold of him.

I began to squeeze.

I was seconds from crushing his skull the way I’d crushed the driver’s when someone rushed me from the side.

I barely had time to register the bottle in his hand before he hurled it.

Glass shattered against my body.

The liquid splashed across my clothes, my skin, my open wounds, and the reaction was immediate.

Fire raced across me.

I staggered, a strangled sound catching in my ruined throat as the chemical burn sank through my skin and into my bloodstream.

Wolfsbane.

But not the diluted kind they’d packed into the bullets.

This was pure.

Undiluted.

And it hit me like a death sentence.

My body boiled.

I abandoned the sentinel entirely, letting him drop, and turned my fury on whoever had done this to me instead, finding the head healer standing there with another bottle still in his hand and an expression that suggested he understood exactly what he’d just done and had no regrets about it.

When he realized he was fucked, the other bottle dropped from his hand. I too wasted no time.

I threw a fireball at him.

I heated the bastard, watched the flame streak toward him with lethal intent, and he dodged, which did not even fucking matter, because I followed the fireball with a whip made entirely of compressed air, a blade thin enough and fast enough that no human or shifter should have been able to avoid it.

He didn’t need to avoid it.

For some reason, it reflected back at me instead.

Was that... Protective magic?

I felt my own magic curve through the air and come screaming back toward my chest, and if I hadn’t thrown unseen hands up in pure reflex, it would have cut me clean in half. As it was, the invisible force took the brunt of the blow, flinging me backward hard enough that I hit a tree with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs.

I didn’t waste time trying to understand how he’d done that. Somehow use magic.

I ran.

Finding Grigori mattered more right now than finishing a fight I no longer had the luxury of winning cleanly, and finding that bitch Margaux mattered more than either, because everything I’d risked today only counted if I actually walked away with her.

As I ran, I used the witch marks after all, drawing just enough to seal the wolfsbane burns and close the bullet wounds before blood loss did something permanent. I felt the cost of it immediately, two distant lives snuffing out somewhere back in Valcourt, Omegas whose names I’d never bothered to learn, their life force flickering out to keep mine intact.

I felt a small twinge about that.

Very small.

I could also sense the sentinel I should have finished before I got distracted by the head healer attacks and now chasing Grigori’s pain through our bond, and I promised myself I’d correct that oversight the moment I had the opportunity, provided the cover of branches and tree caused darkness stayed on my side.

Then I saw her.

Margaux, naked and running, breaking through a stretch of undergrowth directly in my path like fate itself had decided to hand her to me.

I didn’t hesitate.

Unseen hands closed around her before she’d even registered my presence, and she shrieked, the sound cutting through the trees, and something strange happened right as our eyes met.

Her hand glowed gold.

I watched it flare bright for one brief, brilliant second, some kind of light I didn’t have a name for yet, and then it died out just as quickly, the strength behind it apparently not enough to finish whatever she’d been trying to do. She went limp in my grip immediately after, unconscious, her whole body suddenly deadweight against the force holding her.

Interesting.

I filed that away for later, because right then a bullet whizzed past close enough to disturb the air near my face.

I pulled Margaux’s unconscious body close, using her as a shield without a shred of guilt, and ducked behind the nearest tree as more shots cracked through the night.

"I have your Luna," I called out. "I’d be very careful about your next move."

"Us sentinels have to look at things rationally," the voice called back, steady despite everything. "Taking you out is more important than even ensuring the Luna’s immediate safety. Because the Alpha comes first. And you’re the bigger threat. You need to die."

He couldn’t be serious.

I would have almost admired the logic of it if it did not sound batshit insane. He had to be playing me. That was the only way it made sense.

That thought was still typhooning through my head when Grigori found me.

He came stumbling through the trees with burns crawling up his arms and throat, angry and raw, and I wondered briefly what exactly Margaux had done to him, but his presence right now mattered far more than my curiosity. The sentinel couldn’t see him. That gave me exactly the advantage I needed.

"Kill him," I whispered.

Grigori didn’t hesitate despite the pain visibly wracking his own body.

He rushed the sentinel, who never saw him coming, and the last thing I heard was a single startled yelp before the sound of a body hitting the ground reached me through the trees.

When I finally stepped out from behind the tree, the sentinel lay dead, and Grigori stood over him, breathing hard, burns still smoking faintly along his skin.

"We have to go," he said. "Another one is rushing this way."

"I wouldn’t mind killing him too," I said, shifting Margaux’s weight in my arms. "But they seem to be a genuine force. They also don’t seem to mind dying if it means taking me down with them. I’m not a fan of unnecessary risk."

"Agreed," Grigori said, glancing behind him toward the sound of approaching footsteps.

I looked down at Margaux, still unconscious, still entirely mine for the moment, and felt something close to satisfaction settle into my chest despite the wolfsbane burns, the bullet wounds and the general chaos of the last several minutes.

"You have what you came for," Grigori said.

I smiled.

"Get us out of here."

"As you wish," he said, and reached for both of us.

The forest glitched around me, reality folding and rippling the way it always did when he moved us through space instead of across it, trees and darkness bleeding away into something formless, and when the world solidified again, we stood inside the fluorescent glare of some roadside gas station, empty except for a bored looking clerk who hadn’t even glanced up yet to see us.

"We can get a car and some clothes here," Grigori said, already scanning the aisles.

I looked down at Margaux, unconscious against my arm, and adjusted my grip.

We had a long day ahead of us either way.