Claimed by the scarred Alpha

CÉLINE

"I just hope when it all comes down, you recognize this time that it is your fault."

I squeezed his shoulder and let my nails dig in through the fabric of his shirt. Not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make him feel the pressure... To make him understand I meant every word.

"That you are a monster that does not deserve love or redemption."

The words came out softer than everything else I’d said. It was almost gentle. Which made them more cruel somehow. More devastating than if I’d shouted them.

Laurent made a sound low in his throat. Something between a sob and a protest. His hands clenched into fists at his sides.

I patted his shoulder twice. The gesture was too friendly. Too casual for the poison I’d just delivered.

"I am sorry. I am being mean."

The apology meant nothing. We both knew it. But I offered it anyway because sometimes the cruelest thing you could do was pretend at kindness while twisting the knife deeper.

"But I am not lying."

I gave his shoulder one more pat before stepping back, putting distance between us so he could breathe properly again. So he could process what I’d said without my presence making it harder.

"You know I am not."

Laurent’s head dropped forward. His chin nearly touched his chest. His whole body seemed to curl in on itself, as if he were trying to make himself smaller. Trying to disappear.

I’d seen Theodore do the same thing countless times. Usually, after Father had finished tearing into him about duty and legacy and all the things a proper Alpha heir was supposed to be. My brother would fold himself up tight and pretend the world couldn’t touch him if he just made himself small enough.

It never worked.

The door waited on the other side of the study. I moved toward it with steady steps that echoed in the silence Laurent left behind. My hand closed around the handle. The metal felt cold against my palm.

I paused before opening it fully and looked back over my shoulder at Laurent’s hunched form.

He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t tried to defend himself further or argue against what I’d said. He just stood there in the wreckage of Étienne’s desperate escape and let my words settle into whatever wounds they’d opened.

"For what it is worth," I said quietly, "I do think you loved him."

Laurent’s head lifted slightly. Not enough to look at me. It was enough to show he was listening.

"I think you loved Theodore more than anything else in your miserable existence." My fingers tightened on the door handle. "Which is exactly why you should have been the one to end it. Because he could not do it himself. And Father would never allow it."

I pulled the door open before Laurent could respond. Before he could try to defend himself or explain or do any of the things people did when confronted with truths they’d been running from.

The hallway beyond was empty. Quiet except for the distant sounds of the estate waking up properly. Servants moving through the lower floors. Sentinels changing shifts. The normal rhythm of pack life continuing regardless of the chaos unfolding in pockets throughout the grounds.

I stepped through and let the door swing shut behind me.

The click of it closing felt final. Like I’d sealed Laurent in with his guilt and his delusions and whatever twisted hope he’d been nurturing about Étienne and Margaux’s bond somehow redeeming his failures.

My footsteps carried me down the hallway. Away from the study and the broken window and the blood that was probably still drying on glass shards. Away from Laurent and his pain that I’d deliberately made worse because someone needed to hurt just like I was hurting.

Theodore’s death had been preventable. If Laurent had possessed even a shred of courage. If he’d chosen to spare my brother the impossible position of loving someone he could never have. If he’d been less selfish and more willing to endure heartbreak for the sake of the person he claimed to love.

But he hadn’t.

And Theodore had died for it.

My brother had stood at the edge of that cliff and chosen to jump rather than continue living in the space between Laurent’s devotion and Father’s expectations. Rather than keep trying to be both the dutiful son and the devoted mate when those two roles had become mutually exclusive.

I’d watched it happen. I had watched Theodore unravel day by day until there was nothing left except the shell of someone who’d once been bright and kind and full of potential.

Laurent had watched it too. And he’d done nothing to stop it.

Now he wanted to play savior for Étienne and Margaux. He wanted to believe their bond would somehow work out differently. That divine pairing meant something more than biology and suffering and the slow destruction of everyone caught in its wake.

He was wrong.

The mate bond was cancer. I’d told Séverine the truth about that. It consumed everything it touched. Burned through rational thought and careful planning, and every defense people built to protect themselves from exactly this kind of devastation.

Étienne had thrown himself through a window. That was just the beginning. Soon it would be more. Bigger sacrifices. Worse decisions. Until he was just as destroyed as Theodore had been. Until Margaux ended up collateral damage in whatever tragedy was brewing.

And Laurent would stand there watching it happen again. Convincing himself he was helping. That his presence somehow made things better instead of worse.

My hand found the railing of the main staircase. The wood was smooth under my palm. Polished to a shine by Omegas who probably had no idea what kind of rot existed at the heart of this pack.

Father’s poisoning would take time to work. The mixture I’d given him wasn’t designed to kill quickly. That would have been too obvious. Too easy for the healers to trace back to its source.

No. What I’d administered would accelerate his decline. Make the dementia worse. Speed up the deterioration until he was nothing more than a drooling husk that couldn’t remember his own name, let alone maintain his stranglehold on pack leadership.

Then Étienne would be poised to take over fully. Except he wouldn’t. Not really. Because he was too distracted by his mate and his stupid revenge story to notice what was happening right under his nose.

Which left an opening.

One I fully intended to exploit.