Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

Margaux’s jaw tightened. Her fingers curled around the edge of the hospital bed until her knuckles went white.

"He said I have Omega markers." The words came out clipped and defensive. "Which is far from the truth, and even you should know this."

She lifted her chin. The movement carried a pride that hadn’t been beaten out of her despite everything that had happened tonight.

"Not that it should even remotely matter." Her voice rose slightly. "What he said was still vile."

I watched her posture shift. The way she held herself like she was preparing for a fight she expected to lose.

"I wonder if that’s the kind of treatment Omegas get here."

"No."

The answer came immediately. Automatic in a way that surprised even me.

"Omegas are the cog in the wheel of a pack." I set the manila folder down on the bedside table. "They do all the heavy lifting. The real work that keeps everything functioning."

Her expression flickered with something I couldn’t quite identify.

"It’s one of the reasons your father bent to my threat." The satisfaction that usually came with reminding her of her family’s submission felt muted tonight. "It’s the reason you’re still here too. The lower ranks keep a pack functioning."

I picked up the folder again and opened it. My fingers found the page with the blood work results. The clinical language stared back at me in neat typed rows.

"Here."

I held it out to her and pointed to the relevant section. She took it from my hands. Her eyes tracked across the page, moving faster as she read. Then they went wide.

"The head healer can be a blabbermouth with no class." I kept my voice level and matter-of-fact. "But he does know his job."

Margaux looked up at me. Her face had gone pale except for two spots of color high on her cheeks.

"This isn’t possible."

She shook her head. The movement was small and jerky, as if her body were rejecting the information before her mind could fully process it.

"No one in my line has been an Omega." Her voice carried absolute certainty. "My father’s line has been pureblood for generations and though..."

She paused and swallowed hard enough that I could see her throat work.

"My mother is the first Gamma to marry into the Beaumont name. Even the Moreau line has been purely a Gamma bloodline with a few Delta mixes."

"Well." I crossed my arms over my chest. "It’s true. Someone in your family, a grandmother perhaps, was an Omega."

The revelation should have brought me satisfaction. Proof that the Beaumonts had built their reputation on lies and careful omissions. Evidence that the family she defended so fiercely had hidden truths they found shameful.

Instead, I felt something closer to weariness.

"But your file hides this truth."

Margaux’s fingers trembled where they gripped the medical report. She stared at the page like it might change if she looked hard enough.

"I don’t believe it." Her voice came out hoarse. "I don’t believe you. Why would this be kept? Having Omega markers is no issue at all. I’m still a Luna."

"But not a pure one."

The words landed between us like stones dropped into still water. Ripples of implication spreading outward in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated.

"Packs can be classist even with how forward we seem to be now." I gestured toward the report she still held. "This, this is proof to show you that Beaumont can be liars. They are liars."

My hands curled into fists at my sides. The familiar anger sparked in my chest. Hot and immediate.

"If your own history can be manipulated to be the truth, what do you think would have been done with my father’s file? The one you claimed to have read?"

Her eyes widened. The color that had returned to her face drained away again until she looked almost ghostly in the clinical lighting.

"No."

She took a step back. The hospital gown shifted around her legs with the movement.

"That’s not true." Her voice rose with each word. "You’re trying to deceive me and get into my head and I don’t know, turn me inside out."

She shook her head again. More violently this time.

"I know my pack and I know my people." The conviction in her tone grated against something raw in my chest. "Your father was punished for his crimes. Nothing was rewritten."

Something inside me snapped.

"How can you still defend them?"

The question tore out of me louder than I’d intended. My voice echoed off the sterile walls and came back distorted.

"Because I know my family!" She matched my volume without hesitation. "I know my pack!"

"You know yours, and I don’t know mine?"

She backed away the second the cruel words registered in the back of her mind.

Like distance could save her from this conversation, from me, from whatever had been building between us since the moment I walked into the room.

The back of her legs hit the edge of the bed. Her eyes flicked down for half a second before she moved again, faster this time, putting space between us until her shoulders met the wall.

I followed.

Two strides were all it took.

I closed the distance between us in two strides, and my hands slammed against the wall on either side of her head. She flinched but didn’t look away.

"That place was my home once!"

The words came out ragged. Raw in a way that stripped away the careful control I’d been maintaining.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. They caught the light and made her irises look almost luminous.

"Even..." Her voice broke. "Even if I believe, if the truth was erased as you said, and even I couldn’t access it, what hope do you have?"

The question hit differently than I’d expected. It carried genuine curiosity beneath the fear and confusion.

It made me wonder... momentarily, of course... if I had made her see reason and now her eyes were open. Not that that would change much about where we were now.