Claimed by the scarred Alpha

LUCIAN

"I should be heading out." I said as I stepped past her into the corridor. "Thank you for the tea. And for having me."

"Of course," she said in true automatic hospitality of say what you’ve been thought to say. "Anytime."

I walked to the front door and let myself out and stood on the steps for a moment in the night air.

I still could not get over what I had seen. I had not been crazy. Anthony’s son had been choked by Invisible hands from the inside out.

Whatever had happened at Valcourt, it was considerably more complicated than a stupid lovesick Beta and a territorial Alpha with a grudge.

I took a cigarette from my jacket pocket and lit it and stood there breathing smoke into the dark until my heartbeat returned to something I could work with.

Then I got in the car.

The main estate received me with its usual indifferent grandeur, and I moved through it quickly, heading for Vivianne’s room, because if anyone had information about what was happening in that territory it would be her, and if she was hiding it from me I intended to take it from her the same way I took everything she tried to hide.

Part of it would be right fuck her up too. Because her mess of course has to bleed into mine. Valcourt for me was uncharted waters. I had no true idea of what I was working with and gosh, it was killing me.

I was close when I saw someone standing outside.

It was the new Omega who took over after I took the other one out. I wondered why she was outside Isabelle’s door and not inside as I inches close.

The girl bowed when she saw me.

"Move," I said.

She did obey without question.

"Luna Vivianne is not here," she said as I reached for the knob.

I stopped with my hand on the door.

"Then where is she?"

"She travelled to Valcourt," the girl said. "To see her daughter."

I stared at the door for a moment before turning to the girl hoping I had heard her wrong.

"I’m sorry... Did I hear you right?"

"Yes Gamma."

I did not believe her.

I opened the door anyway.

"Vivianne?"

My voice disappeared into the darkness.

The room was lit only by the silver wash of moonlight pouring through the tall windows, throwing long shadows across the polished floor.

No answer.

I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me.

"Vivianne."

Silence.

My eyes adjusted as I scanned the chamber.

The bed stood neatly made beneath its velvet canopy. Her vanity gleamed faintly beneath the moonlight, glass perfume bottles catching enough light to sparkle like scattered stars. A single candle had burned itself out hours ago, leaving only the faint scent of melted wax lingering in the air.

I crossed to the sitting area first.

Empty.

The chair beside the fireplace was vacant, a blanket folded neatly over its arm. An open book rested on the small table beside it, abandoned halfway through a Chapter.

My jaw tightened.

I moved behind the dressing screen.

Nothing.

The wardrobe doors were closed.

I threw them open.

Rows of gowns swayed gently from the force, silks and velvets brushing against one another with a soft whisper. I pushed them aside, searching the narrow space behind them.

No one.

I crouched, checking the floor beneath the hanging dresses.

Empty.

"Vivianne."

The name came out sharper this time.

I crossed to the bed and tore back the blankets.

The mattress.

The space beneath it.

Nothing.

A curse escaped under my breath.

I stalked to her writing desk, pulling open one drawer after another. Letters. Wax seals. Jewelry. Hair ribbons. Everything exactly where she would have left it.

I slammed the final drawer shut.

The balcony.

I crossed the room and pushed the doors open.

Cool night air rushed over me.

The estate stretched below beneath a pale moon, gardens sleeping under ribbons of silver light. The pathways were deserted. No movement disturbed the hedges or fountains.

She wasn’t there.

I stepped back inside, my gaze sweeping the room one last time.

Everything remained exactly as it should have been.

Too orderly.

Too untouched.

There was no sign that she had fled in haste, no evidence of a struggle, no indication that anything had happened here at all.

Only the unmistakable absence of the woman herself.

Slowly, I turned toward the Omega waiting outside the room.

"So..." I said, my voice dangerously calm. "She really did leave."

The Omega nodded in response. I was so sick of this shit.

I stormed off, went to my room and found the secondary phone; the one mirrored to track Vivianne’s communications, and opened it.

There was no activity on it.

She had either destroyed evidence or because of how callous I had bragged about bugging her phone decided to lose the whole thing.

I was about to throw the phone against the wall when I caught myself, set it down carefully, and tried her actual number instead.

But there was also nothing forthcoming from that department.

It went straight to voicemail and it was bugging me out.

"Looks like your control is slipping, big brother."

I turned.

The voice had come from behind me, female, carrying a quality that I recognized somewhere deep in my chest before my mind caught up to why.

The real Vivianne.

But when I looked... there was no one there.

The room was empty in every direction.

And then something happened that had not happened to me in a very long time.

I threw up.

I stood over the waste bin and let my body do what it was doing and then straightened and wiped my mouth and looked at the empty room where my dead sister’s voice had come from.

I had never believed in karmic nonsense.

I had always operated under the assumption that the universe was indifferent and that the only meaningful force in it was will, applied consistently in the right direction.

But something cold and specific had taken up residence in my chest, and I could not name it precisely, only that it felt as though something was gathering on the horizon of my life, the way storm clouds gathered before a rain fierce enough to remake the landscape.