Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

She was the first thing I saw, a shape carved from the dim light, her face so close to mine that I could feel each tremor of her breath and count the tracks of her tears where she had made no attempt to wipe them away. Her eyes were wide, luminous with worry and unshed hope, flickering between disbelief and a longing so raw it felt almost sacred. She searched me for proof, as if she could not trust the world until she saw for herself that I was truly here, breathing, and returned.

I tried to speak, but the words tangled somewhere behind my tongue, and what escaped was only a breath, long and uneven, a confession of the struggle it took simply to exist in that moment. For a heartbeat, I wondered whether I was still dreaming or stuck in that nightmare, only this time stuck in a different scape, but the warmth of her skin, the salt of her tears, the faint tremor in her hands—all of it was too vivid to be anything but real.

Without warning, her arms came around me. There was nothing cautious or measured in the way she held me. There was nothing polite or restrained about it either.

She gathered me to her as if she had been waiting her whole life for this embrace, her cheek pressed against my neck, her fingers clutching at my back. I felt the shudder that passed through her, a tremor born of all the fear and loneliness that had been running loose in her heart. It was not quite a sob, more the echo of one, the body remembering how to be afraid and how to let go at the same time.

I closed my arms around her, pulling her tighter despite the protest from my wounded side. Pain flared, sharp and insistent, but I welcomed it, because it grounded me in the moment, proof that I was here and she was here and we were real together. For the first time in what felt like years, I let myself rest in the safety of someone, with my face buried in her hair, catching the scent of forget-me-nots and rain, the perfume of memories I had not dared to hope for.

"You are back," she whispered, her words muffled against my skin, her voice trembling with everything she would not let herself say aloud. "You are actually back."

I managed to find my voice, rough as gravel but certain. "You cannot get rid of me that easily," I said, and I heard the smile in it even before I felt it on my lips. "I thought we had settled that between us."

She made a sound—half laugh, half sob—that vibrated against my throat, and she clung to me as if she could stitch the world back together by the force of her grip alone. I did not tell her about the pain in my side or the way my heart threatened to burst beneath her touch. I only held on, letting her warmth seep into the places I had thought would remain cold forever.

Over her shoulder, the world waited.

Alpha Dorian hovered at the edge of the room, his face a patchwork of fear, pride, and something that looked almost like shy relief, while Laurent stood beside him with the uncomplicated gladness of a man who had almost lost someone and now saw them returned. But in that moment, the only world that mattered was the small universe we made in each other’s arms, the quiet miracle of two hearts finding their way back after too long apart.

Margaux shifted, and a sharp, insistent ache flared in my side as her grip tightened; her reluctance to release me was evident in every line of her body.

"Luna Margaux. He is back. But he still needs to rejuvenate. If you could just let him be for a moment... I can help him."

Even as the healer’s voice broke through the hush, calm and measured with its gentle command, she held on with a stubbornness that made my heart twist. He addressed her with the deference owed to a Luna, but there was an undercurrent of urgency in his words, as though he knew the impossibility of prying her away from my side by anything short of necessity.

She responded, her voice low and unwilling, "I know." Her arms lingered for a moment more, her cheek pressed against my shoulder as if she could imprint the certainty of my return into her memory by the force of her closeness. When she finally began to pull away, she did so slowly, her fingers reluctant to let go, her gaze meeting mine with a searching intensity. I watched the careful choreography of her features as she arranged her face into something approaching composure, though the bond between us shivered with everything she could not bring herself to say aloud. Every muscle in her face betrayed the truth: she did not want to leave, not even for a second.

Turning to the healer, Margaux spoke with a command that brooked no argument. "Make sure he is completely fine," she insisted, her tone ringing with a possessive protectiveness that left no doubt about her priorities. "All the way fine."

The healer, for his part, nodded with the humility of someone who understood he was being entrusted not just with a wounded body but with the entire, fragile future we barely dared to imagine.

She glanced at me one last time, her eyes soft with the promise of a thousand unspoken vows, then stepped back, leaving behind the warmth of her presence and the ache of her absence. The space she vacated felt colder, emptier, and I found myself longing for her nearness even as I watched her go.

Dorian moved forward into the space Margaux had left, his expression a tangle of worry, authority, and the awkward tenderness of a man who has seen too much and always said too little. He stood by my cot and looked down at me, and for a moment the world shrank to the silent understanding between us.