Chapter 41: Familiar 2
SÉVERINE
And he had survived them all.
"He intervened so quickly before I could succeed because they are intimately connected."
My spine went rigid. The laptop nearly slid off my knees as I straightened.
"What does that mean?"
"I happen to believe..." He paused, and it looked like he was choosing his next words with care that made my pulse spike. "As does that Beta you despise. That Margaux and Étienne have a match of fate."
The world tilted sideways for half a second. My nails dug into my palms hard enough to leave crescents that would bruise by morning.
"You cannot be sure about that."
"That is true." He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "But that Beta is smart. And while listening in on them through my spider form, I had to agree, even if Étienne denied everything."
A laugh bubbled up from my chest. It came out sharp and bitter, echoing off the walls of the room.
"Okay. I see."
I set the laptop aside and stood. The movement was too quick. Too jerky. My hands trembled slightly when I pressed them against my thighs.
"I guess you will just have to try again."
"I do not think so."
The flat refusal stopped me mid-turn. I looked back at him with raised eyebrows.
"They already suspect magic is involved." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Another attempt would only confirm their suspicions. It would draw attention neither of us can afford."
"It does not matter."
My voice came out harder than intended. I took a breath and forced myself to speak more carefully.
"The goal will not be to kill her. But to see if Étienne can sense she is in danger one more time." I met his eyes and held them. "I need to know for certain if the connection you and that buffon are hypothesizing on exists."
The familiar studied me for a long moment. Something like pity flickered across his features before he masked it.
"As you wish, Mistress."
"Get out of my face."
He snapped his fingers. His form collapsed inward, shrinking and reshaping until a fly hovered where he’d stood. The insect darted toward the window and slipped through a crack I couldn’t see in the darkness.
Silence rushed back in to fill the space he’d left behind.
I turned back to the laptop. The frozen image of Étienne carrying Margaux out of the bathroom stared back at me. His arms wrapped around her body like she was something precious. His face twisted with an emotion I’d spent years trying to earn and never quite managed.
"Mates?"
The word tasted like poison on my tongue.
I watched the way his hands cradled her head. The careful positioning that protected her neck even while he rushed toward the healers. Every movement screamed of instinct deeper than conscious thought.
Rage bloomed hot and immediate in my chest. It spread through my veins like wildfire, consuming rational thought and leaving only the burning need to destroy something.
My hands found the laptop before the decision fully formed. I lifted it above my head and brought it down against the floor with every ounce of strength I possessed.
The screen shattered. Plastic cracked. Metal bent under the force of impact. Pieces scattered across the marble in a radius that spoke to just how hard I’d thrown it.
"Fuck."
The curse echoed in the sudden quiet. I dropped to my knees beside the wreckage, my hands hovering over the broken pieces like I could somehow will them back together through sheer desperation.
I couldn’t let Laurent start looking at me weird if I blamed this on an accident somehow as I always did to excuse my rage.
This was going to cost me. But did I have a choice?
Magic hummed beneath my skin. I pressed my palms against the largest pieces and let power flow through my fingertips. The fragments trembled. They shifted and realigned, drawn back together by invisible threads only I could see.
The cracks sealed. The screen reformed. Within seconds, the laptop sat whole and undamaged on the floor like nothing had happened.
My hands shook as I picked it up and set it back on the desk.
Deep breaths. I forced air into my lungs in slow, measured pulls. My heart hammered against my ribs hard enough to hurt.
It did not matter.
The thought formed with desperate certainty. I clung to it like a lifeline.
It did not matter if they were fated. Bonds could be broken or ignored. I’d seen it happen before in packs where politics demanded separating mates who’d been matched by the goddess herself.
I just needed to remind Étienne how grim his past had been because of that girl.
That was easy.
That was the truth I needed Étienne to remember. Not whatever softness the mate bond might be whispering in his ear. Not the instinct to protect that had driven him to save her life.
Just the cold, hard fact that she’d chosen her pack over him once before. That she would do it again if given the chance.
My jaw set with renewed determination.
The laptop screen glowed in the darkness. I stared at the frozen image of Étienne’s face twisted with fear and forced myself to see past it. To remember the man who’d sat across from me years ago and laid out his plan for revenge with clinical detachment.
That man still existed somewhere beneath the confusion the bond, if it did exist, had created. I just needed to pull him back to the surface.
And I would.
Whatever it took.
I had plans. Big ones waiting to be deployed like weapons in a war Margaux didn’t even know we were fighting even harder now.
Let her think she was safe because he’d saved her life. Let her believe that moment of weakness meant something more than animal instinct responding to a biological imperative.
I knew better.
And soon, Étienne would remember that he did too.