Claimed by the scarred Alpha

SÉVERINE

"I don’t understand," I said. "Why would that be you?"

"Because I’m the best sacrifice you can give."

Grigori said it so calmly that something inside me went cold. He sounded like a man who had already accepted a fate I hadn’t even allowed myself to consider. Even if I knew all too well that he was none of that.

"It has to cost you something," he continued. "Something you can’t easily replace. A life you desire, or the anchor to every gift you currently possess. That’s the choice the spell is asking you to make. It is what the universe demands to stay balanced."

"And you already knew this." The pieces fell into place one by one, each uglier than the last. "This entire time."

"That’s one of the reasons I never told you about the spell." His gaze didn’t leave mine. "Fuck that primordial and his games. But a big part of me.. it already knew the choice would be easy for you."

There it was again. His judgment.

Easy? As though there were nothing in this decision worth grieving.

Except that was the horrible, inconvenient truth sitting like a stone beneath my ribs: Grigori wasn’t easy to give up.

Not even close.

Aside from my grandfather, after both my parents abandoned me, he was the only person who had ever stayed. Through every version of me, every ugly transformation, every mistake I had made and every person I had become, Grigori had remained the one constant in a life defined by people leaving.

And suddenly, my mind betrayed me with memories.

The first time he’d appeared to me as a child, small and strange and entirely mine, curled at the foot of my bed like something summoned from a fairy tale I hadn’t known I was living.

The years that followed.

His patience when I had none of my own. His loyalty when I didn’t deserve it. His presence through every version of myself I’d become since then, the reckless girl, the cruel woman, the person I was now, kneeling over an unconscious woman and drawing runes in the blood of a dead man.

Could I really give all of that up?

"Equal exchange," I whispered.

My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.

"This is a hard choice."

"I know."

There was no accusation in his voice. Somehow, that made it worse.

"But you have to make it. And a part of me already knows what you’re going to choose."

"That’s not fair."

"I don’t think we have much time to argue about fairness. There is no wrong choice here too."

He glanced toward the entrance of the gas station. I looked too. Through the bloody runes covering the windows, I could see that the air beyond the barrier had begun to shimmer, the distortion growing more violent by the second. Something was pressing against the shield from outside, testing it, and searching for a weakness.

"Someone’s trying to break through," he said. "They’re strong. It could be the primordial we’re trying to outmaneuver, in hopes of beating it at its own game. It could be something else."

His eyes returned to mine.

"But whatever it is, we need to make that choice before the barrier shatters and everything goes to hell around us."

Something desperate clawed its way up my throat.

"Why can’t I have both?"

He didn’t answer.

"You don’t have some clever remark ready to piss me off?"

A laugh slipped out of me, fractured and breathless, while my eyes burned.

"No."

The single word was softer than I expected.

"Because we’re connected, Séverine. And you’ve already made your choice."

My heart clenched.

"It just isn’t me." He said. Something almost tender passed across his face as he spoke it. "But that’s okay. I know you."

He stepped closer. "And I know you don’t want to feel like a monster for choosing what you need. Which is endearing because this is the first time you have ever hesitated. And that warms my heart."

"Grigori..."

"So I’ll make the choice for you."

My breath caught. "What..."

"I won’t let you carry the guilt of saying it."

"Grigori, don’t."

"I love you, Séverine."

The words struck harder than any spell could have.

Everything inside me went still.

He held my gaze, and for the first time since I’d known him, there was nothing guarded in his expression. No teasing. No certainty. No cleverness to hide behind.

Just him.

"I love you," he repeated, quieter this time. "And if this is what you need, then I don’t mind giving you myself."

My throat tightened.

"All of me," he assured. "Everything I’ve ever been. Everything I’ve ever had."

He smiled, and there was something unbearably gentle about it.

"For you."

"I will need magic to make Etienne forget." I couldn’t help but say.

"You will have enough embers in you left for that simple spell."

He then closed his eyes after that declaration.

"Begin the spell again," he said. "It’ll be our last magic together. I want to relish it."

Tears blurred my vision before I could stop them.

Somewhere behind me, Étienne was screaming something, my name maybe, some plea I couldn’t fully process anymore because every part of my attention had narrowed down to the familiar standing in front of me, offering himself up like it cost him nothing when I could see plainly that it cost him everything.

I began to chant again.

My voice shook through the first line, steadied by the second, and this time I drew directly from him instead of reaching toward Valcourt and the marked Omegas waiting there. The energy that answered was immediate and overwhelming, stronger than anything four sacrificed lives back at Valcourt had managed to produce, and the air around us warped visibly under the force of it, the light bending strangely at the edges of my vision.

Grigori began to dust.

It started at his head, fine gray particles lifting away from his hairline like ash caught in a wind I couldn’t feel, his features dissolving slowly, deliberately, as though even his own body understood this deserved to happen with some measure of dignity.

He smiled at me through it.

"It was an honor being your slave, Mistress," he said, his voice already thinning into something that barely sounded like him anymore.

"You were my familiar, not a slave. My friend. My companion and I will never forget you." I reached for him as I said it, some useless, reflexive instinct to catch what was already leaving, and my fingers closed around nothing but drifting ash where his face used to be.

The spell was nearly complete. I could feel it as Grigori continued to disappear from existence.