Chapter 39: Friends
ÉTIENNE
I stepped back, putting distance between us before the proximity could do more damage to the walls I’d built.
"I was present in that trial too while my family was judged." I forced my breathing to steady. "What do you remember was said in it?"
Margaux looked at me for a long moment. Her expression shifted through emotions too quickly for me to track them all.
"What happened in the trial?" She straightened her shoulders despite the trembling in her hands. "Why don’t you help me out with that? If there are inconsistencies, I’ll call it out."
A scoff escaped before I could stop it. The sound came out harsh and disbelieving.
"What?"
"I’m sorry." She didn’t sound sorry. "But I don’t quite trust you or what you’re looking for."
Her hands twisted in the fabric of the hospital gown. The knuckles went white again.
"My head is a mess from finding out my friend, who I thought was dead, is alive and married me for the sole purpose of torturing me."
Friend. The word landed like a slap.
"My memory is a mess." She continued talking. The words tumbled out faster now. "And if I say the wrong thing, if I let you make the wrong connection, you’ll hate me more than you already hate me."
She took a shaky breath.
"Or maybe I’ll tick something in that twisted mind of yours and you finally start a war."
"Friend?"
I couldn’t keep the venom out of my voice. The word tasted bitter on my tongue.
"What else were we?" Her eyes met mine. Challenging despite the tears that had started to spill over. "If not friends?"
"You know..." I grabbed the manila folder. "I didn’t marry you only to make you suffer."
The admission cost me something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
"I intend to clear my family’s name."
I moved toward the door. Each step felt heavier than it should have. The weight of the conversation pressed against my shoulders.
"The Beaumont pack does love changing history." I stopped at the threshold and looked back at her. "Friend? Fuck you."
The curse hung in the air between us. Sharp and ugly.
My grip on the manila file tightened and the folder crumpled slightly under my grip.
"I blame myself for having this moment with you." The words came out quieter now. More dangerous for their lack of volume. "What did I think showing your pack’s hypocrisy would do? You happen to be the biggest hypocrite of all."
Her face remained impassive. Carefully blank in a way that felt like its own kind of rejection and when I tried to take a peek into her feelings... I realized she had her shields up now.
"I’ll get the file regardless."
I turned the handle and pulled the door open partway.
"That male friend of yours, word coming to me is that he’s currently erratic." I kept my gaze fixed on the hallway beyond. "And when men are erratic, they sure do make stupid choices."
I should have walked out then. Should have left without looking back. But something made me pause.
The door stood open just enough that I could see her reflection in the glass panel beside it. She stood exactly where I’d left her. Except now, one hand was lifted slightly, reaching toward me. The gesture was small and uncertain.
It also broke my heart when she dropped it.
She would never change.
Her shoulders sagged inward. The fight seemed to drain out of her all at once, leaving behind something that looked fragile and lost.
I pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped through. The click of it closing behind me sounded final. Like something ending that I hadn’t realized had begun.
The hallway stretched ahead of me. Empty and silent except for the sound of my own footsteps against marble floors.
Laurent waited near the nurses’ station. He straightened when he saw me but had the sense not to ask questions. My expression must have warned him off.
I walked past him without stopping. The manila folder felt heavier with each step. Physical evidence of lies and manipulation that went deeper than I’d originally thought.
The Beaumonts had rewritten their own history to hide what they considered shameful. They’d buried the truth about Omega blood mixing into their precious pure lineage.
If they could do that with something as fundamental as their family tree, what else had they been willing to falsify?
My father’s trial. The evidence presented against him. The testimonies that had condemned him and destroyed everything I’d known.
How much of it had been real? How much had been carefully constructed fiction designed to justify an execution they’d wanted for other reasons?
The questions circled in my mind like vultures. Each one brought new possibilities I didn’t want to consider.
Because if the trial had been a lie, if my father had been innocent, then everything I’d survived had been for nothing. The cage. The hands. The violations. All of it had happened because people he’d once trusted had decided a convenient fiction was worth more than the truth.
And Margaux had believed them. She still believed them even when confronted with proof of her family’s capacity for deception.
Friend.
The word echoed in my head. Mocking in its innocence.
We’d never been friends. Friends didn’t abandon each other. They didn’t stand by while the other’s world burned. They didn’t choose comfort and safety over loyalty.
She’d made her choice years ago. Nothing that happened now could change that fundamental betrayal.
My wolf stirred beneath my skin. Restless and dissatisfied with the direction my thoughts had taken.
She reached for us. The observation came quiet but insistent. She wanted us to stay and talk. We also both know why the word friend presses you so much. Its because...
Fuck this! I shoved the presence back down and kept walking. My wolf could want whatever it pleased. That didn’t make those wants valid or worth pursuing.