Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

After I dispatched the sentinels to hunt for Prim and watched Laurent, burning with righteous anger, finally lose patience and leave me behind, I found myself back in the corridor outside the infirmary.

I could not force myself to leave the corridor outside the infirmary. My body refused the simple act of walking away while Séverine lay just beyond that door, her fate in the healer’s hands and out of mine. So I paced. Three steps forward, three steps back, the repetition doing nothing to quiet the storm rising in my chest.

This was my fault.

I knew it was my fault. If I had been with her, if I had not been in that room wrapped in something I had no business indulging in while danger still walked these halls unidentified, none of this would have happened.

Are we certain of that, my wolf said. Or are we simply looking for somewhere convenient to put the blame?

"I am not looking for convenience." My voice came out low, meant only for the empty corridor. "I am stating a fact."

Are we? Because the way this thought is shaping itself, it sounds considerably more like Margaux’s fault than your own. You were with her. She kept you occupied. If she had not, you would have been here instead.

I stopped pacing.

The accusation settled between us, fully formed, and I stared at it with the particular horror of witnessing myself assemble something monstrous without ever meaning to lay the first stone.

That was the direction my mind had been drifting. Quietly, beneath the weight of guilt, blame had been twisting itself into a weapon aimed at her instead of me, because turning it outward cost me less than turning it inward.

"No," I said.

The wolf went quiet, waiting.

"This is not her fault," I said it again, firmer, like saying it enough times would cement it somewhere my anger could not reach later. "I could not have been in two places simultaneously. If I had been with Séverine instead, the witch would have found another opening. Another victim. This was always going to happen to someone tonight, regardless of where I stood." I exhaled slowly. "I blame myself for this. Not her."

For the first time in longer than I could properly account for, my wolf did not push back. He simply receded, satisfied, like he had been waiting to see whether I would actually arrive at the correct conclusion on my own rather than needing him to drag me there.

The door opened.

The head healer emerged, his face weary but not grim, and something inside me loosened a little before he even spoke.

"She is stable," he said. "Conscious now, and she is asking for you."

I was already moving, slipping through the door before his sentence had even ended.

Séverine lay propped against a nest of pillows, her hand swaddled in white bandages, bruises still stark along her throat despite the healer’s efforts. The instant her eyes met mine, they brimmed over, and the sound she made was so raw it split something open inside me.

"Where were you?" Her voice broke on it. "I was so afraid. I thought I was going to die there."

"I am here now." I crossed to her side and took her uninjured hand carefully. "I am so sorry."

"It was Prim." Her breath hitched. "She just attacked me. Out of nowhere."

"I know. I have sentinels searching for her already." My jaw tightened. "I will bring her head to you myself when they find her."

She did not look comforted, not in the way I had hoped.

"I screamed," she said. "I screamed for help. Several times. I called your name. I called for anyone." Her eyes held mine, glassy and accusatory beneath the tears. "When I was bleeding on that floor, all I could think about was how fast you moved the moment Margaux was in danger. How you threw yourself through a window for her." Her voice cracked further. "Why was I not afforded that same urgency?"

Her question struck a place in me I had no honest defense for.

"Have you made a decision?" she asked, before I could answer the first question. "Because nearly dying tonight made one thing very clear to me. I cannot keep sitting here waiting for you to decide whether I matter enough." Her grip on my hand tightened despite the injury. "I have to be your priority. Your number one. So I demand to know it now. I refuse to die in this house, still waiting for that."

"Séverine." I tried to keep my voice gentle. "You do not have to think about that right now. Rest first."

"No." She pulled her hand back slightly, just enough to make her point. "I need a definite answer from you. Right now. I have earned that much now, if nothing else."

I looked at her.

The fear in her eyes was unmistakable. The hurt was real and raw. After everything she had endured last night, she deserved the truth, not another gentle lie disguised as mercy.

"You are right," I said. "You deserve honesty."

She waited, her chest rising and falling unevenly.

"I do not want you to think I have been stringing you along this entire time," I said. "Whatever else is true, that was never my intention." I held her gaze steadily. "I love you. I genuinely do. We are kindred spirits in ways most people will never understand about either of us."

Her eyes widened, hope flickering through them like a candle in the dark.

"But," I said.

The hope faded before I even finished speaking.

"Perhaps it is fate," I continued. "Or perhaps it is something far more selfish than fate. I do not entirely know which. But I cannot choose between you and Margaux the way you are asking me to."

She scoffed, the sound sharp and disbelieving. "Because you love us both equally? Is that the explanation you are offering me?"

"No." I kept my voice steady, even though every part of this conversation felt like walking across broken glass. "Because the way I care about her exists on a different level entirely from anything we have built together. It is not the same kind of feeling. It never has been, even when I tried to convince myself otherwise."

"But you hate her."