Claimed by the scarred Alpha

SÉVERINE

This power tasted like something I could get drunk on, and right now, I was thoroughly, gloriously intoxicated by it.

I turned Margaux’s unconscious body onto her stomach and caught the hem of the scraps still clinging to her. I dragged the fabric up, exposing the smooth expanse of her back to the cold air.

"Séverine, no!"

Étienne’s voice struck the invisible barrier between us, raw and desperate. There was no anger in it now. Only horror.

"You’re better than this!"

I smiled faintly.

Better? Right.

The word almost made me laugh.

I dipped two fingers into the shallow bowl Grigori had brought me, coating them in the gas station clerk’s still-warm blood. Then I placed my fingertips against Margaux’s skin.

The first rune came easily.

So did the second.

I didn’t need to think about where each line belonged. The symbols had been carved into my mind the instant that demon gave me its gift, every curve and angle preserved with perfect clarity. My fingers simply followed what they already knew.

Margaux twitched beneath my hand.

I barely noticed.

I traced another line, watching the blood sink into her skin.

Each symbol felt familiar in a way that should have frightened me.

Instead, it felt like coming home.

Behind me, Étienne struck the barrier again.

"Séverine, stop!"

I continued.

"Look at me!"

I did not.

The final rune took a little longer. I savored it, drawing the last curve with deliberate care before lifting my fingers from Margaux’s back.

For a moment, I simply admired what I’d done.

Then I rose and turned toward Étienne.

His face had gone pale.

That pleased me more than it should have.

He had always looked at me as though there were still some part of me worth saving. Some decent little piece buried beneath everything I’d done, waiting patiently for him to uncover it.

I wondered how long it would take him to understand that whatever he was searching for was gone.

Perhaps it had never existed at all.

I wiped the blood from my fingers onto my palm and walked toward the invisible barrier.

Étienne didn’t move.

"It’s almost time," I said softly.

His expression tightened.

"For what? Séverine I am begging you—"

My smile widened as I cut him off. "Don’t beg. You brought this upon everyone."

I then walked back to her and reached down. I wasted no time dragging Margaux’s head up by her hair, twisting just enough that even in her unconscious state I imagined some flicker of pain registered somewhere beneath the surface, and I waved her limp hand toward him like a puppet greeting its audience.

"Just tell her goodbye."

"Please," Étienne continued. "Séverine. You have all the power here. You can do anything you want. Just stop."

I considered him for a long moment.

"I might consider it," I said, "if you got on your knees and begged me for mercy."

He didn’t hesitate.

He dropped to his knees on that filthy gas station floor without a second’s pause, without a flicker of the pride I’d always known him to carry like armor, and something in my chest twisted painfully at the sight of it.

"And that," I said quietly, "is exactly why I have to do this."

He looked up at me, confused.

"See how loyal you are," I continued. "How fast you fold. Your pride doesn’t even matter when it comes to her. I need that. I need to be the one who makes you kneel like that. That is my destiny, Étienne. Not a consolation prize. Not the woman standing in the corner of your life while she gets to be the center of it."

Something broke in his expression then, some final wall giving way.

"Just spell me," he said, desperate now, the words tumbling out of him faster than he could organize them. "Make me love you. Actually love you. Just let her go!"

I felt that offer land somewhere deep and aching inside me, and for one terrible second I actually considered it, actually let myself imagine a version of tonight where I simply forced the feeling into existence instead of fighting this hard to earn it honestly.

"I can’t put the whole world under a spell," I said finally. "And even if I could, I don’t want a version of you that only loves me because I forced it into your chest with magic." I straightened, stepping back from him. "I want the real thing."

I dropped Margaux’s head, let it fall back against the tile floor, and rose to stand directly above the runes I’d drawn.

I began to chant.

The words came out of me in a language older than anything I’d been taught formally, syllables the demon had poured into my head like water into an empty cup, and I reached simultaneously toward the Omegas back at Valcourt, the ones still carrying my marks, drawing the sacrifice the spell required directly from their tethered lives.

The world went hazy around me.

I laughed as I felt it building, felt the change beginning to gather in the air like static before lightning, and I watched with vicious satisfaction as the marked Omegas back in Valcourt began to drop, one after another, their life force feeding directly into the working taking shape beneath my feet.

Then it stopped.

Just like that. Cut off mid breath as the hazy shimmer of magic collapsed back into nothing, leaving me standing there stunned and empty handed.

I turned to Grigori.

"Did I get it wrong?" I demanded, already crouching to check the runes, tracing each line with a shaking finger. They matched. Exactly what the primordial had burned into my memory, stroke for stroke.

Grigori’s expression had gone carefully blank.

"What?" I demanded. "Say something."

"The laws of karmic destiny rejected the sacrifice," he said quietly.

"What does that even mean?"

He glanced toward the entrance instead of answering right away, his jaw tightening.

"It seems we have company," he said.

"We have a fucking shield outside," I snapped. "Focus on this. Tell me what it means, Grigori. Now."

He exhaled slowly.

"Everything in life requires exchange," he said. "Often the exchange has to be equivalent. Matched in weight. The random lives of Omegas back at Valcourt are not enough as they are people who mean nothing to this working specifically, they aren’t sufficient sacrifice for something this large and they do not even matter to you. If you want this badly enough, you have to give something the unversl laws determine to be of equal value."

"And what exactly would that be?" I said, my voice climbing. "I didn’t sacrifice just two of them. It was four. Four Omegas. Years of resources, loyalty, marks I spent months cultivating, and none of it was enough?"

"Perhaps you should find a different way to get what you want," he said carefully.

"No." I said it flat and final, with no room in it for argument. "This is the only way. So tell me. What can I sacrifice that actually counts?"

Grigori went quiet for a long moment, his eyes fixed on mine with an expression I didn’t have time to properly name.

"Me," he said.