Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

"What happened?" The words came out faster than I could measure them, my legs already eating the distance down the corridor.

"She was found on the floor." Laurent kept pace beside me, his voice clipped with the effort of running and talking at once. "Bleeding. Unconscious. One of the morning staff found her on a routine pass."

"Found where?"

"We should head to the infirmary first. We can go to the location after."

I tore down the corridor, refusing to let anything slow me down.

The infirmary doors were already open when I reached them, and I could see the head healer and two assistants gathered tight around a cot, their movements fast and coordinated in the specific rhythm of people working against a clock they did not control. I shoved past an Omega helper carrying a tray of supplies without breaking stride and got close enough to see her.

The sight hit me like a wall, freezing me in place.

Séverine’s hair was matted dark at one temple, blood dried into it in a way that suggested it had been pouring freely at some point before someone finally stopped it.

Her left hand sat bent at an angle no hand should ever bend, fingers twisted unnaturally where bone had clearly broken through more than once.

Her leg beneath the thin blanket carried the same wrongness, its shape not lining up with how legs were supposed to lie.

It looked like what had happened to Margaux.

Worse, actually.

Margaux had nearly drowned once and had been battered to a pulp the second time, and the damage had been just as brutal.

But this...

This was deliberate.

Visible in every detail.

Bruising spread dark and deep across her throat, not random, not the result of a fight.

Hands had done that.

Someone had wrapped their fingers around her neck and squeezed until blood vessels burst beneath the skin.

That same someone had kept going.

A sting flared behind my eyes.

I did not bother fighting it.

The room had gone strangely quiet.

Not actually quiet.

People were moving.

Tools clinked.

Someone was speaking somewhere behind me.

But the healers and the assistants around her had that particular stiffness of people working beside a live explosive.

The head healer noticed me and crossed quickly, putting himself between me and the cot with the careful authority of someone who had learned exactly how much space a panicking Alpha needed.

"She will be fine," he said, low and direct. "It is severe. I will not pretend otherwise. But her healing factor is exceptional, and it is already doing considerable work. We caught the bleeding in time."

Caught the bleeding in time.

Not before it started.

Not before she lost it.

In time.

"I need to be here."

"You need to let us work." His voice did not waver. "Every second you stand in this room, frightening the staff or arguing with me about it is a second we are not using to stabilize her properly."

I stood there for one more breath.

Looking past him.

At Séverine.

At her ruined hand.

At the bruises around her throat.

The way her chest barely seemed to move beneath the blanket.

Then I looked around the room.

Every healer and their assistant avoided my eyes.

One of them was visibly shaking.

Not because of Séverine but because of me.

It was like they were expecting the moment when my grief would turn into anger, watching for the moment the Alpha stopped being reasonable, and they became the nearest target.

And that was somehow worse.

Laurent’s hand closed around my arm.

This time, I let him pull me back through the door.

Stepping into the corridor, I found the brightness harsh and unreal after the chaos inside.

"Are you alright?" Laurent asked.

I did not answer immediately.

"Is it the magic practitioner again?" I kept his voice low. "Did they go for Séverine because I shifted resources toward protecting Margaux instead?"

"I do not know."

"Where was she found exactly?"

"I can take you there."

He led the way, and I followed, my mind moving faster than my feet, cycling through every version of how this could have happened and landing on none of them cleanly. We reached the corridor outside her room and found two Omegas already on their knees, scrubbing dark stains from the stone floor, their movements quick and quiet.

"This is where she was found," Laurent said. "But the state of her room suggests the struggle started inside and moved out here."

I looked at the blood on the floor. At the door to her room, standing slightly open, not too far from where .

"I should have been there," I said.

The confession slipped out before I could stop it.

"This is my fault." I looked at the stained stone. "She could have died in there while I was... While I was..."

Could I even say it? While I was having several breakdowns of where my head and my heart were at.

"It is not your fault." Laurent’s voice carried none of the diplomatic softness he usually used with me. This was flat and certain. "The warlock attacked Margaux twice. You made the only logical choice available to you with the information you had."

I said nothing.

"This came out of nowhere," he continued. "And it is strange, Étienne. Think about it. Whoever this is has had ample opportunity to kill Margaux outright. Twice over, if we are being honest about how those attacks went. And now they have had the same opportunity with Séverine and left her alive as well." He frowned, working through it as he spoke. "These attacks read like a taunt. Not an assassination attempt. Which brings about the question again, what exactly is the plan here?"

I swept my gaze slowly around the corridor. My thoughts were everywhere. Partly because I still believed this was the work of someone who did not like a false son sitting so close to power.

Then my eyes caught on the small black shape mounted near the ceiling at the far end, its lens angled directly down the length of the hallway.

"Want to bet," I said, "that she ran for her life believing she might not survive, and some part of her still thought to put herself in front of a camera. Evidence, in case the worst happened."

Laurent’s head turned toward it immediately.

"Fuck." He stared at the camera as if it had personally insulted him. "How did I miss that?"

"You were focused on saving her life."

"I will pull the feed." He was already moving, his pace quick and purposeful. "If there is anything on it, we will see exactly what happened to her."

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