Claimed by the scarred Alpha

SÉVERINE

I stormed into my room and hurled the door shut so violently that every picture frame on the wall trembled in its wake.

"It is falling apart." My voice came out raw, the words tearing free before I had fully decided to say them. "Everything. The plan, the timing, all of it. The healer is going to find something in that DNA, and when he does, this entire estate is going to know exactly what I did to myself in that hallway."

My familiar materialized by the window, his human shape coalescing as his face settled into a mask of cautious reassurance.

"Séverine—"

He used my name, and I understood exactly what that signaled.

"You told me this would not come back on us." I rounded on him, my voice climbing. "You promised me, you sat right there in this fucking room and told me your hands could not be traced when I asked you if anything could be gotten from what Margaux got off yo. You said that demon residue does not register the way mortal DNA does. And now there is a profile sitting in a lab somewhere with my fiancé’s healer poking through it like it is a puzzle he intends to solve before breakfast."

"How is it even possible?"

"A familiar and its mistress are bound in more ways than most realize. In some sense, you could say we are almost conjoined."

"Fuck!!!"

"I swear I did not know they would isolate the profile that cleanly." He took a step toward me, his hands raised slightly, the gesture meant to be soothing and landing instead as condescending. "The technology in this time is more advanced than I accounted for. That is a fair criticism, but Séverine, listen to me—"

"It changes nothing that you did not know!" I screamed it, the sound tearing at my own throat, loud enough that I had to hope the walls in this estate were thicker than they looked. "You are supposed to be the one who thinks three steps ahead. That is your entire purpose. That is the one thing I actually need from you, and you handed me confidence instead of certainty."

"I was simply obliging your request." His voice stayed level despite the volume of mine, which somehow made it worse. "You wanted the cameras. You wanted the spectacle. I executed exactly what you asked of me."

"Fuck that and fuck you! You did not have to get so close to her. That is why she saw you, why she touched you, and now your fucking DNA is with the healers."

"I was only watching. Maybe I was even bracing for the moment you’d finally order me to hurt her for good. It would have happened anyway. The same outcome. Because I am bound to your schemes."

"Oh please, that has never stopped you before." I stepped closer, jabbing a finger toward his chest even though it passed through nothing solid. "You knock me unconscious the moment you decide I am being reckless. You override me whenever you feel like it, whenever you have decided I am being stupid enough to need managing. So do not stand there and pretend you simply followed orders tonight like some obedient little errand boy."

"Those moments were different."

"How? How exactly were they different?"

"Because in those moments, the danger was immediate and the outcome was reversible." He held my gaze steadily. "Tonight you asked me to execute a plan with consequences that could not be undone once the cameras started recording. I gave you what you asked for because you insisted, repeatedly, that this was the only path forward."

"So you admit you had concerns."

"I had concerns."

"And you did not voice them strongly enough." I crossed my arms. "Admit that much, at least. Admit you have fault in this too."

He was quiet for a moment, his expression unreadable in the way it sometimes became when he was choosing his next words with unusual care.

"I have fault in this," he said finally. "I should have pushed back harder when you proposed using Prim instead of finding another method. I should have insisted on more time to plan around the medical capabilities of this estate before agreeing to anything irreversible."

"Finally."

"I am trying to help you fix it now."

"Leave." I pointed at the door, my hand shaking with the force of how badly I wanted to throw something. "Get out of my sight and go make sure that healer does not figure out what he is actually looking at. That is the only thing I want from you right now."

He flickered, his form thinning at the edges, his expression carrying something that almost looked like hurt.

"Now," I said.

He vanished.

I collapsed onto the edge of my bed, pressing my hands to my face as my breath raced, shallow and frantic. I had built every piece of this with painstaking care. The staged attack. The footage. The story I had crafted with such precision and sacrifice. Now, one overzealous healer with too much curiosity was tugging at the threads I had bled—truly bled—to weave together.

If this unraveled, Étienne would never look at me the same. All the affection I had spent years nurturing would vanish. He would see me as you see something that tried to poison you slowly and was caught in the act.

A presence shifted at the corner of my vision.

My familiar had returned, this time forming near the door instead of the window, his posture altered, his presence quieter than ever.

"I am sorry I could not be more useful to you, Mistress."

"Why are you even back?" I did not look up, my voice still raw from screaming. "You should be watching that healer. Making sure he does not connect anything before I figure out my next move."

"He has not found anything conclusive yet." He moved closer, his voice softer than I expected, almost contemplative, the tone he rarely used with me even in our calmest moments. "But something occurred to me while I was watching him work over that sample."

I lifted my head slightly, my eyes narrowing.

"If you desire Étienne this badly," he continued, choosing each word with a care that set something faintly wrong twisting in my stomach, "and the risk of exposure only continues to grow the longer this drags out, why not simply pursue a destiny swap instead?"

I went still.

The suggestion struck from an unexpected angle, curiosity flickering even as anger still smoldered inside me. A destiny swap?

Yet it was the timing, more than the idea itself, that unsettled me.

He had never once mentioned this option before. Not in all the days I had spent agonizing over the bond between Étienne and Margaux, searching every angle, every loophole, every desperate possibility. And now, after failing me today, after the plan he assured me was going to be foolproof with his help had started cracking at the seams, he produces exactly the kind of idea that would make me forgive him instantly.

It was far too convenient.

It was the kind of offer a creature makes when it is desperate to claw back favor it has just squandered.

"You want forgiveness," I said slowly, studying his face with more scrutiny than I had given him in months. "That is what this actually is. You feel guilty about today, and you think handing me something shiny and new will make me forget you nearly cost me everything."

"That is not what this is."

"I am not giving you that grace." I stood, crossing my arms, putting real distance between us. "Not now. Go focus on the actual crisis sitting in front of us right now. I do not want to hear theoretical magic while my entire plan threatens to collapse because of something you should have anticipated."

He held my gaze for a long moment, something flickering behind his eyes that I did not have time to name before he answered.

"As you wish."

He vanished again, without further argument, and the silence that followed his absence felt heavier than it should have.

I lingered alone in my room long after, unease prickling at the back of my neck. I told myself, again and again, that it was only exhaustion.

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