Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

In my wolf form, everything sharpened at once. The stench of blood, the metallic tang of magic burning through the air, the frantic heartbeats of the people fighting beside me.

Ophelia and Arania tore into the demon together. The fae’s sharp bursts of light struck in quick succession, while the whisperer answered with eruptions of gold, the same strange radiance I had seen bloom from Margaux’s hands once now. Each blast carved into the demon’s unnatural flesh, leaving visible wounds on something that for a short while did not feel like it would have been touchable in the first place.

Still, it held.

The demon absorbed hit after hit, staggering but never falling, and I understood I didn’t have the luxury of joining that fight directly. Not when Margaux stood off to one side, watching all of it unfold with an amusement that made something in my chest crack straight down the middle.

I used the opening.

I ran straight past the demon while it was distracted, every step carrying me closer to her.

The instant she realized what I was doing, her hand snapped toward me.

A storm of shattered glass exploded through the air.

I dropped low, twisting beneath the first wave as shards screamed past my head. One grazed my flank, hot and sharp enough to sting, but I barely registered it before the next volley came.

She was already preparing to strike again.

I didn’t give her the chance.

I drove forward with everything I had and slammed into her before she could reset, the impact knocking the breath from both of us as we crashed together.

She went down hard.

Apparently, she considered that more offensive than painful.

The instant her back struck the floor, something invisible seized me and ripped me off my paws. I shot upward before I could even brace, then crashed through the ceiling tiles in a shower of dust and splintered debris. My body struck the roof with enough force to rattle every bone in me before gravity finally remembered I existed.

I came down hard.

My wolf wasn’t going to win this by throwing itself at her again. Not against someone who could toss me around like I weighed nothing, barely moving a finger while my body obeyed forces I couldn’t see.

So the moment my feet hit the floor, I shifted.

Fur gave way to skin. Claws became fingers. Instinct gave way to something more deliberate.

I needed hands.

I needed words.

I needed to reach whatever part of her was still capable of listening, before she decided the easiest way to stop me was to put me through the ceiling again or glass into my heart.

We circled each other slowly.

"Stop," she said. "Just leave, Étienne."

"I can’t leave you."

"Why?" Her voice carried something sharp and mocking now, nothing like the woman I knew underneath it. "Because you love me?"

"Yes."

"That’s the mate bond talking," she said. "Nothing more than biology dressed up as feeling. We could actually help each other right now, if you’d just let go of it the way I already have." She tilted her head, almost gentle in the cruelty of it. "I don’t mind doing you that kindness, Rejecting you. One last favor between us. After everything the Beaumonts did to your family, what world could we possibly build together where either of us gets to be happy?"

"That’s a damn lie," I said. "We were already getting there. Finding our own version of happiness, without resentment poisoning every part of it."

"You’re such a fool," she said. "Do you even know your mother and your brother are trapped in that thing’s belly right now? I know that now and I also know it has to be because of you. Because of how weak you let yourself become. But the most fun part, they didn’t die because of some big sin like what was peddled. They died because of my mother. Well... She is not actually my mother. She is actually my aunt. Pretending to my mom and your family just happened to find out. So they had to go."

Hearing that was insane but I had to focus on her. I shook my head instead.

"This isn’t you," I said. "I know it isn’t. Whatever it did to you, whatever it stole, there’s no way you’re entirely gone."

"I don’t want to fight this," she said. "I like who I am right now."

"You should hate it."

"It feels incredible, Étienne." Her voice softened into something almost pleading, like she genuinely wanted me to understand. "You should try it."

"If that’s how it has to be," I said, "then I’ll take you out of here unconscious if that’s what it takes to fix you. I don’t care how."

"Is that a threat?" she said. "How disappointing."

She lifted one hand.

The air around her seemed to tighten.

With a flick of her fingers, the debris behind her tore free. Shards of glass, twisted metal, broken shelves, anything loose enough to move, all of it ripped into the air and fused into a vicious cluster of makeshift spears. They turned toward me as one, their jagged points aligning with such precise, deliberate control that my stomach clenched.

Then she released them.

I charged.

I shifted mid-stride, human skin rippling into fur before snapping back again, my body changing just enough to throw off the trajectories. Glass screamed past my face. Metal punched into the floor beside me. I twisted beneath another spear, only for the next one to catch me clean through the side.

Pain detonated through my body.

The metal drove deep. I felt it grind against something inside me, hot and sickening, but I refused to slow.

Not now.

I kept moving.

Three steps.

Two.

One.

I threw myself into her with everything I had left.

The impact knocked us both backward. Her body slammed into the shelving with a violent crash, and I went down with her, landing hard on top of her. Before she could recover, I drove my weight into her and pinned her against the wreckage, one hand locking around her wrist while I fought through the agony tearing across my side.

She had thrown me through a ceiling.

She had put a spear through me.

But I was still here.

And now she was underneath me.

For one brief, reckless moment, I thought I had her.

Then she fought back.

The pressure against my body vanished so suddenly I nearly pitched forward, only to be caught by something invisible that wrenched me sideways. My shoulder struck the floor. Before I could recover, another unseen force slammed into my ribs, then another caught my wrist and peeled my fingers from hers one by one.

She twisted beneath me, not with the frantic strength of someone trying to escape, but with the vicious precision of someone who knew exactly how much force it would take to break my hold.

The floor cracked beneath my elbow.

My grip slipped.

She drove her knee into my stomach, and the breath tore out of me. I staggered backward, and that was all the opening she needed. Something seized me by the chest and hurled me across the room.

I hit the floor on my back.

Before I could rise, she was on me.

Her weight crushed down against my chest, her hands braced against my shoulders as she forced me flat. Blood poured from the wound in my side, hot and relentless, soaking into the ground and making every breath feel like a blade dragging through my ribs.

I bucked beneath her but she slammed me back down.

Even when I tried to turn, an invisible pressure locked my shoulder to the floor.

I reached for her wrist, only for her to knock my hand aside.

For a few seconds, it felt like every advantage I had gained was being stripped away piece by piece.

Then I saw the opening.

I twisted hard, caught her balance, and drove upward with everything my battered body had left. She lost her footing for half a heartbeat.

That was enough.

I rolled us over, caught her arm, and forced her down beneath me again. This time I didn’t give her room to twist free. I hooked one arm across her body, drove my weight into her, and locked my other hand around the back of her neck.

She struggled.

I tightened my grip.

Her fingers clawed at my arm. The air around us trembled with the effort of her power, loose shards of glass lifting from the floor before dropping again when she failed to find the focus to use them.

I had her.

Properly this time.

My palm pressed against the back of her neck and the thought of what needed to be done burned clean.

I had to break her neck and force her unconscious. She would survive.

But right when I was supposed to do it, I hesitated.

Just for a second.

Just long enough to remember every version of her that had existed before tonight.

"See," she said, breathless beneath me, something triumphant twisting her voice. "Thank the goddess I don’t have that weak shit in me anymore. Because now I get to do this."

Glass rained down across my back in a sudden, brutal wave, tearing through skin and muscle, and her new found powers threw me off her entirely, my body sailing across the room until I slammed into a corner hard enough to see stars.

She rose slowly, picking up one of the metal spears from the wreckage around her with her mind.

"It was nice knowing you, Étienne," she said.

She did not waste a second more as she drove it toward my chest, aiming it exactly where my heart sat beneath torn skin and cracked ribs.

I braced for it.

But it never landed.

The spear stopped a hair’s breadth from piercing through, trembling there in her grip, and I watched something flicker across her face, confusion bleeding through whatever cold mask currently wore her features. She pushed against it, over and over, her whole body straining with the effort, and still it refused to finish the motion she’d started.

She couldn’t do it.

I laughed despite everything, blood coming up with the sound, coughing wet and red against my own lips.

"Seems like there’s still some weak shit in there after all," I said.

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