Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

I sat down next to what remained of Kayden’s head, the adrenaline that had carried me through the chase finally draining out of me all at once, leaving something hollow and exhausted in its place.

From where I sat, I could see the trafficking house burning in the distance, smoke curling black against the night sky, flames licking up through what used to be a roof. Screaming carried faintly on the wind, though I couldn’t tell anymore whether it was relief or panic behind it, whether it belonged to the people we’d freed or the people who’d profited off them.

It didn’t make me feel any better.

I stared at the ground in front of me and let my mind drift toward the choice actually waiting for me back at Valcourt.

Dying.

I turned the word over in my head like it belonged to someone else’s life, not mine. Sure, I would still get to be near Margaux, in whatever form, death and magic allowed for. I would still, technically, be by her side.

But would she ever forgive me for it?

I thought about the shape of that particular cruelty, tying her to a dead version of myself for the rest of her life because I’d made a unilateral choice to sacrifice myself without ever giving her the chance to weigh in. If our positions were reversed, if she had done this to me, made this decision alone and left me bound to her ghost until the day I died, I honestly didn’t know if I could forgive her for it.

I’d held grudges before. Long, ugly ones, over far smaller things than this.

How could I possibly expect her to do differently?

Twigs snapped somewhere behind me.

I was on my feet before I’d fully processed the sound, my body coiled to attack, and I only relaxed when I recognized Laurent’s silhouette moving through the trees toward me, blood that wasn’t his own streaked across one side of his face.

"We got it done," he said, closing the distance. "The place is burning and there are not many casualties on our end. Most of the victims were gotten out."

He pulled something from under his arm and unwrapped it, a blanket, and draped it around my shoulders without asking whether I wanted it.

His eyes landed on the head lying a few feet away.

"Do you feel better now?" he asked.

I dropped back down onto the ground, the blanket settling loosely around me.

"No," I said. "Not really."

"I figured as much."

He sat down beside me, close enough that our shoulders nearly touched, and for a moment neither of us said anything at all, we just watched the distant glow of fire against the dark.

"Do you want to talk about it now?" he asked finally.

"Not really," I said. "You’ll try to talk me out of it. But it won’t matter. My mind is already made up."

Laurent exhaled slowly.

"That tells me this has something to do with Margaux," he said.

I didn’t answer right away, but the silence was answer enough, so I finally told him everything. About what the fae had told me. The harvester’s knife. The way superior spirits could be born out of violent, obsession-fueled deaths on certain grounds, strong enough to override a demon’s claim on someone if the person doing it carried enough connection to the one they were trying to save.

Laurent’s face went through several stages of horror while I talked, each one worse than the last.

"The fae mentioned something like this," he said, "back when we first went to see Ophelia. It sounded okay then. But this... This sounds so much worse."

"It’s the only option she gave me."

"Étienne." He turned to face me fully now, his voice tightening with something close to desperation. "You cannot be serious about this."

"I am."

"There has to be another way," he said. "There is always another way. We haven’t even exhausted every option yet. We could... I don’t know... Find another spirit willing to make a deal despite it all. Anything is possible. But it has to be something, anything, that doesn’t involve you dying."

"You heard the same thing I heard," I said. "Margaux is not capable of consenting to anything right now. Every option that requires her participation is off the table entirely, and every day we wait, that demon gets closer to finding his way loose from whatever cage Arania managed to build for him. We will not have hold over him forever. I cannot lose her again. I already lost her once tonight. I refuse to lose her permanently because I sat around hoping for a better option that never comes."

"What about her?" Laurent said, his voice cracking now. "Wouldn’t she lose you instead? Doesn’t that count for something in whatever calculation you’re running in your head right now?"

"In some sense," I admitted. "But with what I become, and with her gifts, I’ll still be with her. Somehow. Till the end of time, in whatever form that ends up taking. In a strange way, it’s almost a win for both of us."

"She will still grieve you," Laurent said. "That’s not nothing, Étienne. That’s not some small footnote you get to skip past because the ending technically works out."

I thought about my brother when he said that. Yann and my mother were also a reason for the choice I was now making. The thought of them being trapped in that things belly for years sickened me to the very soul.

"I had a last conversation with Theodore," Laurent said quietly. "Years after his suicide. That’s a chance most people never get. And he told me to move on. To be happy. I still can’t fully do it, even now, even after everything that’s happened since." He looked over at me as he said the words. "I cannot imagine what it would actually feel like, knowing someone you loved died specifically to save you, knowing you’re intimately bound to them for the rest of your life because of that choice. The guilt alone would eat her alive. The anger, too, probably, some days more than others."

"And I say that as your Beta," Laurent continued, "and as your friend. I cannot imagine the torment that would put your mate through, day after day, for the rest of her life."

"If there was another way that didn’t cost this much," I said, "I would take it in a heartbeat. I would jump at it. But there isn’t one. Believe me, I’ve spent the last hour turning it over from every angle I can think of, looking for some version of this that doesn’t end with me handing her a lifetime of grief disguised as a rescue."

"It’s killing you," Laurent said. "I can see it doing that right now, sitting next to you."

"It is," I admitted. "We were just starting to actually be happy. Really happy, for the first time since any of this began. And now this." I shook my head slowly. "But we don’t get to choose our lot in this life. I’ve learned that lesson more times than I ever wanted to."

I looked over at him, at the blood on his face, at the years of loyalty sitting behind his eyes even now, even here, even after everything I’d just told him.

"In my short time here," I said, "I am glad it was you standing beside me through all of it. As my Beta. As my brother. I love you, man."

Laurent’s eyes filled instantly.

"Don’t," he said, his voice breaking.

"I’m sorry. But until it happens. You cannot tell the Alpha. Losing two sons would probably kill him."

"Don’t say that shit like it’s already decided. There’s still time. We can still figure something else out."

"Once we get back," I said, "I’m meeting the fae, and I’m finishing this."

"Étienne—"

"So no," I said quietly. "I don’t think there’s time left at all. I am glad we got to do this tonight and in some sense, it is not the end for me. I’m sure we’ll talk again."

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