Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

"No," I said. "What letter?"

Isabelle’s hand trembled around the blade. "Do not worry about it then. I already told her everything I needed to in that letter," she said, though her voice had gone thinner now, less certain than it had been a moment ago.

"A letter isn’t a conversation," I said. "You know that better than anyone right now. You spent years hiding behind carefully chosen words rather than the truth. Don’t spend your last act doing the exact same thing."

Her arm wavered.

"If I don’t do this," she said, "you will. Won’t you? The fae as good as told me that already."

I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t.

Because the truth was sitting between us, impossible to deny. If Isabelle lowered that blade, I would be the one standing here in her place. I had already made that decision. I had already accepted what it would cost me.

Her eyes searched mine, and something like sorrow settled over her face.

"You see?" she murmured. "You don’t even have an answer."

"I don’t need one."

Her brows drew together. "Because whether I am willing to die for Margaux is my decision. Whether you are willing to die for her is yours." Her grip tightened around the blade. "And neither of us gets to make that choice for the other."

"That is not your decision to make," I told her.

"That’s not your decision to make either," she retorted. "It’s mine."

"It seems we’re at an impasse," she continued, "because I refuse to let you die for a mistake that started with my sister and me, generations before you were ever born into this mess."

"And I refuse to let Margaux wake up to a mother who threw herself away before either of them ever got a real chance to fix what’s broken between them."

We stared at each other across the length of that blade, two people equally determined to burn themselves down for the same girl, and for a long, silent moment, neither of us moved.

I moved before I fully decided to.

I lunged for the blade, my hand closing around the hilt right below hers, and she didn’t let go, didn’t even flinch back, just gripped it harder and tried to wrench it toward her own chest instead.

"Let go," I said.

"You let go."

We grappled for it, both of us refusing to yield, the point of the blade swinging wildly between us as we each tried to angle it back toward our own heart instead of the other’s. She was stronger than she looked, desperation lending her a grip that nearly matched mine, and for one absurd, horrifying second I actually thought we might both end up impaled on the same blade at once, some grotesque split decision neither of us intended.

Light exploded around us, sharp and sudden, and the blade tore free from both our hands, spinning through the air before it clattered onto the ground between our feet.

Arania hovered above it, her small hand still glowing from whatever spell she’d just thrown.

"Enough," she yelled. "Both of you. This ritual requires your obsession. So you have to stay focused and undiluted. Fighting each other over who gets to die first corrupts the entire working. You will ruin it for both of you if you keep this up."

I stood there breathing hard, staring at Isabelle across the small distance now separating us, the blade lying untouched on the ground between our feet like something neither of us was allowed to reach for yet.

"I have lived a good life," Isabelle said quietly, her chest still heaving. "Longer than I probably deserved, given everything I’ve done. You have not, Étienne. You do not deserve to keep suffering for the Beaumonts just because you happened to fall in love with one of them."

"This is my sacrifice," she continued. "Maybe that’s what makes it so hard. Maybe I’m still scared, even now, even with the end sitting right in front of me. And maybe some selfish part of me wants to do this because I want my daughter to remember me with something closer to compassion than hatred when she wakes up."

Her voice cracked.

"I’ve thought of every reason I should do it. I’ve told myself this is what Margaux needs. That this is the one thing I can give her that would actually mean something."

Her eyes dropped to the blade.

"But even with all of that laid bare, I still can’t finish it."

Her fingers trembled.

"I can’t drive it in."

She swallowed, and when she looked at me again, there was something unbearably naked in her expression.

"I don’t have the strength, Étienne."

A shaky breath escaped her.

"Maybe I never did. Perhaps that’s what I’ve been trying to hide all this time. I’ve always been afraid. Always looking for someone else to blame, someone else to protect me, someone else to make the decisions I was too frightened to make myself."

Her voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"I am so weak, Étienne."

She closed her eyes.

"I have always been so weak."

She reached down and picked the blade back up off the ground, turning it toward herself once more, her hand shaking visibly now.

"With everything I have put your family through," she said, "you should hate me. You should want this."

She then held the blade out toward me instead of herself.

"Can you channel that hate?" she said. "Take it and finish this for both our sakes. For me. For Margaux. Please."

She stretched her arms toward me, the blade balanced across her open palms, offering it up like something sacred.

"You’re insane," I said.

I didn’t move.

I stood there, staring at the blade, waiting for the same fury that had carried me through Kayden’s execution not two hours ago to surface, waiting for the image of everything she’d confessed tonight, my family burning, my brother and mother’s afterdeath situation, years of lies, to translate itself into the same clean, uncomplicated rage that had let me tear a man’s head off without hesitation.

It didn’t come.

I stood there, arms hanging useless at my sides, and I could not understand why. I had wanted to put her head in a box myself only a few daysvearlier. I had meant every word of that threat. So why did my hands refuse to move now, when she was practically begging me to finish what I’d already sworn to do?

"Take it," she said again, softer this time.

I felt the hate drain out of me like water through cracked stone, and in its place something far worse settled in. Grief... Pity... An understanding I hadn’t wanted, that whatever she’d done, she had spent every day since paying for it in a currency I hadn’t fully appreciated until tonight.

My hand moved toward the blade anyway.

Tears blurred my vision as my fingers closed around the hilt, hers still resting beneath mine, both of us holding it together now instead of fighting over it.

"I’m sorry," I said, my voice breaking apart around the words.

"No," Isabelle said, her own eyes overflowing now, tears streaking freely down her face. "I am sorry, Étienne. For everything."

She closed her hand over mine and pulled.

The blade sank deep into her chest, and the grove around us detonated into color, hundreds of shades tearing through the dark all at once, gold and blue and black threads unraveling into the light like something ancient finally being set free and they all tore into Isabelle.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!