Claimed by the scarred Alpha

ÉTIENNE

The logic made sense on the surface. It followed a certain kind of reasoning that I might have even agreed with if I hadn’t felt what I’d felt through the bond. A bond that Séverine did not even know existed. That terror had been real. Real and primal. The kind of fear that couldn’t be faked even by the best actress.

But doubt crept in anyway.

She was a Beaumont. They’d built their reputation on lies and manipulation. Her own father had orchestrated my father’s execution for reasons I still did not have the full picture of. Her uncle had sold me to monsters. Her mother had probably known exactly what was happening and done nothing to stop it.

Why would Margaux be any different? She had already hurt me before and lived good and fine years after.

My hands curled into fists against my thighs. The word formed in my mind before I could stop it. Lying bitch. It sat there, ugly and vicious, begging to be spoken aloud.

I swallowed it down.

"Well, she didn’t gather any sympathy from me." The words came out harsh enough to satisfy whatever darkness lived in my chest. "I can’t believe that she would..."

I stopped.

I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t say the vile things I was thinking about because speaking them aloud would make them real in a way I wasn’t prepared to deal with.

"She’s awake now." I stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. "So let me hear it from her directly."

"Wait."

Laurent’s voice stopped me halfway to the door. I turned back to find him leaning close to the laptop screen, his eyes narrowed at something I’d missed.

"I noticed something."

Séverine and I moved back to the desk. I leaned over Laurent’s shoulder while he rewound the footage to just before Margaux entered the bathroom.

"Watch the camera." His finger traced a path on the screen. "Right here."

I stared at the image. At first, I saw nothing unusual. Just the static angle I’d watched for the past twenty minutes. Then Laurent slowed the playback to quarter speed.

The camera moved.

It was subtle. So subtle I would have missed it entirely if he hadn’t pointed it out. The angle shifted maybe half an inch to the right. Just enough that the view of the bathroom entrance became slightly more obscured. Just enough that someone paying casual attention wouldn’t notice anything had changed.

"What the fuck."

The words escaped before I could stop them. I grabbed the laptop and pulled it closer, replaying that section three more times to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.

No. The camera definitely moved. Someone or something had adjusted it deliberately to hide what was happening in the bathroom.

"Does that mean someone was indeed there?" Séverine’s voice had lost its earlier certainty. She sounded smaller now. Uncertain too.

A knock at the door interrupted before I could answer.

"Come in."

An Omega entered. Young, maybe early twenties, with the kind of nervous energy that suggested she’d rather be literally anywhere else. She clutched a manila folder against her chest like it might protect her from whatever she thought waited in this room.

"What?" The question came out sharper than intended.

She flinched but stepped forward anyway. Her hands trembled as she held out the folder.

"The head healer said you asked for this."

I took it from her. The label read "Margaux Beaumont - Medical Assessment." My eyes went to the Omega’s face.

"What was found? Did they get DNA?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, Alpha. But the head healer believed this would still be of help."

I dismissed her with a wave. She practically fled the room, pulling the door shut behind her with enough force that it rattled in the frame.

The folder felt heavier than it should have as I opened it. Medical jargon filled the first page. Technical terms and abbreviations I’d need a dictionary to fully parse. But certain phrases jumped out anyway, highlighted in yellow for emphasis.

"No foreign DNA detected on the victim’s skin or clothing."

"No true and definitive signs of physical struggle or defensive wounds."

"Water aspiration consistent with drowning, but cause of submersion undetermined."

I flipped to the next page. There was more technical language and more careful documentation of her believed injuries that told me nothing useful about who or what had caused them.

Then I reached the head healer’s personal assessment.

The words were carefully chosen. Clinical and professional in their delivery. But the implication underneath them hit like a punch to the gut.

"Patient presented with symptoms consistent with acute psychological distress. Given recent traumatic events, self-harm and ideation cannot be ruled out as a causative factor. Recommend psychological evaluation and supervised monitoring."

Self-harm. He thought she’d tried to drown herself?

My jaw clenched hard enough that my teeth ached. I kept reading.

"Blood work revealed an interesting anomaly in genetic markers. Patient registered as pure Luna bloodline, but testing shows recessive Omega disposition. Recommend [Silverveil Root] instead of [Moonpetal Extract] for calming treatments, given Omega sensitivity to the latter. Patient may also benefit from [Starwort Tea] for anxiety management."

I stopped reading.

Recessive Omega disposition.

The words sat there on the page, innocuous and clinical. Just another medical notation in a file full of them. But my mind had snagged on them like cloth on a nail, unable to move past what they implied.

Margaux came from a mostly pure Luna bloodline. Everyone knew that. The Beaumont family kept meticulous records going back generations. They took pride in their heritage. In the fact that they’d never diluted their blood with anything less than Alpha or Luna stock. And even with Margaux’s mother... She had been a Gamma.

Except apparently they had.

Somewhere in her ancestry, someone had lied. Someone had hidden the truth about Omega blood mixing into that supposedly perfect lineage. And now it showed up in Margaux’s genetic markers like a secret that couldn’t stay buried.

My brows furrowed as I read the line again. Then a third time.

It didn’t make sense. Omega recessive genes didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They could only come from Omega parents or grandparents. From bloodlines that Margaux’s family would have considered beneath them.

"What does it say?" Séverine’s voice cut through my thoughts.

I closed the folder before she could lean over and read it herself. Whatever this information meant, I needed time to process it before sharing it with anyone else.

"Nothing useful." The lie came easily. Too easily. "Just medical observations and recommended treatments."

Laurent’s eyes found mine. He knew I was lying. I could see it in the way his expression shifted, becoming more guarded. But he didn’t call me out in front of Séverine.

"So what now?" Séverine stood and moved closer to me. "Do you still think someone tried to kill her?"

I looked back at the laptop screen. At the frozen image of the camera angle shifting just slightly to the right. At the empty bedroom that somehow felt full of invisible threats.

"Yes." The word came out certain despite the doubt trying to creep in around the edges. "Someone was there. They just knew how to avoid being seen."

"Then we need to increase security." Laurent was already pulling out his phone. "Double the guards on your quarters. Maybe station someone inside the room itself."

"No." The response was immediate and absolute. "No guards inside."

Both of them looked at me with varying degrees of confusion.

"If someone is targeting her, they’ll just wait for a better opportunity." I set the folder down on the desk and tried to organize my thoughts into something coherent. "We need to figure out who and why before we can protect against it effectively."

"In the meantime, she’s just supposed to be vulnerable?" Séverine’s voice carried an edge I couldn’t quite identify. "That seems risky."

"She’ll stay where I can keep an eye on her." The decision formed as I spoke it aloud. "If it is indeed a rogue that has infiltrated, they will try again. They have been conditioned not to care about their lives anyway as long as they get the job done. So for the time being, she will not be out of my sight."

Laurent nodded slowly. "That could work. At least until we know more."

Séverine said nothing. She just watched me with an expression I couldn’t read.

I knew she hated the idea and the thought of me spending more time with Margaux killed her but she tamed her tongue. My grilling would come later.

I picked up the medical folder again and tucked it under my arm. The information about Margaux’s bloodline burned in my mind like a brand. Questions I didn’t have answers for yet piled up one after another.

Had she known about the Omega genes? Did her family know? Was this something they’d hidden deliberately or had it been lost in generations of careful record keeping designed to obscure anything less than perfect?

If it was something Beaumont could not be honest about? Then my father’s case which I was still trying to get my hands on might not even serve me.

"I’m going to see her." I moved toward the door. "Find out what she remembers about tonight."

"Do you want company?" Séverine took a step forward.

"No." The word came out harder than intended. I softened it with something that might have passed for a smile. "I need to handle this alone."

She accepted the dismissal with a nod, though something flickered across her face that looked almost like hurt.

Laurent followed me into the hallway, pulling the study door closed behind us. We walked in silence for several paces before he spoke.

"So what was in the file?"

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