Claimed by the scarred Alpha

MARGAUX

My mother found me on the bathroom floor with my knees pulled to my chest and my back against the tub, and she did not ask what was wrong. She already knew. The whole pack knew by then. Étienne’s father had been dragged out of the Archambault estate in front of the entire household staff, and by the time the sun set, every wolf within fifty miles had heard the word spy passed from mouth to mouth like it was the only word anyone remembered how to say.

"Get up," she said. "You’re going to ruin your dress sitting like that."

"I don’t care about the dress." My voice came out wrecked, scraped raw from an hour of crying into a towel so the staff wouldn’t hear me through the door. "Mum, it’s not true. It can’t be true."

She crouched down in front of me, the silk of her skirt pooling against the tile, and for one stupid second I thought she was going to hold me. She used to do that when I was small, back before I understood that comfort from my mother always came with a price tag stapled to it.

"It’s true," she said. "Beta Archambault sold our pack movements, plans and worse to the enemy factions and packs for more than three years. That is what the case is built on anyway. Not it has probably been going on for a long time. Your father has undeniable proof. There is no room left for it not to be true, Margaux."

I shook my head so hard my hair caught on my wet cheeks. "He wouldn’t. Étienne wouldn’t—his father wouldn’t do that to us, to father, he’s loved this pack his whole life, I’ve sat at their table a hundred times, I’ve seen how he looks at his Alpha when he—"

"This isn’t about how anyone looks at anyone." My mother’s voice cut clean through mine, flat and final, the way it got when she’d already decided something and was simply waiting for me to catch up. "This is about the fact that you are mated to the son of a traitor, and no one outside this room knows it yet."

That stopped me cold.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

She actually smiled. It was not a kind smile. But the one she wore when she was about to say something she’d clearly already rehearsed. "It’s the only good thing to come out of this whole disaster. Thank the Goddess we never announced the bond. I was going to tell your father when the time was right and we were going to unveil it at your debut, remember? A nice surprise for the shifter ball. Now no one has to know it ever happened at all."

"It happened, Mum. It’s still happening. I can feel him right now, I can feel that he’s terrified—"

"You can feel whatever you like in private. What matters is what the rest of the world sees." She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, gentle as anything, like she hadn’t just told me to erase the realest thing I’d ever felt. "And what needs to happen now is you rejecting him."

I actually laughed. It came out broken and ugly, nothing like a real laugh. "You’re joking."

"I have never been less interested in joking, chérie."

"I’m not rejecting him." I pushed up onto my knees, found my footing, stood on legs that didn’t feel like they belonged to me. "He hasn’t done anything. His mother hasn’t done anything. You want me to punish him for something his father did?"

"I do not want you involved with them in any way." My mother rose too, smoothing her skirt down with both hands, and when she looked at me there was something almost like pity in her face, which was somehow worse than anger would have been. "Do you understand what a trial like this does to a family, Margaux? When a patriarch falls, the rest of his family crumbles with him. So know that the Archambaults are going to fight this with everything they have left. Every card, every favor, every old debt anyone in this pack owes them. And you," she said, stepping closer, "... The mate bond is sitting right there in the middle of it, just waiting for them to bite. They could use it. Goddess knows all it takes is some clever sentences to argue that the Archambault line should be shown mercy because they’re bonded into the Beaumont family. Into us."

"And the bond Étienne and I share will be used," I said slowly, hearing it land in my own mouth like a verdict. "Is that what you’re afraid of? If it spares him—"

"Think you stupid girl! Your father’s political enemies will bite hard on that! His own daughter mated to a secret enemy? What is to say she did not help him out?"

"Mom..."

"That’s what it means to be born into this family, Margaux. You don’t get the luxury of being dumb."

"I love him." I said it like it was armor. Like saying it out loud might make it bulletproof. "Mum, I love him."

She actually laughed at that. It was the cruelest sound I’d ever heard come out of her mouth. "You’re a child."

"That doesn’t mean it isn’t real."

"It means there will be other loves. There will always be more love coming for a girl like you, Margaux, I promise you that. There will not always be another chance to prove to your father that his daughter is worth exactly as much as a son." She tilted her head to sell it. "Don’t you want that? Don’t you want him to look at you the way he looks at men in this pack? The way he looks at your brothers who do hard, necessary things? This is your chance to show him."

I wanted to scream that I didn’t care what my father thought of me, that I had never once cared, but that would have been a lie and we both knew it. She’d found the one nail that always worked on me and she hammered it home without even raising her voice.

I nodded. Goddess help me, I nodded.

***

They’d put Étienne in a solitary holding cell, away from his mother, away from anyone who might have smuggled him comfort or a single kind word. I had a feeling it had been done because of what I needed to do.

He was sitting on the floor with his back against the stone when the guard let us close, and the second he saw me his whole body came alive in a way that broke my heart.

"Margo." He was up and at the bars in two steps, hands wrapped around the iron like he could bend it if he just wanted it badly enough. "Margo, thank the Goddess, I asked for an audience, I didn’t think they’d actually—" His eyes moved past me and found my mother in the doorway, and something in his face cracked open with relief. "Luna Vivianne. Thank you. Thank you for coming."

My mother didn’t answer him. She turned her face toward the wall like she couldn’t stand to look at what she’d followed me here for.

"Margo, you have to talk to your father." Étienne’s voice dropped low and fast, words tumbling over each other. "My father didn’t do this. I know how it looks, I know what they found, but he wouldn’t, he loves this pack, he’s bled for this pack, you know him, Margo—"

"I know," I said, and my voice came out so small I barely heard it myself.

"Then tell the Alpha that. Tell him I swear on the bond between us that my family is innocent." His eyes were wet and wild, scanning my face for something to hold onto. "Please. Both of you. Please just talk to him."

I realized then what I had said. So I corrected myself. "I mean... I do not know that."

His eyes widened and that was when he felt it.

I watched it happen across his face, the moment the bond carried something to him that words could never, some shift in my pulse or my scent or whatever it was mates felt through that invisible thread, and his hands went still on the bars.

"Margotine," His voice cracked clean in half on my name. "What are you saying?"

My mother stepped forward then, close enough that her shoulder brushed mine."Do it now, Margaux."

"What—? Luna Vivianne? You too?" Étienne’s eyes went from me to her and back again, disbelief curdling fast into horror. "Not you too. Margo, it’s me. It’s me, you know me, you know my mother raised you half your summers, you used to fall asleep on her lap during pack meetings—" He turned to my mother, both hands gripping the bars so hard his knuckles whitened. "Luna Vivianne. You know us. You’ve known us since before I could even shift."

My mother didn’t even look at him. "Do it now, Marguax."

I felt my mouth open before I’d decided to let it.

I had to protect myself. I had to ensure father’s political enemies had no ammunition against him.

"Étienne." His name came out steady, which surprised me, because nothing else in me was steady at all. "I... reject you, Étienne Archambault."

The words left me like something tearing loose from a wall it had been bolted to, and the second they hit the air, his whole body convulsed like he’d been struck. He went down hard, knees cracking against the stone floor, both hands flying to his chest like he could physically hold himself together if he just pressed hard enough.

"Margo—" His voice came out in a gasp, wrecked and small, nothing like the boy who used to race me down to his pool every summer. He reached one hand toward the bars, toward me, fingers trembling and useless. "Margo, why—"

He looked up at me one more time, and what was in his eyes wasn’t anger. It would have been easier if it had been anger. It was betrayal, pure and bottomless.

Then his eyes rolled back and he hit the floor.

Two days later, they marched his family out and executed them.

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