Chapter 293: The First to Fall

MARGAUX

I stared at him, disgust curdling hot in my chest.

“Bury it,” I repeated. “You want to bury the truth about an entire family’s murder because acknowledging it is inconvenient for your reputation.”

“That’s not what I said. It’s for our reputation. Your brothers will need the stability. You too.”

“It’s exactly what you said.” I stepped closer, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “Isabelle is dead, Father. I brought her body with me as proof. Lucian is a fugitive now, hunted across every territory that once respected or even feared him, and he will be running for the rest of his miserable life. This isn’t about protecting me anymore. It was never about protecting me. This is about you refusing to sit with the fact that you were wrong, that you let an innocent family burn because of a lie, and now you will not even make amends because… because it is convenient? Do you not see how insane the idea of what you just spewed is? You’d rather start a new war than face the truth and be accountable for what happened in the past in an honest manner?”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said, his voice dropping low, “to build an entire life around a lie you never chose to tell. To wake up every single day next to a woman you thought you knew, only to learn afterward that everything, every single thing about her, was constructed to deceive you.”

“I do know,” I said. “I know exactly what that’s like, because I lived inside that same lie my entire childhood. I loved a woman I believed was my mother, and I’ve had to learn, all at once, that she wasn’t, that the real one died and the new one had to exist to protect a secret that cost an entire family their lives. And do you know what else I know?” My voice cracked, but I pushed through it. “Étienne was my mate even then. Before any of this. Before the switch, before the massacre, before any of it. And I had to abandon him to die when we were children, because I was too afraid and too powerless to do anything else. I refuse to do that to him again. I refuse to stand by while you finish what Lucian started, simply because admitting fault is harder than continuing the cruelty. I did not expect this from you, Father. All of things… I did not expect this.”

My father’s face had gone pale, something working behind his eyes that I couldn’t fully read.

“You conveniently left something out,” he said quietly, “in everything you’ve just told me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your maternal heritage,” he said. “The letter mentioned that too, Margaux. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you skipped over that part?”

My stomach dropped.

“It’s in the letter,” he continued. “What you are. What runs in your blood, through both women who raised you, whichever one you choose to call mother.”

I stood there, exposed in a way I hadn’t prepared myself for, my twisted bloodline suddenly sitting between us like something neither of us could unsee now that it had been named.

“Don’t worry,” he said, and something in his tone shifted, softening in a way that felt almost worse than his anger had. “You’re still my daughter. That’s what actually matters here. Whatever else is true, whatever blood runs through you, you are still mine, and this is still your home, and I am still your father. You do not have to hide from me. Just as I am telling you the truth because I trust you to see sense and reason in it. You can love again. There is someone for everyone out there. A fated mate bond is beautiful. But chosen mates can be just as fine. You can try again. You are allowed.”

He sounded insane.

“That’s not the point,” I started. “Father, listen to me—”

A sharp knock cut through the room.

“What?” my father snapped, clearly irritated by the interruption.

The door opened, and a sentinel stepped in, his face grim, his eyes darting briefly toward me before settling on my father.

“Alpha,” he said. “We have news. Urgent news.”

“Speak.”

“Lucian’s hideout was found,” the sentinel said. “Before we got there, it had been burned to the ground. Probably by Lucian to protect himself. But before the fire consumed everything, we recovered clothing at the scene. It’s being confirmed now, but the fabric, the crest stitched into the collar, it matches what Alpha Bastien was wearing this morning when he left Beaumont.”

The room seemed to tilt.

My father’s face drained entirely of color.

“What are you saying?” he said, his voice gone hollow.

“We believe,” the sentinel said carefully, “that Alpha Bastien may be dead. Killed by Lucian, before he fled the scene.”

The silence that followed felt like something physical, pressing down on both of us at once, and I watched my father’s composure shatter in real time, watched years of careful control he always talked about crack apart in front of me.

“No,” he said, the word barely audible. “No, that’s not possible. Bastien would never—he’s too careful, too smart to be caught by that snake.”

“The evidence suggests otherwise, Alpha.”

“Get out,” my father shrieked, his voice climbing fast, panic bleeding into every syllable. “Get out! Confirm it properly before you bring me half-formed theories about my son!”

The sentinel fled without another word, the door slamming shut behind him, and my father sank into the nearest chair like his legs had simply stopped working beneath him.

I stood there, watching him unravel, a strange, complicated grief rising in my own chest despite everything we’d just said to each other.

“Father,” I said quietly.

He didn’t look at me.

“This is what you wanted,” he said, his voice cracking entirely now. “Isn’t it? Punishment and atonement. The universe finally collecting what it’s owed from this family.”

“I never wanted this,” I said. “Bastien is my brother too!”

“This is what happens when you let vipers live!” He retorted.