Chapter 294: Viper

MARGAUX

“This is what happens when you let vipers live!” he shouted.

For a moment, I thought that was all he had. His chest heaved, his fingers curling white-knuckled against the table’s edge, his eyes fixed on the maps like they might rearrange themselves into a different outcome if he stared hard enough.

He seemed focused on him even though I was distraught too.

Then something shifted behind his eyes, the grief curdling into something with a direction, something that needed somewhere to land.

He lifted his head slowly.

“You,” he whispered.

His hand rose, not quite pointing at me, but past me, toward the chamber doors and whatever lay beyond them. Perhaps even towards Lucian or maybe my true mother, Isabelle.

Turned out I was right.

“Her,” he finally said. “This is her doing. Even dead, that woman is still taking from me.”

His voice thickened, grief and fury tangling together so completely I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

“She poisoned this family while she breathed, and now my son is dead because of the ruin she left rotting behind her. Bastien should never have been anywhere near Lucian. He should never have had to pay for her lies with his life.”

“Father, Isabelle isn’t—”

“Don’t.”

The word cracked like something breaking. He shoved up from his chair hard enough that it toppled backward, hitting the stone floor with a clatter that made the maps tremble against the table.

“Don’t you dare speak her name like death has washed her clean. She’s dead, Margaux, and the wreckage she left behind is still burying this family alive. You stood in this room defending that woman and your rogue while your own brother was being slaughtered by the snake she helped keep alive.”

His voice dropped, muttering now, grief looping back on itself.

“Isabelle. That woman destroyed everything , and instead of tossing her to rot on the ground somewhere, you brought her home like a trophy. As if all the hell that happened was not enough, now Bastien dies. This is what happens when you let vipers live. They strike at the throat eventually.”

I flinched.

The word vipers hung in the air between us. He was talking about Lucian, about Isabelle, but I heard the subtext. I was the viper now. The daughter who had returned only to bring death with her.

“You’re not thinking clearly,” I tried.

He laughed, and it broke somewhere in the middle, turning into something closer to a sob before he swallowed it back down.

“I have never thought more clearly in my life,” he said. “I see a daughter who turned her back on her own pack. Worst of all, who defends a bloodline that would gut us all without hesitation, given the chance for revenge. We took out his whole family, remember? How am I supposed to welcome that into my walls and call it anything but poison?”

“That isn’t what I’m doing.”

“Then what are you doing?” His voice climbed, cracking at the top of it. “Because from where I stand, every single choice you’ve made led us here. If my allies abandon me… I swear…”

He didn’t finish, then turned toward the door, his shoulders still shaking.

“Sentinel!”

The same man stepped back inside, his face still tight with whatever he’d already braced himself to deliver.

“Alpha.”

“You said you found clothing,” my father said, his hand trembling as he pointed. “Matching what Bastien wore when he left this morning.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Are you certain?”

“We’re confirming the crest and fabric now. But the evidence strongly suggests—”

“I don’t care what it suggests.” His fist came down against the table, hard enough that the compass jumped and clattered to the floor. “I want certainty. I want to know where my son is. If he’s dead, I want to know exactly how it happened.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“I also want to see it myself.”

The sentinel hesitated. “We are not certain the body hasn’t been recovered. Only the clothing. The site is still being searched and turned around. There were many bodies in the wreck.”

“Then I want to see what they found. The charred flesh. The clothes. All of it, before anyone dares tell me my son is gone.”

“Of course, Alpha.”

Even as the sentinel waited… father seemed to be going in and out of it.

“This isn’t true,” my father muttered, shaking his head as if he could physically dislodge the possibility. “It cannot be true. Bastien has survived worse than Lucian. He has to be alive.”

He stared at the door like his son might simply walk through it and prove the whole world wrong.

“This had better not be true,” he continued, quieter now, almost a warning aimed at fate itself.

“I’ll come with you,” I said.

His head snapped toward me.

Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then his eyes moved slowly over my face, and what settled there was colder than anything he’d said yet.

“Come with me,” he repeated. “To do what?”

I didn’t answer.

He stepped closer, grief hardening fast into something cruel.

“To mourn him?” he asked. “To hold my hand while— You know what… it is not worth it.”

He walked toward the door. His gait was uneven, and he stumbled slightly. When he reached it, he spoke to the other sentinels outside. His voice had dropped to a whisper, but I heard every word.

“Take her and confine her to her rooms. She should have no phone and no visitors. She doesn’t leave until I decide what to do with her.”

“Father—”

He didn’t turn around. “Don’t speak to me. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.”

The sentinels entered. They were young, faces I didn’t recognize from my time here. New blood. They looked at me with expressions that hovered between pity and fear, unsure whether to treat me as a Luna or as a prisoner.

“Please come with us, Luna,” the taller one murmured.

I stood my ground for a moment, staring at my father’s back. His spine was rigid, his head bowed slightly as if the weight of Bastien’s death had already settled permanently on his shoulders. I wanted to scream, but the words would only make him dig his heels deeper. He had already decided who to blame.

I walked out past him. My shoulder brushed his sleeve, and he jerked away like my touch carried a disease.

The corridor was lined with people. Omegas clutching baskets, sentinels at attention, council members hovering near the tapestries. They parted for us, creating a narrow path of staring eyes and whispered breath. I kept my chin up, counting the steps to the east wing, focusing on the rhythm of my boots against the stone rather than the heat of their gazes.

Chris stood near the staircase.