Page 58 of Knot Your Fated M.U.S.E.

They'll have to live with how we use it.

"The targeting isn't random," Vale says, his fingers still dancing across the keyboard. "Ravenscroft's new admissions follow distinct patterns. Ethnic minorities, power plays between rival families, and—" his voice catches slightly, "—parents punishing children they deem unworthy."

The words hit me like a physical blow, snapping something loose inside my chest that I've kept carefully bound.

Family betrayal.

The ultimate weapon, the deepest wound, the kind of hurt that never really heals.

My brother's face flashes in my mind, unbidden and unwelcome. Marcus. The older brother who should have protected me but instead tried to destroy me.

All because I excelled where he struggled because I represented everything he couldn't be.

He had all the external markers of a perfect alpha – the imposing height, the muscular build, and the commanding presence that made others instinctively lower their eyes.

His voice alone could freeze blood, make lesser alphas bare their throats in submission. But where it mattered, where it really counted…

He couldn't protect his omega.

Couldn't save his pack.

Couldn't handle the responsibility that came with the power he'd been granted by birth.

The memory of that failed mission rises like bile in my throat.

I'd tried to warn him. Told him the intel wasn't solid, and that taking an omega into that situation was asking for disaster. But he wouldn't listen.

Couldn't admit that his younger brother might know better.

I remember the aftermath with perfect clarity, despite how much I've tried to forget. The bodies of his packmates, broken and bloody.

His omega, sweet Maria who'd only wanted to prove herself useful, who'd trusted Marcus to keep her safe…her screams still echo in my nightmares, in the spaces where my hearing used to be.

My stomach churns as I think about bringing any omega into the kinds of missions we handle now.

The guilt of watching my brother's pack die, of seeing how that loss transformed him from a proud alpha into something feral and broken…sits in my chest like a stone.

The grief turned him savage.

Took whatever warmth had remained in his heart and replaced it with pure hatred. I watched my brother disappear into that darkness, watched him become something that even pack bonds couldn't reach.

We tried to help at first.

My pack – this pack – tried to give him a place to heal, to rebuild. But you can't help someone who's chosen vengeance over recovery.

Can't trust an alpha who's lost everything, who sees your happiness as a personal affront.

The day we cut ties was both the hardest and easiest decision I've ever made.

Hard because he was blood, because some part of me still remembered the brother who'd taught me to fight, who'd protected me when we were young. Easy because I couldn't risk my pack, couldn't endanger these men who'd become more family than my own blood ever was.

A feral alpha who's lost everything is more dangerous than any enemy you could face.

They have nothing left to lose, no reason to hold back, no instinct for self-preservation to keep them in check. Marcus made it clear he'd rather drag us all down with him than watch us succeed where he had failed.

Vale's voice brings me back to the present, still listing off the categories of omegas most at risk for Ravenscroft submission.

But all I can think about is how family is supposed to protect you; to lift you up in a world that wouldn't go over and beyond to do such.

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