Claire was still sleeping, restless under the covers on the bed beside him. It had taken a great deal of effort to get her comfortable after Shepherd had found her holed up in the bathroom vomiting upon his return. Hours of soft touches, bland broth, and her agitated growls eventually turned to snores. Once Claire had finally lost consciousness the thread seemed to harmonize, leaving Shepherd able to work as he lay at her side.
Reports on Enforcer Corday’s movements were less than pleasing. Svana was still holed up in his apartment, and irksome Maryanne Cauley had come calling, looking for Claire.
Neither woman’s agenda was clear. Svana was toying with the resistance, for what purpose Shepherd was uncertain, but she was up to something.
In the years of their relationship, there had been no secrets, no dividing line between them. Ordering Jules to continue with her constant surveillance had been… difficult. Studying her motives as he’d studied the senators, their families, their work, for years, troubled Shepherd greatly.
This woman was not that same revolutionary he’d loved with every last fiber of his being. Worse, not knowing where she’d stashed the contagion, having had all the usual places searched, made him uneasy.
She wanted to remind Shepherd that she had the power. Knowing he was watching her flit around the Beta’s apartment was her less than subtle way of reminding him she was in control.
She played her games with the resistance. Leslie Kantor wanted them to find her valuable, even passing fragmented information that could potentially undermine Shepherd’s control.
Svana was taunting him.
Why?
There was more to this than her anger over Claire.
So far just Maryanne Cauley had thrown the only wrench into her plans.
…when he shot down your marriage proposal.
How did a woman like Maryanne possess information even Shepherd had never heard whispers of? Why did Svana just about reach out and break the blonde’s neck?
Most importantly, why hadn’t Svana noticed the immediate look of suspicion the Beta Enforcer had shot her way once those words were out in the open?
Challenging was not the right word to describe the feelings embedded in the problem. Deeply, Shepherd wanted to trust Svana as he always had. But the little black-haired Omega curled up at his side… one look at her, and Shepherd was at a loss.
Never would he trust Svana anywhere near Claire. That fact gave him pain.
And that, at its essence, was why Svana remained with the Enforcer. She knew Shepherd’s abiding loyalty had been shaken and she taunted him by fostering a new champion; lightly touching the Beta at every turn, keeping herself beautiful and engaging.
Was she trying to seduce Corday, to flaunt her conquest?
Never before in his life had Shepherd struggled with so many questions. Answers had always been obvious, his course steadfast.
Now he knew he had to greatly alter the plan. He had to find the contagion and make sure it was beyond Svana’s control. Stripped of her greatest advantage, he could reason with his beloved, maybe find her an Omega male so she, too, could be enlightened.
Their partnership, their rich history, need not be tarnished by his natural devotion to such a pleasing mate.
Reassured, Shepherd read the latest update again. There was something in the transcript that was intriguing. Just as Claire had explained; the once disposable minion, Maryanne Cauley, was fond of his mate.
In Shepherd’s experience, Maryanne Cauley was very easy to control, a creature inundated in self-preservation. Shepherd could use her again, augment Jules’s initial plan to win more than just Claire’s complacence. She could be a valuable tool, and the selfish Alpha female would even be willing for the right price.
As Shepherd’s plot developed, Claire grew restless in her dreams. Absently, Shepherd began purring, lightly tracing the furrow between the Omega’s brows until it softened.
Before all could be made right, there was a list of issues that had to be remedied. The Omega was not showing any of signs of the affection she had displayed before their recent… complication. In her waking hours there were no activities of nesting, not like before. Normal habits of a pregnant Omega must be encouraged, but she no longer touched her belly like she should—never acknowledged the child he’d placed in her womb, even though it was the cause of her almost constant nausea. Only in her sleep would her hand rest above the baby, and even then she looked… troubled.
Claire also was incredibly disinterested in being touched, yet if he initiated, highly responsive to sex.
They were at square one.
Shepherd kept her in a constant state of the mating high, took her so many times her eyes remained half-dilated, almost as if in the first stages of estrous. It was necessary to keep her mending, to keep the bond fresh and unchallenged, and it soothed her. But she no longer whispered or called out his name, seemed half involved but eager for pleasure.
Pure escapism…
When the sleeping woman quieted, Shepherd went back to the latest reports. With only eight weeks before transport would carry those who’d chosen loyalty to his cause to seize Greth Dome, his new life was soon to begin. Svana’s lineage and title would place her as the savior queen of what all intel confirmed was a highly repressed population. Transition would be relatively seamless. Of course, there would be turmoil and battles in those first weeks as the usurper regime was decimated, but Shepherd had a worthy supply of Followers to raise his standard, and the Greth government had no indication a nightmare would soon be crashing down upon them.
Best of all, as Shepherd thrived, as he gave Claire the things that would bring her happiness, nothing but corpses and rot would be left in a place he hated with all his heart.
Everyone left in Thólos would succumb to plague.
Toying with a strand of Claire’s hair, Shepherd grinned—vindicated, in perfect alignment with the universe, until he heard her call out.
It had been only a little noise in the dark, a voice laced with fear… a call for him to help to her.
Mechanically he moved, swift to gather her close. ‘I am here, little one.’
Shepherd could see she was not quite awake when, instead of tensing up at his touch, she gripped the fabric of his shirt and pulled him closer, urging him to surround her in his heat and strength.
Swallowing, trying to catch her breath, Claire tried not to think of the sound of screaming convicts and lingering echoed flashes of men lining up to hurt her in her dream. It had been another horrible nightmare of the Undercroft Shepherd had described from his childhood; a prison that gave birth to monsters, inhabited by demons even Maryanne had once warned still lurked down below.
Brushing the hair from her face, Shepherd encouraged her to calm. ‘You are allowing your brooding to affect your dreams.’
Claire released her grip on the nightmare-inducing monster at once. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You would not call out for your mate if something had not frightened you.’
Shepherd rolled them, holding her to his chest so Claire might rest atop him as she had slept before the complications of the last few weeks. In that position his vibrations would pass far more noticeably into her, and the hatred in her eyes would go back to the faraway stare of complacence.
‘What time is it?’
Shepherd did not let her budge, but answered the question. ‘A little after 16:00.’
God, she was so tired even after all that sleep. Too tired to protest the thick arms that came to embrace and stroke, feeling guilt she was experiencing comfort from such a thing, she complained, ‘I hate the hours down here… everything is backwards.’
‘If you had slept during the evening instead of fighting the rest you require, then you would have settled into regular rhythms.’
Claire gave an annoyed groan at his pointless lecture. It was his fault she could not sleep, his fault her mind was unstable, his fault she’d had the nightmare, his fault she could feel again and that everything felt horrible. Unsure if she spoke simply to annoy him, or to test him, or because it was what she actually needed, Claire muttered against the fabric of his shirt, ‘I want to go outside.’
The purring stopped.
A moment of time hung between them, the air tangible with mutual dissatisfaction. Trilling her fingers on his chest, she made it clear she was waiting for an answer and that there was only one right one.
Everything about his reply was displeased and growled with great annoyance. ‘You will eat and bathe first. After we have mated… I will escort you to see your sky.’
How fucking romantic.
In the mood to continue being difficult, Claire said, ‘I want to eat fried potatoes with mayonnaise.’
He threaded his fingers in her hair. ‘No.’
‘And a chocolate shake.’
‘No.’ Shepherd stroked her spine in an attempt to urge her to fall back asleep and forget her expectation of the sky.
‘Raspberries, lots of raspberries.’
‘That you may have.’
Aware he was trying to make her melt until she forgot her request, and conscious Shepherd was about to achieve his goal, Claire began to wriggle away, stretching like a cat and cracking her spine. He made her work for her escape. Even with his arm just lying across her, the damn thing weighed a ton, and he seemed far more interested in groping her ass than letting her up. In the end, she bit him and slipped out of reach.
Shepherd found it funny.
She moved into the bathroom, ignoring the light laughter coming from the giant splayed on the bed. A long shower that was blissfully alone helped to clear away the remnants of her nightmare. It was not the first time she’d dreamed she was locked in a cell, her upper body pressed to a stinking cot while a devil rutted her painfully. Beyond the bars, masses of Alphas watched and waited. Their faces contorted, they snarled and snapped, reaching through the metal bars, stretching inhumanly until they could almost touch her.
Claire did not want to think of the Undercroft, of the things that were locked in it, but the feelings of the dream seemed to linger like a stain even a scalding shower could not wash off.
She turned off the water, combed her hair before the foggy glass, and felt the woman in the blurred reflection was a ghost.
Shutting off the light, she went back into the main room of her cage and found Shepherd had created daytime by switching on every light. Once she was clothed, he left to retrieve her food. Her paints had been cleaned up days ago, his ejaculate from the floor as well, but the portrait remained on the table. She was not exactly sure why he had left it there, and she had tried to ignore it as she ignored him, but it seemed the incorrect eyes were always watching her.
Studying the thing, the rugged face of the man who hurt so many people, she could not find what about the painting had seemed to please him. Of course, she may have completely misread his reaction—the Alpha was layered in half-truths, and had no qualms about deceit if it meant he would attain his goal. But something in the cord, something on his end, had been so very satisfied at what she’d done.
Claire had wanted a reaction, she had got one. Now she had no idea what it meant or how to use it.
Absorbed in the flawed eyes, she listed the mistakes in her rendition. They were not hard enough; the silver did not hold back a tidal wave of twisted history. Shepherd just looked like a man. And how would she look if someone were to paint her? Would it be the ghostly blurred image from the mirror, or somebody completely different? Had her eyes become infected with the same thing that lingered in his?
How much time would it take for her to wake up and no longer care about the forty-three lives he held over her head, or the millions in Thólos she had to find a way to fight for? Why had she not just stomped her foot against the ice and cracked it so powerfully that they both were sucked under?
Her slender hold on composure began to slip just as the bolt on the door hissed its metallic warning Shepherd had returned. Quickly scrubbing her face of tears, Claire sat straight and prepared for the next round.
The man came in with a tray and set it down before her, noticing the redness around the eyes of the woman sitting ramrod straight.
When she saw what he had brought her, Claire began to sniff. She reached for a steaming fried potato wedge, dipped it in mayo, then dunked it again in the chocolate shake. Shoving it in her mouth, tears began to fall, her acknowledgment pathetic. ‘They’re really good.’
‘There are no raspberries on premises. They will be acquired shortly,’ Shepherd explained, assuming she was, at last, having some sort of pregnancy moment.
Sniveling, Claire dumped the chocolate shake over the hot fries, smearing into the mess. She gorged, sniffing and frowning, devouring what to Shepherd looked absolutely disgusting as if it were manna from the heavens. By the time she had finished what had to be the unhealthiest thing on the planet, her brief blubbering was over and she felt much better.
Wiping her mouth, Claire looked to the man who’d observed her meal. It was obvious Shepherd wanted her to thank him—he had done something nice for her, something apparent and obvious that she had requested specifically. All those other months, she had defiantly used none of his things outside of mere necessity, never made requests aside from demands of freedom… simply to make the point that she was refusing his hospitality. But this meal she had blatantly stated she desired, and he had delivered it, though it was clearly something he had not thought was best for her. In his strange language it was almost as if, again, he was affirming there was a new precedent and that he was making an effort.
Looking down at the remaining melted mess on her plate, Claire took a deep breath and breathed it out. ‘Thank you.’
The tray was scooted aside before a large hand came to her face and turned it up. His thumb rubbed away a missed smear of chocolate, Shepherd very pleased. ‘You are welcome.’
She did not want to look into those impossible eyes, but he held her in thrall. Claire was lost as she measured how many deaths stuck to him, how many appalling things he’d done of which she hoped never to learn. Why did he have to have a tragic history that haunted her sleep, and how had he become so distorted he’d developed into the harbinger of Thólos’s apocalypse?
Why was she even thinking of all that shit?
Shepherd gave her time, taking in her confused expression as she confessed, ‘I dreamed of your Undercroft, and I was trapped with the prisoners reaching for me through the bars… while I was being raped like you said.’
Elbow resting on the table, he cupped her cheek and purred, ‘It was only a dream. You are safe here and will never endure the Undercroft.’
She sniffed, lost in the quicksilver changefulness of those damn eyes. ‘What’s it like?’
Unsure exactly how much he should disclose, Shepherd said, ‘Dark, cold. The prisoners eat the mold on the walls; there is no sewage system. In the tunnels it is easy to get lost… many go missing. As a child, an inmate told me those tunnels span the entire continent of Antarctica. They go on for ages; you walk and walk, and never find a way out. But you do find the bones of others who’ve gone mad searching the paths only to die from lack of water or starvation.’
‘I dislike that I feel pity,’ Claire breathed, eyes full of sorrow, ‘for you.’
The way he watched her, the slow move of his analyzing gaze, it was if he already knew everything she confessed. ‘Little one, it is merely an indication of your nature to feel compassion—even for me.’
Her brows lowered, that little line forming between them. ‘Is this where you call me a coward or a fool?’
Shepherd smirked. ‘You are somewhat foolish, but you are not a coward—simply naïve. What you are is innocent.’
But that was not true. Disappointed in his answer, she rose from her chair, hands tugging the straps of her dress so the fabric could whisper down her body. Eager to finish the final requirement to leave the room, she moved, naked and expressionless, to stand before the Alpha.
He took in the secret places of her body, but did not touch.
Voice harsh, Claire felt the guilt, the anger, the fear eat her up. ‘What do you see now?’
Slowly, Shepherd met her indignant expression, softly purring, ‘My mate.’
The thrum was deep in her chest, something it took a great deal of focus to recall was unwelcome. Confused, she watched him, unsure why he wasn’t touching her. Unsure why they were not already on the bed, or table, or floor?
The moment was growing into something it was not meant to be.
Just as she was about to turn, to just walk away from him, the growl was made. It was loud, expectant, and brought with it a small pleasurable cramp as her body instinctively responded.
Slick came thick and copious at such a call, dripping down her leg. Shepherd watched the little trickle, captivated.
Rising slowly, he pulled his clothing over his head, stripping down to only flesh until he stood before her in an equal state. He was beautiful and grand; all the glorious epitome of Alpha physique in the control of a man who used such strength ruthlessly. Claire had to crane her neck to look up, to keep her eyes off his marked body where she could focus on his face and those hated eyes.
‘What do you see when you look at me, little one?’
A monster, the man who had ruined her life, the little boy raised in hell whose mother had performed unspeakable acts just to secure him a knife, a former prisoner who had dedicated his love to Svana, a man with twisted faith, the male who had betrayed their pair-bond and caused her great pain, her jailor, the father of the life growing inside her, a creature she could not trust… Claire drew a deep breath and said the only thing she could. ‘I see the Alpha pair-bonded to me.’
‘Can you not see more?’ Shepherd hinted, trying to draw out the proper words.
Her reply twisted in the thread and tore out her heart, but Claire stood still, her face a mask, and spoke the hated truth, ‘I see my mate.’
‘You are doing exceptionally well today,’ the Alpha claimed, but still he did not move.
And Claire understood. Shepherd wanted her to initiate sex, he was pushing her boundaries, seeing how much she was willing to exchange for what she wanted.
She let out in a low whisper. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’ Shepherd was confident, nodding for her to try.
Already half-high, drugged in scent and the call, Claire knew in truth she wanted it. She wanted him to fuck her so hard that she forgot herself, that Claire disappeared. It had been her only respite since their deal had been struck; her only succor the distraction of sex. In a sick way she almost longed for a heat cycle, a mindless source of existence that shut off her thinking until all that mattered was physical gratification. But she could not allow herself such a thing if Shepherd didn’t force it or take it; it would make the act of mating something she could not bear.
Clenching her fists, she glanced to the side and shook her head belligerently. ‘I. Can’t.’
Another of those powerful growls, so loud it was almost a roar, and her pussy clenched, more of that damn slick spilling down her leg.
Shepherd persisted. ‘You can.’
She knew how very easy it could be, how falsely fulfilling his arms would feel—the decadence of fornicating with such a creature, to hear his whispered words at her ear… the culmination of the moment when her world burst apart and everything bad was forgotten. Had she not felt it a hundred times? But Shepherd had to inflict it, if she took that fateful step and admitted that she desired such a thing, it would ruin her.
Crumbling, she closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his chest, doing nothing more than pulling in deep breaths of what nature told her was hers, but what experience had taught her was far from the case. Lightly her fingertips came to his torso, running upward, delicately tracing over his nipples in their journey to reach around his neck.
Claire froze. She could not sell herself for the sky or oblivion.
‘What more do you want from me, Shepherd?’ Frustrated, desperate, she whined, ‘Just fuck me already!’
She felt him bend to reach her ear, knew the press of scarred lips. ‘I want everything.’
The massive male tugged her towards the bed. Claire was spun about and pressed down on her belly, her legs left dangling towards the floor. A hand raked almost too hard down her spine, the pulsing head of his cock positioned at her folds. He did not press in. Instead, Shepherd slapped her; his palm met the full roundness of her ass and left it red and stinging as she cried out in surprise. His hips surged, and in the midst of her yelp he speared her with the entirety of his girth.
‘You are so fucking wet, yet still dare to pretend that you don’t want this? That you need to be forced?’ he roared, gripping her hips even as she presented, arching her back in instinctual invitation. Roughly, he pulled her back to meet each thrust, Claire mewling into the covers, falling into the drugged delirium where she could fade away and forget.
The second her mind grew free of petty feeling and thought, Shepherd took his cock away, flipping her over.
Blazing silver eyes met hers. ‘Do you want me to continue to fuck you?’
Her eyes glued to the shining, throbbing thickness that he should be burying inside her again and again and again, she snarled, ‘Yes!’
The man stood there, panting, eyes blazing, with her slick all over his groin… and simply did nothing.
Claire pounded her fist against the mattress and looked up with furious, half-dilated eyes. There was a snarl, her own version of the growl, and she launched herself at him to take back the only thing she had left to ease the pain. The sound of her demand inspired the man manipulating the situation to his liking. Shepherd took her in his arms, plunging his cock slow and deep where she ached, and watched Claire’s silent pleas for more.
Kept just at the border of the insensibility she craved, like he knew her game, Shepherd moved with decided cunning in the dissection of her avoidance of what they were and why he mated her—forcing Claire to recognize who offered her carnal satisfaction, what he felt like against her, and how much she loved it.
Without the frenzy there was no void, there was no loss of self. Claire knew in her bones that he was knowingly denying her the only escape she had left by making love when she only wanted to fuck.
Shepherd smiled like a man standing in the bliss of heaven, whispered to her so she had to recognize his voice, and controlled every thrust no matter how she squirmed or rocked her hips. There was no escaping him or the pleasure.
Her mind grasped the irony with each tender stroke that the one thing she’d fought to preserve when Shepherd first took her had been her sense of self… until he broke her. Now all she wanted, now that her world was so dark, was to forget that identity and waste away.
‘Faster,’ she breathed on a lengthy moan.
There was such pleasure in his voice, Shepherd gently rocking his hips to fill her cunt in slow measure. ‘No, little one.’
It went on for hours, until she was shuddering and cooing small sounds of pleasure. This was how it had been in those first weeks, but the underlying distress was different. She was no longer afraid of what he could do to her; she was far more afraid of her mutilated sense of self and what she very much wanted from him.
A warm hand stroked from hip to breast, over and over, leaving a trail of soft tingles and ending with a little squeeze of her tight nipple until she whimpered for more and spread wider in invitation.
‘Open your eyes.’
How many times had he already commanded her to do so? Why did he have to make her look? Complying, her green eyes met beautiful silver. She saw her palm cradle his cheek, she saw him kiss the tip of her thumb.
A catch of breath and a long shuddering sigh came from the Omega. ‘I can’t… I need…’
The purr built from deep within Shepherd’s chest, the Alpha observing each minute reaction of pleasure on her face. ‘Soften, little one. Let it happen this way. There is no more need to fight what we are.’
He wove his fingers into hers, his sweat slicked muscles moving over her entire body. Each time he had her stuffed full, he’d grind his groin in a tight circle to tease at her clit, drawing sounds from the Omega that made his balls tighten.
Shepherd’s name came to her lips when she felt that first fluttering of the hours long building climax, a name she never wanted to call out in passion again.
There was not even a hint of a veiling fog in her mind when she felt tears leak from her eyes and her cunt squeezed like a fist around his swelling knot. Claire orgasmed completely, powerfully aware of Shepherd, her insides vigorously milking his cock, drawing out every last drop of his come as the man groaned in his own ecstasy.
Boneless, vibrating from the humming thread, Claire didn’t know what to do. The feeling of his cheek slipped past her palm, the Omega wilting against the mattress.
‘That was perfect.’ He kissed her slack lips, nuzzled her cheek. ‘You, Claire, are superior to any sky.’
Her contentment shattered. With a growl guttural and vicious, Claire threatened the man still deeply knotted. ‘Do not ever call me that name!’
