“Segment AA-14.” Gray eyes traced the movement of the agitated Commodore, an Alpha who lacked the most basic semblance of control. Blond hair as long as a woman’s ran loose behind him, and he stomped through his halls, the embroidery of his jacket something from a long-dead culture. The way the man continued to fiddle with his cuffs, a tell—his confrontation with Jules Havel had given the man no satisfaction. “Draw him there. Disrupt all safety protocols to the east of Ms. Perin.”
“But that’s not the direction she came.” Fingers flying over the controls, Maryanne dripped with nervous sweat in an effort to keep up with the Shepherd’s commands. “The Omega took the opposite corridor, and I can only turn off one at a time without drawing attention to the massive amount of infiltration I am conducting in Bernard’s Palace. Even if I am only operating against a computer, these logs will be noticed!”
“The Omega now knows where she is in relation to the structure. She won’t take the same path to return to Jacques’ den. Watch.” And he was correct. She crawled to the east corridor to access a vertical chute, climbing in a blur that would leave her hands blistered. “And you will remove all traces of our interference once we have assured she reaches her destination undetected.”
“What she doesn’t know is that the only reason she hasn’t been caught is because I am fucking slaving away.” There wasn’t even time for Maryanne to brush loose hair off her brow. “For future reference, Shepherd, this kind of work takes at least three people. One person cannot manage five levels of security protocols with no advance notice and with no idea what they are dealing with alone!”
Unmoved by the woman’s theatrics, Shepherd ordered, “Eyes on the Commodore. Start an electrical fire to his left.”
Entering a series of commands, sparks ignited—bulbs bursting as the voltage was manually increased beyond safe levels. Easy enough, though suspicious if anyone in that Dome had a brain cell between them.
As if stunned so simple a trick worked, Maryanne muttered, “Who still uses fucking lightbulbs anymore?”
“Men who wish to display their ability to waste a resource for the sake of vanity and as a show of power.”
Cocking a brow, Maryanne reached for a COM, cycling to a new display. “Are there lightbulbs in your new palace?”
Shepherd didn’t so much as blink at the question, his focus on the multitude of active screens. “Yes.”
“Let me guess. Claire thinks they are pretty.”
“For someone who demanded two assistants because she lacks the ability to handle this duty alone, I would suggest you prove to me that you are not so easily replaceable.”
“Who else on your team could have watched over that girl before you even got to the room? She climbed half naked across the side of a building! Guards were everywhere on the ground and I was manning this station while you were fast asleep.” Pursing her lips on an exhale when the latest integration of the system almost failed, Maryanne added, “You didn’t even get here until she jumped for the elevator—which was admittedly badass. So toss me some credit, I’m not even sure how I was able to dial your COM with that spider monkey on the loose.”
“Stop talking and pay attention. The Commodore has extinguished the fire, and guards are swarming around him. Standard procedure will lead to a lockdown of the grounds.” Despite the inability of the woman to remain quiet, Shepherd’s focus was unbroken. His enemy under his thumb. It didn’t matter that there was an ocean between them, that they existed in two separate Domes. They may as well have stood eye-to-eye.
Any man who had dared met Shepherd’s gaze in hostility had already lost. A few hours more and the Commodore would feel the fingers already around his throat squeezing until he was made to kneel.
“Intact Dome containment protocol in staging area base one. Assist the containment protocols if for any reason they fail or manual override is enacted, no one gets out. Record everything in that building.”
“That isn’t in the Palace, Shepherd. I don’t even have that sector of the Dome on screen right now.” Flying to another set of controls, Maryanne scrambled to follow. “Well damn, it might as well be a palace. Look at all that loot.”
Shutters fell about a startled group of men smoking cigars while the pretty Beta serving their cocktails dropped her tray.
“Enter code: Saga Culprit Kiss.” There was no hesitation or remorse in Shepherd’s cold command. There was only a job to be done. “Release the virus.”
Maryanne’s fingers stopped flying over the assortment of controls at her disposal, and for the first time in an hour, her attention left the screens. Though his attention never wavered from the multitude of live screens before him, he registered the nervous shake of her head in negation of his order.
She even whispered, “I can’t… I can’t do that.”
Pushing her aside with easy effort, Maryanne’s chair rolled from the console, and Shepherd took charge. And with a single keystroke, five people in a single building were infected with Red Consumption.
What had been confusion and lighthearted laughter at a technical glitch became Alphas scrambling from their chairs at the sound of a canister hiss. As with untried men, infighting was immediate. Shepherd did not need to hear the accusation thrown between them, he had witnessed the behavior hundreds of times over the years of his campaign. They were blaming one another, some leaning on the idea that it was a prank, a power play to intimidate the very rivals who smoked together, sipping dark liquor.
The oldest of them began to cough.
They could not possibly imagine what poison they breathed or how quickly it would kill them, but some deep animal part of them understood. They began to frantically beat at the shutters and attempt to use their COM, breaking furniture in an attempt to create a tool that could defeat steel.
From contented banter to abject terror… in less than three minutes.
Containment held.
The group would be dead in less than an hour. Lying in their glittering clothes, in their glittering club, in pools of glittering red contaminated blood. Their loved ones would never be able to collect the bodies. Their enemies would have no corpse to spit at.
Every treasure in that room would be burned to ash.
As if she had yet to come to terms with who she served, Maryanne muttered in horror, “You just murdered five people.”
Shepherd’s focus never wavered, he continued to do the job. “I murder at least five people every day.”
For a moment, the air stank of sour fear, Maryanne audibly swallowing. Hesitant in returning to her duty—a woman who had undoubtedly killed when it had served her in Thólos—she went back to the controls.
“You have grown soft in seclusion, Maryanne Cauley.” Because she had been coddled and comforted. “Never forget that I know precisely why you were thrown into the Undercroft.”
“This is different.” Her voice betrayed her trepidation far more than her stink ever would. “That was personal. This is… anyone could have been in that club tonight. You have no idea who you killed.”
“That task will fall to you once Brenya Perin has reached her final destination undetected. Get back on task and spare me your false scruples.”
“Staring at corpses who’ve puked out their lungs sounds like a great way to be rewarded. Even Jules was offered a Beta to fuck.” Dexterous fingers began flying over the controls, the female’s snark returning with a “Where the fuck is my Beta? And, for your information, mon capitaine, you turned off the containment protocol notification. No one is going to know those people were infected. Your distraction is pointless.”
“At no time did I claim it was a distraction.”
“So, you just killed them because?”
How she still failed to wrap her head around it, Shepherd would have to address another time. “Brenya Perin has reached her exit point. She did this after scuttling her way through foreign surroundings to find Jules and offer him easy freedom. She did this with only a fork and a knife. I have fitted you with the best technology in Greth Dome, and you have lost Jacques Bernard, because your focus is pathetic.”
“Fuck!” Scrambling to switch the feed, Maryanne leaned on facial recognition software—a desperate fallback that would take more time than they had. The voice of his student wavered as if she fought to hold it together after the intensity of the last hour. “Wait. Brenya is in the wrong location. She’s climbed higher than her rooms.”
Again, the Alpha female had missed the point, Shepherd explaining as if Maryanne were a simpleton. “She’s tired and she thinks she might fall. The balcony will catch her.”
Together, they watched an Omega with a fork and knife pry open an access panel and suck in outside air. Unlike Maryanne, she didn’t waste time. Brenya ripped open her shirt, stripped fully naked, and stuffed the dirty thing behind her. Climbing out, one foot on the winged shoulder of the Omega Goddess, the other notched into a bit of filigree, she closed the panel and hastened to screw it shut.
Panting from the effort, favoring her right arm, she slid down the wall. There was no way for her to see at that speed where she might land her weight, what handholds might become available, but instinct drove her to find a path before she fell a greater distance than she might survive unscathed.
Shepherd and Maryanne watched as the final foothold was missed.
Dangling from one arm, the Omega took the utensils out of her teeth and let go.
The landing was hard; there would be further bruising. But her Alpha didn’t seem the type who would notice the changing landscape of her skin.
Fork and knife were back on the empty table just as Jacques entered the room. Finding his mate missing from the nest, he raced toward the open door to the balcony.
Shepherd issued another order. “Give me volume.”
“What are you doing out here?” The Commodore looked at the breathless woman, turning his glare next to the forgotten dinner table. “Did you eat all that food while I was gone?”
She didn’t answer, sitting down in the nearest chair with her hands folded in her lap.
“I asked you a question, mon chou.”
Brenya Perin stared down at her fingers, struggling to keep her breath even. “I’m very hungry.”
A lie. For on the screen pulled up beside the five angles of Jacques Bernard’s rooms, Jules had just finished devouring the food he’d been given.
Not that the people of Bernard Dome would ever know. As per protocol while incarcerated, the Beta had sat still for so many days that playing his actions on a loop would go unnoticed. Had gone unnoticed by the remote guards monitoring his cell.
Tearing at blond hair, the Commodore turned into his room to snarl into a COM where his Omega might not hear. “Feed him clean food. Whatever he wants. NOW!”
Then the Alpha was again outside, snatching up the female to return her to the nest. Her back hit the pillows, her hair splayed, and her body laid out like a sacrifice. Standing over her, the male took his time undressing, staring down at the woman as if unsure where to begin the feast. From the feral look of him, it would not be the gentle touch she clearly needed at the moment.
It wasn’t until the Alpha crept over her body that Shepherd commanded, “As soon as Jacques Bernard falls asleep, summon him for an emergency meeting with the Chancellor of Greth Dome. Should he refuse, release the footage of the infected gentlemen’s club.”
At that, Shepherd turned away from the screens. There was no need to watch another man rape Jules’ mate… again.
The door to their bedchamber possessed no lock, but that didn’t mean his little one might not have shifted furnishings to keep him from the room. They had not spoken since their argument in the garden, each choosing to coexist in strained silence as he plotted his next move and she belligerently dug in her heels.
It was an easy thing to do when a pair-bond was as strong as theirs, but it was also unacceptable.
Shepherd loved his Claire in a way he’d never fully understand. She was the best kind of addiction, the constant vibration of her being always with him, taking up the space in his chest where most men might have a soul.
She had improved him from the moment he had seen her in those filthy, reeking clothes. There would be no existing without her. If that meant he could only have her in this pretty cage she’d contained herself within, then he would take whatever scraps she might offer.
Not that he would ever cease working to give her everything she ever desired.
Swinging the door easily open, Shepherd found her awake in her nest. Knees under her chin as she stared off into the sunrise. Green eyes that had the power to undo him with a glance rested on her view of their garden. Following her gaze, he realized he had not had the time to tend to her plants before she might wake.
Maybe she was disappointed. Perhaps she thought him petty enough to abandon the project out of anger.
“You didn’t come to bed last night.”
It would have been a fine evening indeed to have lain next to her, even if she had denied his attentions. “I was called away.”
And he was suddenly very weary. With an uncharacteristic sigh, he walked forward and took a seat on the edge of their mattress. Elbows to his knees, he leaned the weight of his upper body forward and stared out at the sunrise.
A little hand came to rest on his spine. “Shepherd, I’m sorry.”
“As am I.”
Stroking where his back knotted with tension, she teased, “No, you’re not. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Cutting a glance over his shoulder, the man found his wife’s smirk and loved her all the more for it. “I am sorry, perfect Claire. I am sorry that none of this worked out as it should have. I am sorry that I have given you sound reason to assume the worst of me in all situations. You are not wrong. I would do the things you say should circumstance require.”
Black hair fell around her as she scooted closer, her second hand coming to tend to his back with her first. “Honey, I’m listening. Tell me what’s going on.”
How she could be so sweet, he’d never know. And this moment, a moment that came out of love despite the recent stings, would be ruined. Because he was going to ask her something that both of them would hate. “Claire, I need you to tell me everything you can think of regarding an Omega who is mated to an Alpha she hates.”
Though it was the middle of the night in Bernard Dome, the sun rose outside Greth, but there was nothing but darkness that came from the mouth of the woman Shepherd loved.
“The pair-bond feels like broken glass you are forced to swallow. It cuts deeper every time you breathe. It kills.” The tired-eyed Omega in their nest didn’t hesitate to continue. “It killed my mother, though it took over a decade to eat her from the inside out. It has led my friends to kill.”
Nona French—murderess and mentor—rotting back in Thólos where she belonged.
Under her hands, a slave to Claire’s whims in a way she would never fully accept, Shepherd said, “Go on.”
“You cannot imagine what it is like to be utterly powerless at another being’s whim.”
Oh yes, he could.
Claire hesitated, as if his mate thought to spare him from the very thing he had asked for. “With a single sound, an Alpha can hurt you in ways that cut so deep they never stop bleeding.”
There was nothing said Shepherd had not earned. But there was a shade of remorse that he seldom allowed himself to acknowledge.
His little one took pity, resting her cheek to his shoulder while she kneaded his spine. “I can’t give you more if I don’t know the context, Shepherd. You and I… we fit. Had the circumstances been different when we met, it would have been an effortless union. You have to tell me what happened if you want me to tell you what to do.”
Gathering her up, he lay back in a bland nest, knowing the state of their bed was the biggest statement she might make concerning the arguments of the day. Her weight on him was perfect, the way she instinctively hummed in tune with his soft purr, a balm.
Before he might share a history that didn’t belong to him, he gathered up her hair and let its silk slip through his fingers. “Jules was once married to an Omega—”
Claire whispered, stroking his flank, “You were there, spying, when Jules told me about Rebecca. I did not forget the terrible story concerning his sons—how Senator Cantor murdered them in front of her before he forced a pair-bond. How he found his wife, once he was free of the Undercroft, that she begged him to kill her. Jules shot her in the head.”
“He did.” And his compatriot had returned to the Undercroft a very different man.
Placing her chin to his chest so she might look him in the eyes, his little one asked, “You were surprised Jules told me.”
“He would have only done so for good reason, a testament to the effort he has put forward for my sake.”
Cautiously playful, Claire teased, “He is your friend, Shepherd. It’s okay to acknowledge that you have one besides me.”
A strange sensation twisted under Shepherd’s ribs. “You would consider me your friend, Claire O’Donnell?”
Sleepy smile, eyes glittering, she said, “My best friend.”
Before he knew it, she had coaxed a smile out of him, a rare thing that felt both unpracticed and welcome when they were together. If only he could spend the morning playing with her hair and making soft love to her. Instead—for Jules—he told his wife, his friend, tales from the Undercroft.
The disturbing story of two Alphas who had been condemned to the dark. How both of them claimed they had been used by a powerful Beta, tricked into a three-pronged pair-bond. How he had confirmed the information himself once the registries were available to him. How the Omegas had died.
And then he told the story of Brenya Perin, looking at his wife, knowing he would be condemned by the parallels of what he had done to Claire.
He had taken his Claire against her will. He had forced her to know pleasure on his cock. He had harmed her friends. He had shamed her by lying with another. He had failed to keep her and their son safe.
He could not honestly say that what had motivated him in those early months was any different than what motivated Jacques Bernard—Shepherd understood an Alpha’s insatiable obsession with a new mate.
Shepherd had made mistakes, but he also had an accounting of every last mark on his Omega’s body. There could not have been so much as a splinter he did not know the source of.
There was no meal on her plate that he had not approved. Every article of clothing, every last green dress, was chosen by him. He still dictated her days to an extent that, should Claire ever realize, would upset her.
It would greatly upset her. And he had no intention of changing his ways. Ever.
She would always be his number one priority.
And that was the difference between himself and Jacques Bernard. He had put his Omega in danger from the moment he’d forced a pair-bond. And it would never be undone.
Listening with a concentration of someone who understood the weight of his words, she asked relevant questions regarding the stories of the long-dead Alphas, their Omegas, and the Betas who had orchestrated it all.
Gnawing her lip, Shepherd could see what she was thinking, surprised she put a voice to her thoughts.
“In both situations, the Omegas died and the Betas lived.” Dropping her voice to a whisper as if the Goddess might not hear her say such a thing, Claire said, “Jules could leave her behind and come home.”
Cupping his mate’s cheek, Shepherd met her eyes. “If you only knew the things that man had done to return to Rebecca, you would be frightened to stand in his presence. Brenya Perin broke into his cell tonight and offered him a sound chance for escape. Knowing that we could have assured from our end that it took place, Jules refused to go.”
“So he wants this woman despite the fact that he cannot ever have her?”
Drawing her cheek down to his chest, increasing the purr, Shepherd replied, “I saw the way he looked at her, little one. It’s the same way I look at you.”
“Then it’s done, Shepherd.”
No. It had only just begun.
A foreign power could not contain Jules Havel. The Commodore of Bernard Dome could not degrade a man who had stood by Shepherd’s side, who had been his friend—who had charmed Claire when she was lonely, who had stood as his partner as they had wreaked vengeance upon Thólos.
Jacques Bernard had started a war.
And five of his people had already died.
