Reborn (Alpha's Claim Book 3) Page 7

  Shepherd cleared his throat. She didn’t look. He chose a neutral comment of their shared memory. “You pulled down your scarf to swallow one of those pills. You exhaled. That was the moment I first caught your scent.”

  Claire stilled. Her eyes didn’t leave the nest, but she did speak. “How many hours did I stand there?”

  “Six.” Shepherd set aside Claire’s painting, leaning a hip on the table. “You stood in the Citadel for approximately six hours.”

  A line formed between her brows. “It felt like much longer. I’d been so sick, but I could not leave... because you would not acknowledge me.”

  “Women come to the Citadel daily to offer themselves to me or my men. All are ignored.”

  “I’m not sure what to make of that statement...” The idea made her skin crawl. Claire worried her lip. “You could be wrong. They might only wish to speak with you.”

  Shepherd’s offering was gentle, the man crossing the room so that while he spoke he might trace her claiming marks. “You were different, little one.”

  She didn’t mean to cringe. Claire knew he had not intended to insult her, but she did feel something. It was not a good feeling. Truth was, Claire understood the motivation of such women. After all, had she not done the same thing, trading her body to Shepherd? “Not in the long run.”

  He absorbed her reaction, her poorly veiled shame, her misconception of injustice. Fingers burrowing into her hair, he purred all the louder. “You are my mate, Claire. Not a whore. You carry my child... There is no correlation to what those women offer and what you share with me.”

  Claire looked back at the table, thinking to edge around him. “I can understand why they would offer themselves. I do not appreciate that you call them whores. They are just trying to survive.”

  He could have made a snatch for her, he could have pinned his mate to the bed to show her his displeasure with her hesitation to be near him, but Shepherd let her be. It was more than her abnormal scent, she was acting very strangely.

  Again he gave her space when she walked away.

  When she got to the table, out of nowhere she set her fist to the wood and snapped at him, “Why did you not bring a tray?”

  Because he had spent the last hour in conference with Jules, furious to find that Svana had indeed stripped off every stitch of clothing she’d worn underground and stashed them in an abandoned home. “Your meal is being prepared as we speak.”

  “Oh...” Recognizing her rudeness, the blush in Claire’s cheeks, the tone of her voice, was self-conscious. The flush deepened an instant later, embarrassment replaced with growing agitation.

  She circled back to the bed, brushing past Shepherd and began to sniff the air again. Turning on him, eyes narrowed, the hiss came back to her voice. “Something is wrong with this room. Did you change something while I was sleeping? Move something?” Her attention darted all over, Claire growing breathless. “Fix whatever you did.”

  Shepherd narrowed his eyes, unamused with the strangeness of her behavior. “I have changed nothing.”

  “No. no.” She looked at him, had the nerve to point and blame. “Something is different; something is not right in here.”

  “There has been no alteration, little one.”

  She growled and fisted her hands. Right before it seemed she might start shouting, she seemed to snap out of it. Confused, Claire forced a softer tone, stammering, “Of course not... Everything looks the same.”

  “Is there something that you desire for the room?” Shepherd cocked his head, measuring her every breath. “Something you think is missing from our nest?”

  “No.” She tugged her hair, once again looking around and very uncomfortable. “Yes.”

  “You are behaving as if your nest were threatened.” As if that explained everything, the man crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to confirm that he was correct.

  The weight of the glare she leveled at him was monumental. Rationality fled and Claire shrieked, “It is, you jackass. The room is wrong. FIX IT!”

  “In what way?”

  Was the man an idiot? Beyond caring, she threw up her arms. “I DON’T KNOW! If I knew what you had done to the room, I would fix it myself.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” This was not normal; Shepherd needed her normal. “To retrieve your meal at once?”

  “Yes.” She spun around, changing her mind, “No. You have to stay. This is your fault. You don’t get to leave until you fix whatever you did.”

  Shepherd stood taller, commanding, “On the bookshelf, top far right, is a book with a white cover. Bring it to me.”

  Claire huffed, shuffling her bare feet over to what he demanded. She grabbed the only white book and threw it right at the man. It bounced off his chest, landing on the concrete with a thud.

  The Alpha growled—it was not the guttural call to mate, it was a warning, a threat, and something that would have sent grown men white as a sheet. Claire ignored it, choosing instead to wring her hands and pace.

  He came upon her so quickly that when a great arm slipped around her middle and hoisted her up, she shrieked in surprise. Once seated at his desk, Shepherd pulled her to his lap, held the squirming Omega still, and opened the book. The giant flipped through the pages, stopping when he found a marker, and raised the book to the female’s eye level. “This is what our baby looks like in his current week of development.”

  Claire stiffened, staring at the glossy page.

  He tapped an underlined paragraph. “And here it says that at this stage in pregnancy, hormone fluctuations will occasionally make you exhibit irrational behaviors.” The arm about her middle tightened, the greatly irritated male growling, “Take note, little one, that I am being extremely indulgent of you at this moment.”

  She felt his nose at the back of her head, heard his deep intake of breath, and read the book’s offered list of tips for the father. He was right, she was acting crazy. Nodding, she admitted, “I think you may have followed ‘how to handle pregnancy mood swings’ to the letter: ‘Do not argue, offer food...’”

  A small gleam in his eye, Shepherd agreed. “I did.”

  She was a little embarrassed. “Considering your temper, I suppose I should be impressed.”

  With the mood seeming to have passed, Shepherd sought out the trigger. “Articulate what brought on your distress.”

  “I have no idea.”

  The Alpha had the audacity to chuckle, the skin at the corner of his eyes creasing.

  Still annoyed, Claire muttered, “You’re a bastard.”

  He gave her hip a light smack. “Watch your mouth.”

  She began to protest, wanting up. “But the room is wrong, I can feel it. And I need more chocolate, and I hate the grey walls, and I have this weird urge to eat charcoal, and you stink of Svana.” Her mouth snapped shut, green eyes beginning to burn once she recognized the truth in her words. He did reek of Svana! Growling like she might rip out his throat, a haze of fury clouded her every thought. “That is what is wrong with the room!”

  Dashing the book against the wall, Claire inhaled deeply, her nose to his chest.

  Wisely, Shepherd held still, let her crawl over him so she might find the limits of where the scent might linger. He’d caused this discord by unthinkingly not considering such an outcome, but he would not allow Claire to believe the worst. She smelled him everywhere, clawed her small hands into his clothes, finding every last trace. The stink was so subtle, she was surprised she’d even noticed. The man did not smell of sex or slick or a recent shower. In fact, he mostly smelled of her.

  Cautiously, Shepherd offered a remedy to the issue. “Shall we bathe?”

  We?...

  Claire pulled away as far as his hold on her would allow. She repeated what he’d crowed only moments before, the phrase much more menacing coming from her lips. “Take note, I am being extremely indulgent of you at this moment.”

  Shepherd drew breath as if to speak, but Claire held up a finger, and
cut him off. “You stink of the Alpha you fucked in my nest a minute after you found her trying to murder me and your baby! Speak and I might just have to kill you.”

  The Alpha kept his mouth shut—but it was not her tone or threat that stopped his lips, it was the smell of his mate’s arousal already seeping, hot and thick, into the fabric of his trousers. He watched her small hand hike up her skirt, saw her reach under to cup her sex. Once her fingers were covered in slick, she met his eyes, smearing her hand down his neck, directly over the spot where he stank of his beloved.

  Gathering more of her wetness, Claire soaked the patch of his shirt until she could only smell herself.

  It was not good enough.

  Unable to comprehend anything beyond black rage, Claire clawed the fabric and ripped Shepherd’s shirt to threads.

  Her nose went back to his exposed chest and she let out the most threatening growl an Omega could make.

  If he was hushing her, or reprimanding, touching, or in shock, Claire was absolutely oblivious. Every fiber of her being demanded she stake claim, that she scratch her marks all over his body, that she leave a sign all other females would see.

  She left him bloody.

  Breathing hard, she reared up until eye level with the man. “Now you will fuck me, hard, in every way that pleases me. And when it is done, you will get me food, because I’m fucking hungry!”

  He was on her with such force the breath was knocked from her body. Shepherd did exactly as his mate demanded, pounding into her with a fury that set her howling amidst their shredded clothing. In Shepherd’s experience, there had never been a coupling like it. She was beyond estrous, beyond fiery passion. Her angry possessiveness blended so beautifully with the lustful need to claim what was hers—but it was so much more than that. What began as violent evolved until they were more than physically joined. He had what he wanted, her covetous emotion honest and pure in the bond. Shepherd gluttonously reveled in it.

  She wanted him.

  They had never openly discussed it, or even furtively shared whispers after the sham meetings they pantomimed week after week for Shepherd’s surveillance team. Both Brigadier Dane and Enforcer Corday had played their parts, openly quarreling at the old location, hosting meetings where nothing of value was accomplished. It was all a performance, but the continuous suffering of their people was very real.

  The old resistance was dying. Their friends were dying—not just from violence, but from crushed hope. In the eyes of the Dome, Brigadier Dane and Enforcer Corday were two great failures.

  The title did not disturb either of them. Both clung to what really mattered: survival.

  Not their survival, both of them could see the writing on the wall. They needed their people to live; they needed to give Leslie Kantor and her growing band of rebels a chance.

  At least that’s what they told themselves.

  More people died, more disappeared.

  Since the day Lady Kantor told him in secret exactly how she was going to take back the Dome, Corday could do nothing but nod dumbly. It sat there, that horrible knowledge, like a rock on his chest, but he could not see any other options.

  Brigadier Dane had needed to know what her actions would be consigning, what the two of them were a part of.

  That’s why they found their way to one another the first time they’d met in secret, how they found their way to the ruined safe house where the headless remains of Senator Kantor still lay wrapped in garbage bags on the table.

  The causeways were empty, the city hollow, and cold, the two standing in a room that reeked of decay.

  There was no one there to watch. Lady Kantor and her minions, Shepherd and his Followers... no soul knew who met and why.

  No one ever visited the corpse. It was more than the smell; after all, the entirety of the Dome stank of unburied dead. People didn’t come here because only three people knew whose body was decomposing in that room.

  They stood with the table between them, eyeing one another with open animosity and desperation.

  Lady Kantor, her misused leadership; what it was costing those who’d valiantly served, had grown out of hand. Too many people were dying, ‘necessary sacrifices’ she would say, so her growing band of handpicked revolutionaries might build bombs from garbage. Bombs they planned to strap to their bodies on the day the chosen would free the city.

  As usual, Brigadier Dane’s voice was filled with disdain when she addressed the younger man. “You have never been a good Enforcer, and that is because you questioned everything. Insubordination, anything but blind obedience, was not allowed to flourish under this Dome. The wise ambitious do as they are told until they reach a position where they give the orders. Then there is no need to question, because everyone else must obey. It seems you’ve finally learned this lesson.”

  And that right there was the reason it had been so easy for Shepherd to seize the city, and so easy for Lady Kantor to wrestle control of the resistance into her hands with only the Kantor name to validate her. “And what part of yourself was sacrificed to attain the rank of Brigadier?”

  Brigadier Dane did something unimaginable—she lifted an eyebrow and actually smirked. It was such an unusual expression to see on the hard woman’s face, that it was vulgar. “I have seen enough of the workings of this city. I have done what I could, knowing more could only be accomplished if I rose higher. Sacrifices? You become numb to them. You hang on to an ideal, and you strive not to forget it.”

  The sickness that had brewed in Corday’s belly for weeks, churned. “If you are trying to justify the things we saw on Callas’s Data cube—”

  “Me?” the smirk became a sneer, Brigadier Dane cutting off Corday’s quick-tempered complaint. “Boy, what you have done, your imprudence... can you even begin to grasp the consequences?”

  There was a reason they came to this place, where the pair of failures might whisper in the dark, because there was no safe place to question amidst the fanatics rising to Lady Kantor’s secret cause. Corday was not afraid of Brigadier Dane’s disapproval, or in admitting he’d made a grave mistake. “Leslie Kantor...”

  “Men like you are so easy to influence— you know everything, feel too greatly without questioning yourself. She pegged you for what you were the moment she took that first whiff. As Brigadier, I’ve seen veiled ruthlessness, the rise and fall of those who would attain the title of Senator. She is nothing new, a politician through and through, who hid in a room for the first months of this occupation thinking only of herself. When she was forced to leave or starve, she ran straight to her powerful uncle, saw an opportunity, and is using us all to achieve the highest goal a person like her might attain. The amount of people who will die when those bombs go off, the chance we might bring down the Dome, she is willing to risk all that and more to become the new Premier.”

  “The enemy is Shepherd.”

  The woman let out an extremely agitated breath. “How blind you are. The enemy has never been Shepherd. The enemy is us. We are fighting ourselves!”

  “What you are saying is treason.”

  Brigadier Dane didn’t give a fuck. “There is no government left to judge me. All that is left is Leslie Kantor, her ambition, and those so desperate for reprieve they will believe anything she proclaims as if the Goddess herself speaks.”

  The words passed almost tonelessly, from Corday’s mouth. “If I move against this mission, I won’t stand a chance of saving Claire.”

  “If you believe Leslie Kantor gives a single fuck about your Claire, then you’re even stupider than I thought.” Brigadier Dane ran her hand through her short, clipped hair, shaking her head at the man’s foolishness. “Have you never noticed how often she mentions your Claire? Why do you suppose she does that? Does she mention her often in front of her rebels? Do they hate her?”

  Corday shook his head, unsure how to answer.

  “The Omega is lost, we all know it. The only thing Claire exists as now is the strings Leslie pulls to make you dance a
s her puppet.”

  The temptation to strike what had once been his commanding officer, was so strong, Corday forced himself to take a step back. “I don’t trust Leslie Kantor’s motivation any more than you do, but she has lit the spark Senator Kantor failed to ignite. She might be our only chance.”

  “Yes,” Brigadier Dane nodded. “She has set the wheels in motion and there is no stopping them now. But two people can question, they can alter the future if both of them are ready to pay the price.”

  “I promised Claire,” Corday hissed, disgusted and tired. “I have maps of the Citadel. Leslie gave them to me.”

  “Leslie Kantor did not give you the Premier’s data cube so you could save Claire. She gave it to you so you would grow to hate the man whose corpse lies between us... She gave it to you so you would grow to love her in his place.”

  Leslie had warned him not to look into the files, and of course it was the first thing Corday had done. Every Senator had a secret, some of them monstrous.

  “What he did to Rebecca...” Leslie’s ploy had worked. Once Corday had read the file, seen horrific video footage, he had begun to despise the old man. “His dead wife was the reason Senator Kantor would not let us enter the Premier’s Sector. Knowledge of his crime would have been uncovered, he would have been exposed.”

  “Boy, Premier Callas had something on everyone, and everyone had something to hide. But when Rebecca died, I saw the change in Kantor myself.” The hard woman looked down at the wrapped corpse; she frowned. “For the first time in his life, when he spoke of the people under the Dome, when he spoke of bettering ourselves, he meant it.”

  “I cannot forgive him for what he did to that poor woman, her husband, and their children. The footage of those boys’ murder burns me every time I close my eyes.”

  “Leslie was shrewd in her dissection of your,” Brigadier Dane smirked again, “ethics.”

  Grinding his teeth, caught in the riptide of all the bullshit around them, Corday hissed, “How else do we stop Shepherd?”