Chapter 7 #2
Already untangling herself, she eased out of his embrace. Corday was not allowed to linger, Claire urging him to leave before light might make his journey dangerous. It was obvious he did not want to go, but she seemed so much better, her eyes more alive and a smile on her lips when she spoke.
The Beta retreated. The second he was gone far enough down the causeway not to hear her, Claire doubled over, and quietly lost her stomach all over the frost by the chute.
Corday did not hear her vomiting, nor did he see even a hint of the Followers that had surrounded him so flawlessly when he stepped out of her sight. He popped his collar to warm his neck, and shuffled off with his hands buried deep in his pockets—smiling.
Shepherd left Corday in the hands of Jules’ team, his attention on his ill Omega and the change that came over Claire the instant the boy was gone.
The false smile fell, and she moved far from the group and their fires to sit in solitude, as if invisibly drawn nearer to the place where Shepherd hid in the dark.
He could almost reach out and touch her.
Once comfortable, the female pulled a worn book out of her pocket and lay back to read. Shepherd cocked a brow. His little mate was reading a book he knew by heart, The Art of War. It was oddly endearing, the man imagining future conversations about the text.
What was her favorite passage?
Claire read while most of the women still slept; she read the same book she had read every day since she had found it, and let her eyes linger on memorized quotes.
Sometimes she fancied that it was like reading a segment of Shepherd’s soul.
She could see his mentality in the book, his tactics, and sought vainly to understand—fixated to the point where she did not notice that Nona stirred.
The old woman prepared instant coffee, readying a serving for Claire.
“What wisdom do you have for me today?” Nona asked, pressing a steaming cup of swill into the young woman’s hands.
Claire tossed the book on the ground as she always did when done with it, treating it badly. “According to Sun Tzu, great results can be achieved with small forces… But I choose to interpret that as: pissing off a bunch of women is a really bad idea.”
The old Omega chuckled softly, eyes dancing as she watched Claire sip the coffee and grimace.
Nona stroked back Claire’s dark hair and teased, “You always did love your cappuccinos, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”
Looking down at the shitty watered down beverage, Claire tried to banter. “I have many reasons to hate Shepherd, but reason number one is that I have not had a decent cup of joe since I was run out of my home… the jerk.”
Her friend offered a soft chuckle.
Claire took another sip of the steaming brown water. With Nona at her side, she sat in miserable stillness, her bloodshot eyes growing resolute. She did not know what was causing it, but her ennui was beginning to fade. What was replacing it was acutely painful.
She had altered… crushing indifference warring with an unbearable sense of loss.
She should have felt victorious—she didn’t. She should have felt pride; she’d forgotten even knowing such a sensation.
Nona was speaking some nonsense about the coming sunrise, Claire robotically drinking the tasteless beverage. When the brew was finished, the cup was set aside.
It was time.
Claire stood up and just walked away, leaving her friend without a goodbye.
She would see the sky for herself, observe the sunrise alone. But it would not move her. The sky had lost its magic.
The old woman watched her go, watched as dark hair disappeared… and knew Claire had made her choice.
Outside it was cold, colder every day. Claire wrapped her arms around her body and stumbled away from the Omega’s haven.
There had been no direction in her death march, but somehow she found herself standing at the edge of the Thólos water reserve.
The top had crusted with ice, covered in white as blank and colorless as she had become inside.
But if she squinted, she could see through it to a world of water, where everything was washed clean.
Tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear, she shivered and waited for the cloud heavy sky outside the Dome to glow.
Just as it turned an off-shade of pink, Claire felt that if she allowed any pleasure from such a moment, pain would seep through instead.
The only way to continue was to feel nothing forever.
So she took a step forward, then another one, and alone out in the earliest gloomy light of the morning, Claire walked the ice.
There was no question of hesitation; her work was done. She had completed her mission, given everything she could. She had earned her release from prison. Air crisp on her face, the unmistakable smell of cold, it began to soothe where salty tears burned her cheeks.
Those first steps and the ice already began to whisper complaint. The next ten paces were met with misleading silence. Claire chose to fill the quiet with the customary Omega prayer whispered into the wind:
“Beloved Goddess of Omegas, great Mother who nurtures and protects, I thank you for the life you granted me.”
It was not until she was standing near the center of the reservoir before the sound she anticipated arrived—the crushing threat of cracks and imminent death.
“I am your image. I am your delight. For you hold me in your care. Watch over the world—”
“Do not move, little one.”
The first thought at hearing the sound of that commanding voice was that she should have known he would be there. The devil would have to witness her final moments. There could have been no other way.
Her focus left the horizon and moved down towards her feet, to the fractured pattern that bloomed under her stolen boots. Claire sucked in a slow breath, felt it stretch her chest, and glanced over her shoulder. “The city is a horror show and I don’t have anything left. You win, Shepherd.”
“You willfully misunderstand.” The urgent coarseness of his voice was insistent… nervous. “Svana would have killed you had I not—”
Claire felt her mouth form a small smile at the man behind her. “At least I know what made you the way you are. It wasn’t only your life in the Undercroft. It was her.”
Shepherd held out his hand, his eyes wide and unblinking. “It was the only way I could appease her and keep you.”
A look of pity—and it was pity she felt—saddened Claire’s face. “You tell that lie almost as if you actually believe it. The choice you made was not the only way; it was the way you chose. You chose to do that horrible thing… to do many horrible things… for her.”
Shepherd’s lips wavered, he looked confused. When he spoke next, it seemed as if the words were foreign to him, “If I was to offer an apology, would it make any difference?”
“No.”
“Then I will offer this instead.” He stretched his hand out farther. “If you return to me, I will give you what you want. I will leave the Omegas in peace and see that they are left alone. You have my word.”
Claire hummed, her attention returning to the cracking ice under her feet.
He tried again, determined. “Svana will not be allowed near you; nor will I ever touch her in that manner again.”
Claire ignored him.
Exasperated, he gritted out, “I will even allow you to see your sky.”
She mouthed the words, spoke them as if the very idea meant nothing anymore, “My sky…”
“I will care for you.”
Water fell from her eyes, ran down her cheeks. Her voice was so sad. “It almost sounds like you mean it… how funny.”
It took a great deal of effort for Shepherd to manage the last inducement. “I will spare the Beta, Enforcer Corday, whose death will otherwise be very slow and painful.”
That was the tipping point. The hazy quality of her green eyes sharpened and her soft lips pressed into a firm line. She listened closely.
“I am offering you the lives of forty-two people, little one.” Shepherd employed a voice of reason, his purr rumbling to show sincerity.
Claire looked at his upturned palm, at the largeness of it, the lines and the calluses. She thought of Corday, of his vow to free the city… of everything that had been whispered between them in the dark. She thought of the child she felt utter indifference for, and put a hand to her stomach.
“That is right, little one, think of our baby.”
She would never allow Shepherd’s evil or that horrible woman to have the child, but she could buy Corday time.
If he failed, she would kill herself and the life growing inside her before it might be born; she could do that, and she would.
The smooth turn of her step, the little movement necessary to face the giant made the ice crack further, yet still she stood above what should have been her watery grave.
Shepherd knew she would say yes, that she would subject herself to him to save every life he’d mentioned.
Claire could already feel it through a link that should not have been there; a burning barb knocking about where her lungs fought to expand.
Her breath hitched painfully, and she fisted the leather of her jacket over her heart. “There is one more life I want.”
“Who?”
Despite the invasion of the clawing worm, Claire sneered at the Alpha. “I will only tell you if you give me your unequivocal word that this person will never come to harm.”
“And if I do this, you will return to me and live fully as my mate?” It was what he wanted, she could see it, feel her just a little bit more through the link, and he did not stop the malicious greedy evil that fostered his grin.
She felt his pleasure, glanced into rapacious eyes, and saw every ounce of his desperate elation. “Yes.”
Shepherd nodded and crooked his fingers. “You have my word.”
“Maryanne Cauley.”