Chapter 6 #2
And while her mind ran wild with horrors, with murder and mayhem and the suffering of innocents, he answered, calm as ever, daring her anger.
“I was with Maryanne, who has been spearheading an important project for Jules. She summoned me to her observation deck to report on unrest in Bernard Dome. Her concerns are supported. Civil war is imminent.”
“Of course it is! You put your hands all over it,” Claire snarled, mean. Meaner than she had been in ages. “What have you done, Shepherd?”
“Jules intends to liberate the slave class, and Maryanne is required to assure his success. As the satellite relays will be cut off when war begins, she requested a ship so she might fly directly to Jules and assist him on the ground. She has chosen to go, and I have chosen to allow it. During our time apart, I outfitted a ship with all she would need and monitored the flight. Nothing troubling is taking place here. You are safe. Very safe. Perfectly safe. This will not touch you or Greth. But I knew if I returned smelling of your old friend, it might upset you even more than I anticipated you already would be.”
“You… You let Maryanne leave the Dome?” No, something wasn’t right here. Maryanne was not reliable. She was not a Follower. She would not help the people of Bernard Dome.
This was one of his misdirections. One of his philosophical tricks. Deceit was layered somewhere in his reasonable explication, but silver eyes betrayed nothing.
Her lip shook. She wrung her hands and picked apart the problem in her stirred-up thoughts.
The answer so obvious that when she hit upon it, her face went ashen.
And then it went red.
“You lying liar!” Another handful of red flowers was thrown at his chest. “You didn’t let Maryanne do anything. You’re using her!” Her voice had gone up in pitch, throat tight. “She’s disposable to you!”
He did not disagree, merely crossing brawny arms over his chest. “She summoned me, pitched her plan, and I approved it.”
“No. Maryanne might be dumb enough to fall for it, but I know better. I know you. You orchestrated this! I know you did! Is she in danger? You said civil war, Shepherd. You sent my best friend into a war zone”—stuttering…
trying to find the right words, words that were not as ugly as the truth Claire blurted out—“knowing she is incapable of altruistic ambitions.”
There it was, the coldness. The hard heart of a male who would burn the world down for his mate and his mate alone.
Everyone else was secondary, even Jules.
“Maryanne was your friend. And an important part of your developmental years. But she is not your friend now, and you need to let her go. You need to let her move on.”
Shepherd was tired too, tired and just as willing to meet her on the proverbial battleground.
Intimidating, far, far larger than she, he grew, he narrowed his eyes, and placed his palms on the counter to lean over her.
“She chose to go to Bernard Dome, because she wants a future there she will never have here. And you, little one, need to understand, Bernard Dome is not Thólos.”
“Don’t even—” Choking on the audacity of her mate saying that word to her, here, now, Claire grabbed another handful of flowers to throw.
“Jules will die without her.”
Her breath caught moments before a scream. Throat tight, eyes stinging, she lost the ability to speak coherently. “You are… using danger toward him to make me…”
“Make you what?”
She blinked at him. Felt the room spin, knew she’d lost this fight before it had even begun. He was that good. Preplanned it. Knew all the right words, how to buoy, how to cut, how to hone and shape her responses.
And she was scared of him, of his superior skills, of his power.
It had been a long time since she’d felt hopeless, but like an old friend, the ugly feeling settled over her as her eyes drifted down to the counter, and two splattered drops of tears hit the stone.
And that resonance, that despondency, poisoned the link between them, Shepherd softening his tone, his posture, a purr instant as he reached forward to cup her cheek. “Little one….”
Pulling her face from his touch, Claire cut her glance to the side of the room. Smaller, exhausted, wanting to look anywhere but at him. “You just murdered my only friend.”
“She’s a capable woman who knows what she’s getting into. Who can build herself a new life without the baggage of the one before. If she dies, she dies working to make a broken society a better place. Why don’t you think she can do it?”
A breathless whisper, a shiver, and another tear. “Because you let her go. Which means you have something you want. People are tools to you, even me. I am a tool that you fuck. A mate that you coddle to make yourself feel normal.”
A moment’s hesitation, a pause that said more than any harsh words he might have spat back. A clear sign that she had indeed hurt his feelings. “Anything else?”
Opening the drawer beside her, Claire pulled out her bottle of heat suppressants, making a show of swallowing one. Denying him her estrous, a chance for another child, a future where they could live as they should. “No, Shepherd. I have nothing else to say to you.”
“It is clear to me that I have allowed you to brood for too long. You will make new friends. Today. Enough clinging to untrustworthy memories that make you sad and… unkind.” Shepherd, unmerciful down to his bones, was unwilling to allow his mate to wallow.
“You will make friends, and Maryanne will move on with her life.”
Slapping the counter, she snarled, “I’m not having this conversation with you again.
I’m not putting innocent women into your crosshairs just so you can lock them up or ship them off when you remember that you don’t like sharing me.
” Scoffing, he earned her fresh glare as she tucked away her sadness and found her rage again. “I refuse.”
“You need friends, Claire. Healthy female relationships.”
“You need friends, Shepherd!”
He seemed to like the direction this had gone, prepared to monopolize the opportunity to entice her. With a smirk and a devilish gleam in his eyes, Shepherd purred, “You’re my friend.”
“Stop!”
“And I love you.” Was that an actual smile on his face? He began to circle the counter, to prowl toward his woman.
Backing away, just a hair, Claire hissed, “What are you doing?”
“Stalking you. Looking forward to a chase. Are you going to run, Omega?”
Another step backward, her entire expression perplexed. “Shepherd. Stop it.”
“No.”
“I mean it!”
His grin grew. “You will go into the city tonight, to a fine restaurant, and have dinner with Annette, the Ambassador of Bernard Dome. There, you can ask all the questions you’d never dare ask me.
She is a very sweet, well-bred Beta—one who needs a friend, after Brenya saved her life and the life of her baby by sending her here when her husband wanted them both dead.
” The words struck exactly as he intended, a flicker of compassion in her eyes, the female compulsion to protect a child apparent.
“Also, Guadalupe, the Omega you so callously refused to befriend and help, will be in attendance. You will guide her on how to be mated to a beastly Alpha like me. You will do this, because you are a good person, and her suffering is needless. I expect you to behave like the wonderful woman you are, and not the spitting kitten throwing things in her kitchen just because she didn’t get the knot she wanted last night. ”
“No!”
He was almost on top of her, cornering her beautifully, as he murmured, “When I invaded Greth Dome, I altered the genetic registries to assure my mate would be protected. That allowed a peaceful transition of power, so she could have a safe home. It had to be done. You look so much like her, and I don’t regret it.
We’ll get through this. Understand that. ”
“What?” What was he going on about now? Why was he backing her into a corner and talking to her like she might bolt or hurt herself? “I don’t—”
“Everyone native to this Dome believes you are Queen Svana, and you will be addressed as such for the rest of your life. Including tonight. In public, when you go to dinner in the city. Your first public appearance since the death of your son.”
The remembrance of female fingers inside her, then the gut punch of what the Alphas had done to her in the Undercroft. As if they were doing it all over again… as if Shepherd condoned it.
Her scream was from the deepest part of her guts, pain and shame and the remembrance of Shepherd’s betrayal when Claire had been forced to listen to his mate fuck that woman in the other room. “How could you do this to me?”
It wasn’t her who hit him. It was something else that had crept inside her skin. Something that grabbed that vase of red poppies and threw it to the floor to shatter. Who screamed as hard as she could and tore at her hair.
And died a little inside.
Wailing, vicious, as if he were the enemy he had been when they’d first met. She made Shepherd bleed. Not much, but enough.
Seeing the trickle of blood, it broke her already bruised heart. Her mate in pain because she had hurt him.
Because he was killing her… all over again.
And she fell to her knees before him, sobbing as her forehead landed on his shoe, as she gagged and hiccupped and fought for air and loved and hated the man in equal measure.
His hand came to her head, petting her with such care.
Purr booming, loud, forcing a calm she might not find, Shepherd said, “I know you’re upset and that you think this is a betrayal, but let it be the legacy you should have been born into.
You are a queen. My queen. Allow that protection to cover our children…
they will be royal, little one. They will be beloved by the entire Dome from the moment they are conceived.
I will make it so. You are beloved by the Dome—the savior queen who ended gang violence on the streets, rebuilt the slums, assured education to the poorest, and equality to the unrepresented.
These things I did in your honor, as you would have wanted them done.
You are the only version of Queen Svana they have ever known: compassionate, gentle, kind.
Take the name; let me carry the rest of it.
If you don’t, if you deny it publicly, it will cause unrest and endanger the lives of everyone.
Not just my men and their mates. There will always be those who grasp for power.
Do not give them actionable cause to create zealots. ”
“I want you to leave, and I don’t want you to come back until you have to.” It was all she could manage to brokenly mutter as he helped her stand, careful of the shards of glass.
Because he would have to come back. Her body would need him. Crave him. Demand her treacherous mate. But not for a day or two.
“If you think I would leave you when you are this upset, then you really don’t understand how much I love you, little one.”
There was no room left to worry over Maryanne, no room to fret about forced friendships or worry over Jules. He’d gutted those concerns right out of her. Carved her to pieces with a few simple words.
And carried her to the nest to knot her as she shut her eyes to him and wept.
A tender, diligent, careful mate, who purred and pet and made her come until she forgot her name… so he could force her to take a new one.
Shepherd relieved this issue had finally been broached, his calm clear in the pair-bond, his resolve rigid that this was best unshaken by her despair.