Chapter 14
Greth Dome
For once, Shepherd did not get his way.
Claire had won.
There had been no dinner with Annette or Guadalupe. There had been no walking through cheering crowds to exultant shouts of “Queen Svana!”
There had been no peace.
And Claire was starting to fear this was what they would be forever. Stuck in a war that should have ended in Thólos. With her dead. With him dead. With everyone gone.
A war that haunted her yet did not trouble him at all.
And it was as they lay in bed, her ear to his heart, his knot locked deep and true, that she told him this. Whispered things to him in the dark she’d never even told Dr. Osin.
Confessions, every last sad thought, as he listened and played with her black hair, just like Shepherd had from the first day he had claimed her.
Sad little secrets about growing up with a mother like hers, with a father that worked to pretend everything was okay.
How she realized now that there had been a void inside her, long before she’d met him.
But told her husband he had dug it deeper, because he had done things she could not ever forget even if she might forgive.
And his actions had changed how things could have been between them.
Her growing disgust, even horror, that he’d said Svana’s name without anger or grief.
As if forcing it on Claire was some kind of honor.
“If you were going to do this monstrous thing to me, you should have changed your name to Premier Callas when you invaded Greth and lived with that insult for the rest of your days. Your Svana is the reason my son is dead. She’s the reason I was raped in the Undercroft.
She’s the reason you are so broken and so fucking stupid when it comes to people. ”
The nest was warm, soft, his body strong under her. The covers over them kept out the light. In their private little cave as her spirit jerked on his pair-bond like a fish on a hook.
And made him work to keep her.
Because her thoughts were everywhere else. Watching her mother play the piano in her memories. The way her childhood bedroom smelled. Coffee from the best corner store near her art school. Her dad’s laugh.
How uncomfortable her black dress was at her mother’s funeral.
Shame that she hadn’t been enough for her mother to choose to live. Self-loathing for never confronting her father for what he’d done… stealing an Omega and forcing her to be his mate.
A childhood spent trying so hard to make everyone happy.
“She owes you this.” Rage gone cold, an Alpha who dreamed of murder and his own gaping secret loss, knew what to say, because he had prepared long for this.
Svana had betrayed him first. And then he’d betrayed himself.
But not now. Now, he was taking what he deserved, because Svana would have never given it otherwise.
“Her name has value, and she owes it. To you. To me. And I took it with pleasure. Used her corpse to elevate my queen. It’s only a collection of mouth sounds now.
I have no love for it in any sense but for how it protects you.
She’s gone. No legacy but the one I built for you.
So, take it. Because the world will never give you what you deserve. Not unless you let me give it to you.”
“You and I… I don’t think we can ever be happy.” Said as Claire rubbed her face against his bare chest, nuzzling, working his scent into her cheeks and nose as she felt how empty she’d really become. “You are beyond reaching.”
“You don’t mean that, Claire.”
“But I do. I mean it. In what universe you thought you could bully me into pretending to be her, I don’t know.
You took me because I looked like her. You fucked me because you were angry with her.
You betrayed her with me and me with her.
I was a tool, a thing, a houseplant to you…
one you grew fond of. But you would never have loved me for my humanity. I know it charms you, but—”
A hand covered her mouth, the Alpha angry and rattling, but careful with the delicate bones of her neck as he silenced his mate.
Those green eyes wide and so, so sad. An expression that was certain it would not get better. That there was no smug quote he might dig out of his mind when all she said was true.
“I am not who I was. And you are not who you were. And Svana is dead. Her corpse is in pieces in a freezer where you can go see what’s left of her anytime you want.”
The idea made her skin crawl. “Why would you keep it?”
“It’s valuable.”
A female hum of dismal acknowledgment. “Do you visit it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?” It stung deep in the bond to think of her mate and husband had visited the body of his former lover.
“I like to break pieces off of it.” Shepherd was morbid and honest and not at all ashamed. “It makes a very satisfying sound.”
“I think you should stop doing that.”
Shepherd cocked a brow. “Why? She can’t feel anything. She’s dead.”
“It’s not good for you.”
“I think of what she did to you, of how much you’ve suffered for it.
About our baby…” There was anguish in his eyes, and then there was fury.
“And I can’t reach into hell to strangle her myself.
All I can steal is her legacy to lay at your feet—the thing she wanted most—and enjoy the satisfaction of stomping on her corpse now and then. ”
“Does it make you feel better?”
A definitive male. “Yes.”
“Really?” Oddly curious, Claire peeked up at him, needing to see the silver eyes she’d painted a thousand times.
He knew just what to say. All he had to speak was the truth. “Steal from her the only thing she cared about. Make it into something better. And maybe wonder if the world gave it to you because she would have infected Greth with her greed until it was even uglier than Thólos.”
“And you would have helped her do it.”
That got him. Placed a pause in a man that seldom lost his words.
“You think you cannot be happy with me, not the way you want to. But I am happy. I am. You make me happy. Just being near you… it makes me so happy. Even when you cry, I’m thankful I get to hear it.
And yes, I would have helped her, and maybe I would have always been blind. But you saved me.”
Ignoring the little flutter in her heart, Claire made her point again. “I’m not going to that dinner. I’m not. And if you try to make me, I’ll tell everyone what you did. You cannot always win.”
“I will give you anything you want if—”
It was her turn to cover his mouth. To show him the side of her that was still huddled on the frozen ground of Thólos next to that dead boy in the alley.
“I want my city back. I want Maryanne in my kitchen in an hour. I want my son. I want to know that I can trust you. You can’t give me any of that. ”
“Claire.” The old him wasn’t dead after all. Shepherd narrowing his eyes, threatening, just as he had in the bunker when she’d refused to play house. “There is no one in the world you can trust more than me.”
“I’d trust Corday.”
And that? That set him off, Claire enjoying that he felt just as miserable and hurt as she did.
To know your enemy, you must become your enemy. - Sun Tzu.
And for the first time—knotted and trapped—Claire did not allow Shepherd to get the jump on her with his purr or his fingers on her clit.
On top, she began to rock her hips and fuck herself on his knot, holding it inside her as she stole pleasure he would have forced.
Leaning back so the blankets fell away, glaring down with rage, with love, with shame as she wrapped her hands around his throat and squeezed just enough to make a point.
There was no dinner with Annette and Guadalupe, because he fucked her until the bed broke. She took it, all of it, because that was what she deserved. And for a brief, terrible moment, she wondered what it might sound like to break something off of Svana’s corpse.
And then… she began to feel better.
Claire was sore, and bruised, and her hips ached terribly. He’d bitten her, he’d pinned her, he’d fucked her way too hard.
The ache was deserved.
Enjoyed, as Claire sat on the floor by their broken bed, sunlight streaming through the window as she spread out little handwritten notes she’d collected from her mate since arriving in Greth.
Little memories that were hers.
And his.
Sweet.
When she was alone, occasionally, she’d pull them out and spread them around her, drinking in her mate in a way one might drink down sweet poison.
The quotes, the orders, the arrogance, the thoughtful notes of devotion.
The man wrote intense love letters, some of which were terribly disturbing, the Alpha capable of tearing her apart with little more than pen and ink. Or making her laugh.
A Mr. Thomas Edward just informed me that I had a feather in my hair. It has been five hours since I left you. -Shepherd
A handwritten letter in the scrawl of a mass murderer.
And yes, the idea of her husband walking amongst his men all day where no one dared tell him there was a feather in his hair was something Claire found pleasure in.
After all, he’d destroyed her nest and ripped apart her favorite pillow that day.
Not that Shepherd would have been properly embarrassed.
Still, the note, on its plain white parchment, tugged up the corners of her lips.
There had been other, kinder notes penned with his thoughts of her while they were parted, so much more meaningful than a quick COM message.
She’d had no idea how much he truly loved her green eyes, or that he had the skill with language to describe how her hair felt running through his fingers.
He would send her bits of wisdom on days when she struggled. As if the male had memorized every last word of each book he had kept in his room underground. Of course he had.
Those books were missing in this new home. There was no Sun Tzu, save the scraps Shepherd scribbled down for her. There was no Plato.