It had been a beautiful day, one of the first in spring. It had also been the second day since she had secretly stopped taking all her medication.
Anxiety was an old ghost, but in those moments—on that first solid try—the ghost had become the devil himself, and Claire could hardly hear over the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Unsure of the expression on her face, all she could think was that it had to be bad for Shepherd to have made his way to her so quickly.
“Have you come here to see me, little one? There was no need for you to leave the nest to do so. I could have been contacted.” Shepherd’s large hand closed over her shoulder, the man frowning because she had unknowingly wandered out in only her nightclothes and robe. “I will return you to our home.”
“I don’t want to go there.” But he was already herding her away from the inner workings of his order, shuffling her toward a high walled segment of the palace grounds very few would dare to enter.
“Why? Are you displeased with our home?”
Swallowing, Claire felt her legs move because he moved her. “No, Shepherd. It is a beautiful home.” And it was; it was lovely.
“Then why would you come here, little one? Are you lonely, do you require companionship?”
No, she did not want companions. “I don’t need a babysitter, Shepherd. I just wanted to take a walk.”
He stopped, his highly polished shoes suddenly silent, and Shepherd looked down at the woman held pressed to his side. She hadn’t been sleeping and it showed in the dark smears under her eyes. “A walk that has left you badly panicked, Claire.”
She was so tempted to bury her nose in his side and let him make her feel better. “I want to be like I was before. I want to feel normal again.”
It was almost cruel the way he said, “You are never going to feel the way you did before. You are never going to be who you were before.”
He could feel the tumult of emotions raging inside her, the fear growing weaker in place of despair, anger, hate, pain, but most of all love. Everything that could be done to fix what hurt her, he was doing. Even her current state he could improve, and did when he pulled off his jacket and set it over her shoulders so she might not feel undressed before his men.
That old challenging look in her green eyes reared its head, even though she pulled the warm fabric he’d offered closer. “Thank you.”“Claire has been weaning herself off her medication. Three days ago she stopped taking them all together.”
“Such a thing is dangerous! Why was I not informed of this?” Shepherd slammed a fist on the table between them.
Dr. Osin remained at attention, facing her enraged commanding officer, unflinching. “I monitor her closely. This minor rebellion is good for her. She is trying to regain a modicum of control in her life.”
“Yet now she hardly sleeps, has an aversion to food. Moreover, it is your job to make her know she can come to me and feel no need for subversion. This exacerbates what troubles her.”
The older woman had been with the Followers from five years before Thólos fell. Shepherd’s rage did not shake dedication like hers. “The side-effects will pass. But you disrupted her progress by ushering her away the moment she grew scared. Claire was in no danger and needs to learn the proper time and place for fear without the crutch of sedation. Next time, if she pushes her boundaries and requires comfort, you wait for her to walk to you. Secondly, confronting her about the medication would be unwise. Say nothing. Build trust.”
Shepherd had a great dislike for the old woman these days. “Should you be wrong and she grows unhappy, I will kill you and replace you. It will not be an easy death.”
The threat did not unsettle one grey hair on Dr. Osin’s head.
Maybe there was a silver lining. Angry, yet hopefully, Shepherd asked, “Has she also ceased taking her heat suppressant?”
“No, sir. Those are diligently swallowed morning and night.”
How he hated those little blue pills.
Shepherd left the psychiatrist and entered the enclosure around the home he’d had built for his mate. Claire was in her garden, ripping at plants, painfully unskilled in their keeping. Before he could even address her, she glared over her shoulder and snapped, “I’m not taking all those drugs anymore, all right. I will feel normal again. I want to be able to focus and carry on a conversation without getting confused. When you tell me you love me, I want to be able to feel it!”
Her unsolicited honesty kept him silent. Shepherd took a seat on the nearby bench and nodded. She was so angry with him. It came over her some days and burned Shepherd on his end of the link, but she had never once vocalized her feelings. She didn’t have to. He could read her like a book. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedatives kept that feeling blurred under medicinal apathy, but it blazed with no chemicals flowing through her bloodstream. And with her fury was twice as much guilt.