Reborn (Alpha's Claim 3)

“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?”

“We don’t.”

“What?” His patience, his understanding of the woman before him, was worn out.

“You’ve left us with no options. Lady Kantor’s attack on the Citadel will take place. You will be at her side as it burns.”

Corday knew what she was driving at. “You want me to kill her...”

“After the bombs go off, right as the citizens rally.” Brigadier Dane, nodded.

“I’ll be busy searching for Claire!”

“No, you won’t. The only member of our resistance who can truly search for the Omega is myself. If this is what it takes, I will give you my word I will find her or die in the flames trying. So accept the fact that Leslie is not going to spare you, a known figurehead of the old rebellion, when she might have you at her side to inspire our troops to follow her into war. You have value, and unlike me, she trusts you. You’ll be in position. One bullet to the head will take only seconds, then you can kill Shepherd, or you can waste your life searching for Claire while the Citadel crumbles around you.”

Absolutely not. “I would be killed the second I pulled the trigger. You are asking me to risk my life, to fail my friend? For what?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t see it. I know you do. There is something wrong with that woman; there would have to be for her to do what she did to her uncle.”

“No...” Corday had never fathomed that Leslie might have done such a thing. “She didn’t.”

Crossing strong arms over her chest, Brigadier Dane asked, “Since when has Shepherd not advertised his exploits? When he infected our brothers and sisters in Judicial Sector, their deaths were broadcast over every working COMscreen under the Dome. When he hung the Senators, it was done before jeering crowds. Why make a secret of Senator Kantor’s demise? Why take the head off the pike?”

It was too convenient to be conceivable. “One woman would not have been able to accomplish all that was done in that night. The body parts, the missing Omegas, it isn’t possible!”

Dane nodded. “And doesn’t that frighten you all the more?”Chapter 5Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat. –Sun Tzu

Well, she had failed that one. Miserably...

Claire had no idea what had come over her, but the sign of her lapse into madness was a visual Shepherd took much pleasure in displaying. His chest and back were covered in lines of scratches artfully done; her own little pattern that made it clear they were not marks gained in a fight, but adornment of a sort. More so, they were mesmerizing and she had trouble keeping her eyes from them every time he entered the room and removed his shirt for her nest.

And he was doing it on purpose.

Shepherd wanted to show them to her, he wore them proudly. Hell, she would not be surprised if he had made a point of displaying them to his entire army. A situation that was infinitely humiliating for her, was nothing but delightful for him.

Whether it was the pregnancy or the pair-bond, Claire didn’t know; all she knew was that she had not been in her right mind. Maybe the book had been right. She’d been absolutely irrational and could not stop the furious blush that came to her cheeks every time she found him looking at her with those eyes.