Born to be Bound (Alpha's Claim 1)

Brigadier Dane stared, the Alpha female slack-jawed, seeing one little girl who looked so much like her missing sister, it took her a moment to register the shouting of her men. Tearing her eyes away, she rushed toward the outcry. One of the Omegas, a female freshly caught and still free of the drug's full effect, held a shard of glass that dripped with blood. Naked, she stood over Otto and his thugs, sawing through the bound gangster's neck until her hand bled.

She'd killed their source of information.

Corday was talking to the Omega in hushed tones, trying to soothe her, to get her to drop the glass, but nothing seemed to get through her zombie-like expression. "Shh-shh, it's all right, put down the glass. We're Enforcers, and we're going to get you someplace safe, ma'am."

Looking to the youth holding out his hands as if to placate her, her broken voice managed, "They killed my Doug, my baby."

"Please put down the glass."

Glazed eyes rolled back to the dead men who had chained her up, who had taken her life; there was not even a moment of hesitation. She jammed the bloody weapon so deep into her throat the gush of blood was immediate.

Corday rushed forward, putting his hands to her neck.

Brigadier Dane knew there was no way to save the female from the gaping slash she'd sliced into her own throat, no matter how hard the frantic Beta tried. But there had been ways to save all the females piled up in that meat locker—had the Enforcers taken notice, had they acted months ago. Instead they had been too busy mustering, plotting, and doing nothing.

In the hearts of all who watched, all feelings of victory faded, dripped away as that Omega's blood stained the floor. Dane crouched down and closed the dead Omega's eyes as she spoke their prayer.

When the incantation to the Mother Goddess of Omegas was complete, Dane's voice hardened. Orders were barked. The tower of food was disassembled and loaded onto transport; the heat-addled Omegas were carted away.

The bodies had to be left behind; there was nothing that could be done for the dead.

All the drugs were dumped, spilling together, filling the air with noxious fumes—the perfect recipe for the absolution of fire. Corday struck the flame, destroying the counterfeit heat-suppressants, the methamphetamines... the evidence of atrocities and the Enforcers' part in purifying it. But the shell of the building still stood.

Thólos was fireproof.

#

Tired, Claire stretched her legs out from under warm blankets and pressed her feet to the ground. She felt… off, saturated with the lethargy that comes before illness, and was grateful Shepherd was not in the room to paw at her as he always did when she woke. He had punished her for her resistance, had frightened, then placated; back to his old tricks of trying to warp her mind.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and frowned at the ache in her shoulder. In the room, everything was where it had been the last time she had been locked inside. Except her painting of poppies. It was skewed, the paper less crisp, as if having been handled repeatedly. Denying her impulse to center it, Claire studied the flowers, certain Shepherd had done the same in her absence.

Considering the great rage which had blared from his side of the link at the onset of her escape, there was no sign of such wrath about the cell. No furniture was broken. Her meager things were exactly where she had left them, almost as if she had never been gone. Even the bedsheets were the same; stale, unchanged in her absence.

Moving at a snail's pace towards the bathroom, Claire peeled off the gauze on her shoulder and stood under warm water. It was hard to move her arm without pain, shampoo stung her wound, and she found herself gritting her teeth at the discomfort it caused her simply to become clean.

As if he had known she would want to bathe upon waking, there was a sterile gauze pad and tape waiting on the counter. Wanting to cover the ugly mark so her churning stomach would stop threatening to spill each time she looked at it, Claire dressed the bite. While pressing down the tape, mindful of the bruising, her eyes caught something that shouldn't be. The small bin they used for their laundry displayed one of her dresses peeking out near the top. Considering she had been gone for eight days, it struck her as strange. Pulling it out, her brows shot up. The fabric smelled of her, but it reeked of Shepherd's semen... as if he had been sniffing it as he masturbated before coming on her clothes.

The idea brought an unwelcome twinge between her legs, and Claire unthinkingly dug deeper, only to find almost every item of her clothing had been treated the same way. Why would he do that—or, more importantly, why did it smell so good? Realizing she still had the first dress pressed to her nose, a wave of embarrassment made her cheeks burn. Claire quickly stuffed the offensive laundry back down.