It wasn’t until the Alpha crept over her body that Shepherd commanded, “As soon as Jacques Bernard falls asleep, summon him for an emergency meeting with the Chancellor of Greth Dome. Should he refuse, release the footage of the infected gentlemen’s club.”
At that, Shepherd turned away from the screens. There was no need to watch another man rape Jules’ mate… again.
The door to their bedchamber possessed no lock, but that didn’t mean his little one might not have shifted furnishings to keep him from the room. They had not spoken since their argument in the garden, each choosing to coexist in strained silence as he plotted his next move and she belligerently dug in her heels.
It was an easy thing to do when a pair-bond was as strong as theirs, but it was also unacceptable.
Shepherd loved his Claire in a way he’d never fully understand. She was the best kind of addiction, the constant vibration of her being always with him, taking up the space in his chest where most men might have a soul.
She had improved him from the moment he had seen her in those filthy, reeking clothes. There would be no existing without her. If that meant he could only have her in this pretty cage she’d contained herself within, then he would take whatever scraps she might offer.
Not that he would ever cease working to give her everything she ever desired.
Swinging the door easily open, Shepherd found her awake in her nest. Knees under her chin as she stared off into the sunrise. Green eyes that had the power to undo him with a glance rested on her view of their garden. Following her gaze, he realized he had not had the time to tend to her plants before she might wake.
Maybe she was disappointed. Perhaps she thought him petty enough to abandon the project out of anger.
“You didn’t come to bed last night.”
It would have been a fine evening indeed to have lain next to her, even if she had denied his attentions. “I was called away.”
And he was suddenly very weary. With an uncharacteristic sigh, he walked forward and took a seat on the edge of their mattress. Elbows to his knees, he leaned the weight of his upper body forward and stared out at the sunrise.
A little hand came to rest on his spine. “Shepherd, I’m sorry.”
“As am I.”
Stroking where his back knotted with tension, she teased, “No, you’re not. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Cutting a glance over his shoulder, the man found his wife’s smirk and loved her all the more for it. “I am sorry, perfect Claire. I am sorry that none of this worked out as it should have. I am sorry that I have given you sound reason to assume the worst of me in all situations. You are not wrong. I would do the things you say should circumstance require.”
Black hair fell around her as she scooted closer, her second hand coming to tend to his back with her first. “Honey, I’m listening. Tell me what’s going on.”
How she could be so sweet, he’d never know. And this moment, a moment that came out of love despite the recent stings, would be ruined. Because he was going to ask her something that both of them would hate. “Claire, I need you to tell me everything you can think of regarding an Omega who is mated to an Alpha she hates.”
Though it was the middle of the night in Bernard Dome, the sun rose outside Greth, but there was nothing but darkness that came from the mouth of the woman Shepherd loved.
“The pair-bond feels like broken glass you are forced to swallow. It cuts deeper every time you breathe. It kills.” The tired-eyed Omega in their nest didn’t hesitate to continue. “It killed my mother, though it took over a decade to eat her from the inside out. It has led my friends to kill.”
Nona French—murderess and mentor—rotting back in Thólos where she belonged.
Under her hands, a slave to Claire’s whims in a way she would never fully accept, Shepherd said, “Go on.”
“You cannot imagine what it is like to be utterly powerless at another being’s whim.”
Oh yes, he could.
Claire hesitated, as if his mate thought to spare him from the very thing he had asked for. “With a single sound, an Alpha can hurt you in ways that cut so deep they never stop bleeding.”
There was nothing said Shepherd had not earned. But there was a shade of remorse that he seldom allowed himself to acknowledge.
His little one took pity, resting her cheek to his shoulder while she kneaded his spine. “I can’t give you more if I don’t know the context, Shepherd. You and I… we fit. Had the circumstances been different when we met, it would have been an effortless union. You have to tell me what happened if you want me to tell you what to do.”