Rolling her neck, letting out a sigh, Claire gazed at nature. How ironic considering nature was twisting up her insides.
Drumming her fingers against the glass, debating available courses of action, Claire kept her eyes off the male.
When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them. When settled, make them move. –Sun Tzu
The directive seemed simple enough, but over the last week, Claire kept catching herself enacting the opposite effect on Shepherd.
He was already toiling and weary; her presence relaxed him. The Alpha was starved for affection, so hungry for it he soaked it up like a man who had never known such a thing—greedy for any scrap at all. A soft pet here—Claire looking down to find her hand on him, unsure when or how it got there. A gentle smile there—her expression relaxed without her knowledge or intent. And all it seemed the Alpha wanted was to settle and be still with her.
She was slipping, failing, her resistance having been crushed by her own strategy to know him… or offered up to advance it. She was not sure which.
Perspective, to seek out her enemy’s weaknesses, that had been her goal. Having marked him and the subsequent blossoming of the link left Claire with a view so undiluted, no other person would ever see her Alpha as she could. Mission achieved.
She knew Shepherd.
What she found inside the man was so inundated in his makeup, she wondered if he even understood what it was—loneliness, emptiness calling for her to fill it.
When she mustered the courage to look, Claire could see his perceived selflessness. Shepherd wanted the world to be good because he had never known good, he had never lived it, and he could not fathom it outside of books and study. All Shepherd knew was that good was the opposite of the Undercroft, and that bad had to suffer in order for change to bloom.
He purred behind her. “Do not frown, little one.”
Seeing him past the hubris made it so very hard to resist giving him exactly what he wanted, especially when faced with the eagerness in which he offered himself and openly admired what he saw in her. Unless she stopped and drew back, unless she gave up her mission to open his eyes, she was going to feel... more than empathy or compassion.
Maybe she already did.
Claire had worried over it, fallen into brooding silences, and found herself more than once asking for the room with the window where she could seek distraction. Shepherd tended to comply with her vocalized desires, would sit with her as Claire did as she pleased—played the piano, stared out over her vast snowy landscape, painted in the sunlight—whatever she wanted. And he would remain attentive and watchful, his side of the bond wide open, Shepherd practically yanking on the link to draw her emotionally nearer.
He was the one making her toil, making her starve, and making her move. And all he had to do was sit there and wait as her own nature worked on her.
It wasn’t fair.
“Shepherd,” Claire said, turning mournful eyes away from the glass to glance at him over her shoulder. “I am tired.”
He knew she was not referring to physical exhaustion. “I know you are.”
“I’m not very good at this.”
“You are improving daily.”
She sighed, partially unconcerned they were discussing their long running personal war as if it were openly acknowledged between them. “Are you tired, Shepherd?”
Lounging back in the comfortable chair like a king on his throne, he shook his head. “No. I am the opposite.”
Narrowing her eyes, Claire fought the overwhelming urge to kick him in the shin. Feeling the need to knock him down a peg, she coolly reminded, “On the ice, I told you an apology would not make any difference.” Squaring to face him, feeling something unpleasant surge in her gut, she tried to make him toil, starve, and move. “I want one now.”
He was somewhat surprised, slowly standing from his chair, towering over her.
When it seemed he was only going to loom, Claire chose to walk away, but Shepherd began to lower and the anger all but fell off her face.
He got on his knees.
They were almost eye to eye when Shepherd said, “Claire O’Donnell, I am sorry.”
“Gods dammit,” Clare snarled under her breath, moving past him to flop back into the oversized chair, confident she’d lost another battle.
Swiveling, he faced her and leaned over, caging her with his arms. “Did I not grovel properly?”
A slight tick came to the corner of her lips. “Would you have knelt on the ice?”
He shifted enough that his torso parted her knees. Shepherd smiled at her while he warned wickedly, “Little one, you are in my chair.”
“What happened to the whole Shepherd philosophy of take what you want? I wanted it, I took it. It’s my chair now,” Claire quipped. A second later, she realized she was practically flirting.