“I’ll confess that you were not under surveillance when Claire must have told you about Svana, so I don’t know the details of what the Omega shared. But, I was with her after it happened, I found Claire laying on the floor. What did you call Svana, a sex-offender?”
There was no point in continuing to pretend that name had no effect on him. Jules had noticed it, and Corday was accomplishing nothing playing dumb. He ground out the words, “Enough! Svana is Shepherd’s lover.”
“Again you are wrong.” There was no hesitation on Jules part to share the secret. “Svana is Shepherd’s partner... or she was until Shepherd fell in love with an Omega. Now, she is his rival for power.”
Corday swallowed the sour taste growing on his tongue, sick with the possibility that the terrible man might be telling the truth. “You make him sound weak.”
“Love is an interesting thing.” A knowing glow in his eyes, Jules looked pointedly at the Beta who’d made foolish decision after foolish decision all based on his love for Claire. “Svana will know we uncovered her betrayal in three hours. Her forces will attack immediately. I am telling you this because I know there is no way to stop them. Even if I kill her, even if you kill her, the slaves she has created will act out her will. Shepherd will be able to mediate a portion of the attack, but bombs will still detonate. How many, I cannot say. So, how will you save Claire?” Unflinching, Jules demanded, “You tell me where Svana is hiding, and I will tell you what Maryanne Cauley would not.”
“You have no proof that Leslie Kantor is Svana. I will tell you nothing.”
“Perhaps you are right. Sometimes it is best to let storms run their course.” Jules smiled, his whole face turned strange with the action. Straightening, he nodded his goodbye. “Claire is kept in the basement: corridor 7, sub-room 3. As the Citadel begins to crumble, she will be crushed to death. Or, if she is really unlucky, she will be trapped under layers of immovable rubble to slowly die from dehydration. Maybe her painting of you will keep her company in the dust and lonely dark.”
Once the door was closed and Corday was left alone with his thoughts, he began to shake. It was as if he’d just survived hours of torture, as if just a few soft-spoken words had irreparably damaged him.Groaning, trying to roll away from whatever was shaking her awake, Claire found her body stiff and numb. Head swimming, it all started to come back. Thólos was going to be turned into a pile of corpses; the Red Consumption would be unleashed. A virus the man sitting at her side, the adoring mate holding her eyes, claimed could not be stopped.
“You have been sleeping for many hours, little one.” The purr came strong and sweet. “You must eat now.”
The last thing on the planet she wanted at that moment was food.
Claire opened her mouth to complain, only to have a spoonful of something pressed between her lips. Swallowing instinctively, still caught in the fog, she tried to focus on the one man who seemed to blur into two and make him listen.
Shepherd forced more food on her tongue.
“When you have finished, I will help you dress for the journey,” That raspy voice was commanding, almost stern, as if he were relaying orders to his Followers. “Then you will be sedated again.” A warm hand smoothed back the hair on her forehead. “And next time you wake up, we will be in our new home.”
“Please...” Claire barely had time to voice the entreaty before more soup was spooned into her mouth.
“It is important that you eat, or the anesthesia may make you ill. Swallow.”
He fought her when she seemed willing to be difficult, rubbing and pinching her throat just enough to earn an automatic response until the whole bowl of soup was gone.
When it was finished, her transformation began. There would be no more green dresses in Thólos. Instead Shepherd outfitted her in the clothing of his soldiers, tugging warm layers over limp appendages, lacing her feet into boots, everything dark concealing fabrics, while Claire lay there, dizzy, and half cognizant from the drugs.
Shepherd kept up a constant stream of what to expect, telling her of the team that would escort her to a waiting transport ship, all explained in a matter-of-fact tone as if she would care.
She didn’t.
Even under the influence of drugs, Claire tried to force her thoughts to muster. She tried to think of Thólos, but could only imagine the last things she’d seen in the causeways, dreamed up for the thousandth time the faceless dark-haired women whose bodies littered the streets, the dead frozen boy in the alley, all the Omegas who had gone missing, saw the faces of those who had been left in the city to die.