Born to be Broken (Alpha's Claim Book 2) (2 page)

"You are free of him, of his lies, and his evil, Claire. Remember that."

"The Dome is cracked. It's snowing outside. Not frost,
real snow
. We are not free of him, not when we let that happen. We let this all happen."

"We can take back Thólos."

Claire's breath hitched. "Not so long as he is alive."

"Your Omega escaped through a broken drainage gate. Blood on the scene shows the direction in which she fled and that her bearing was not affected by broken legs. The trail was lost when she slid below mid-level and moved out over accumulating sludge."

"How much blood?" Shepherd demanded, skimming the report in his hand for anything relevant.

"Considering the distance she fell, minimal. Internal bleeding may be an issue."

His unforgiving gunmetal glare caught the light. Impatient, Shepherd growled, "She has not eaten in almost a week. She will not have been able to manage a great distance malnourished, shoeless, and bleeding."

"Was she suffering from morning sickness?"

Shepherd turned toward his desk, his attention going back to the report. "Hunger strike."

Jules, unsurprised by such a statement, remained blank. "When she is returned, what are your expectations of Miss O'Donnell?"

Exceedingly irate, Shepherd hissed, "For her to resume her duty as my mate."

Only psychological damage would lead a pregnant, pair-bonded Omega to hunger strike and jump off a building in madness. Jules grew blunt. "And if that's not possible? Whom do you intend to serve as surrogate Alpha to see to her until she delivers your heir?"

Muscles straining, Shepherd warned, "You presume much, Jules. She will be returned and her behavior corrected."

Jules was second-in-command for a good reason—he was shrewd and willing to act. Employing candor, he stated, "Without physical contact the Omega will willingly accept, she may miscarry."

Shepherd was not to be gainsaid by man or woman. His final order was issued. "You are dismissed."

Grasping that the situation was beyond his original assessment, Jules saluted and removed himself from the room.

Shepherd took to his desk, alone. Memorizing the reports flashing on his COMscreen, every so often he habitually glanced behind him, expecting to see Claire pacing. But she was not there. She was gone… He knew in his bones that his mate had sought out the
noble
man who had offered help. The Beta would take her in, tend her, comfort her, touch her. The very idea another might hold her… act as a surrogate… infuriated him.

Gnashing his teeth, Shepherd swore. The Beta would die screaming.

Had Shepherd not purred, growled, stroked, followed every instinct to rouse her back from her stupor? He'd even tried to explain.
Him
! The Alpha, the strongest who was never questioned, had tried to reason with an Omega. But she had not even blinked.

She'd slipped so far out of his grasp.

It was her vocation to stay, to be devoted, to love him, to obey. Had he not seen to her needs? Had he not given her nice dresses and the best food? Had he not spent hours simply petting the girl until she was completely content? What was one unpleasant situation compared to that?

Had he not saved her life in more ways than one?

Impregnating her ensured her survival, justified her maintenance to his followers. No one could question the safekeeping of his baby. More importantly, it gave her purpose and distraction. Shepherd could not tell her in so many words—she was not one of them, remained far too determined in her ideal of
goodness
to comprehend the greatness of his calling. Furthermore, the reasoning behind his actions was unnecessary for her to know. Shepherd knew if Claire realized the true nature of what was coming, she would only fret more. She would cry for her pathetic citizens instead of giving all her attention to him. Direct treachery was best: it kept him in control of her fate. But she was willful, so damn obstinate with her foolish romantic notions.

Shepherd's fist crashed against the table. He roared, upended the entire thing until papers flew and his COMscreen cracked against the cold floor.

Svana's unexpected arrival had been infuriatingly problematic. Not only was she displeased by what she had found, Svana would have ripped Claire's beautiful eyes out had Shepherd not pacified his beloved once she'd seen what he'd kept hidden away. You don't reason with provoked Alphas, you show action. Had he not fucked her loudly, broadcasting his favor to ensure the territorial female did not view the Omega as a threat, Claire would have been murdered the first moment he left her alone. He had done what was necessary, for both of the women.

It was the price to keep Claire.

Yet he had lost her anyway, even before she had run. Watching her mentally slip away, his rush of anger, his outright fury… it was the same rage that had burned him when he rose from the Undercroft to murder Premier Callas… only to find the leader of Thólos—the man who'd sentenced his mother to the Undercroft—was richly laced with the scent of Svana's sex.

Shepherd had drawn a deep breath, momentarily stunned as he processed what could not be—until he understood what Svana had done.

The speech he'd prepared for his greatest enemy, the one perfected night after night caged underground, was forgotten. What should have been a quick death, the body to be displayed, ended in blood dripping from the ceiling, Premier Callas' entrails flung all over the floor.

And then came pain far more horrific than any agony his Da'rin markings might produce. His beloved had defiled herself, purposefully tainted her body by mating with the enemy.

Shepherd had confronted Svana, the woman he had loved from the first moment they'd met in the dark, the ethereal creature that was his whole life, who held his soul in her beautiful hands. The woman who had set him free, empowered him to gain control of the Undercroft—the very woman he'd killed for, suffered for, ached for.

Since their first sexual experience, Shepherd had only ever lain with the occasional estrous high Omega his beloved had procured for them—so they could fulfil the animal urge to rut together as they were meant to. For lesser beings, Alpha/Alpha pairings were difficult, as there was no pair-bond, and it was in their natures to challenge for dominance. But the two of them were beyond such sordid behavior. Or so he'd thought. He had never wavered… not once.

She had.

She had fucked the Premier, thrown what they had aside for some distorted ploy, as the final undiscussed crux in her plan. As Shepherd heard her speak on the matter, as she convincingly painted a grand scenario, he could not bring himself to question what she'd
never mentioned
. Svana had planned her seduction all along. Though she held Shepherd and spoke of her love, he was attuned to her; he could smell what was wrong in her scent. What had been done was even worse than he'd originally believed; Svana had chemically forced an unlikely ovulation. She wanted to bear the child of her enemy… to have a traitor's lineage continue the line—a man who wasn't infected with Da'rin, who was born with superior bloodlines—a man who might even be the carrier of the
alleged
antibody to the Red Consumption in his veins.

Not like Shepherd, who didn't know which of the countless prisoners who'd raped his mother had fathered him. His blood had not been fostered through generations with access to secret science and inoculations against disease. Instead, he was disfigured by Da'rin that burned in the sun and would always mark him as a castoff.

She had not voiced it, but Shepherd interpreted the truth. Svana found him wanting in the most primal of ways.

All those years, Shepherd's fidelity had been one sided. Svana did not hesitate to admit she'd taken other lovers. Hadn't he? After all, were they not Alphas? Was it not their right? She had stroked his chest and smiled so perfectly, reminding him that what they shared was beyond the physical. They shared a great destiny, an eternal spiritual bond of love.

Gutted, Shepherd had fulfilled his duty to his loyal Followers, to the dead mother he hardly remembered. Thólos fell, everyone playing their part to perfection; yet he was less for it. The world had shifted, he had achieved greatness, but what was he left with? Nothing. A big black hole where the light had gone out. He was incomplete.

But then he smelled something untainted hiding under the poignant stink of decay. Like a gift from the Gods, Claire was delivered; unlikely virtue born out of the filth of Thólos. A lotus. Claire, with her convictions and her timid bravery, walked up to a man like him—stubbornly waited for hours, a lamb amongst the wolves—to beg for help from the very villain inflicting suffering on the friends she would save.

One breath of her and he would have taken her, heat or no. The Gods had simplified his spiritual culmination by delivering her in estrous.

As he'd rutted the willful, strange thing, Shepherd found she wriggled so wonderfully, felt so perfectly snug encasing his cock, that he had to ensure she could never leave. As Svana had claimed their
devotion
was beyond the physical, their love divine, Shepherd felt perfectly justified in taking Claire, in creating a corporeal mate—an attachment that would only benefit the unruly Omega. He bonded to keep Claire for himself, his reward for service to the greater good of mankind reborn. The green-eyed little one's purity was now his own, her nearness succor. In Claire, Shepherd had regained that missing piece, the covetous need to possess something innocent, achieved.

Yet, now his bonded mate was gone with his child in her belly, wandering a city that was destined for plague.

The Omega would never come back to him willingly, not while the pair-bond was so damaged. Shepherd would have to return Claire by force.

He could almost hear the echo of her words in the air:
do not give me cause to hate you more.

What had gone through the mind of the Omega he'd found unconscious on the bathroom floor? He'd anticipated anger, but found something impaired far beyond his reasoning. His coupling with Svana had left Claire unresponsive and empty—left the cord so fractured, all Shepherd could feel from her was an echo of desolation.

It was not a sensation he enjoyed.

No amount of attention or space had made a difference. Glassy eyes looked at him with judgment and hatred no matter how he tended her, touched her, or purred. All her favorite foods had been prepared, new dresses put in her drawer… she had not even noticed.

Claire O'Donnell belonged to him. Shepherd would find her, drag her back… and force feed her if he fucking had to. He would make her adore him like she was supposed to. Because she was his, only his, and he did not share his things. Ever.

He had even prevented the sharing of her body with his beloved. Was that not something?

Corday had rushed to carry out his mission for the resistance, eager to return to Claire. It wasn't because he didn't trust her to stay put, it was because he didn't trust her at all. The look in her eyes when Senator Kantor had arrived to guard her had been nothing but calculating. There was none of her former fear or skittishness, her reaction numbed as she sized up the Alpha.

The Senator could see the change in her as well, Kantor reacting with cautious courtesy. They exchanged pleasantries, Corday made them coffee, and then he left to meet Brigadier Dane. Corday's duties kept him out past dark, and the Enforcer was utterly unprepared for the sight that met his eyes when he returned home.