Born to be Broken (Alpha's Claim Book 2) (4 page)

"No."

"That means at least three people did."

Claire let out a breath. "My face was covered and I'm sure you can smell for yourself that I am nothing special right now."

Full lips smirking, Maryanne lifted a handful of Claire's hair for a sniff. "True…"

Claire took Maryanne's hand, the hand of what had been her closest childhood friend, and held it. Large eyes pleading, she whispered, "I need your help."

"No."

"Why?"

Maryanne pulled her fingers free and sauntered off. "You have no idea what these guys can do to you, Claire. Whatever you did, just find a place to hide and wait it out… but don't drag me into it."

"Actually, I do know what they're capable of," Claire spat at Maryanne's back. "I'm pregnant with Shepherd's child."

"Fuck me!" Maryanne spun in horror, staring down at the diminutive Omega's belly.

"I wouldn't, remember," Claire teased, trying to mimic the mischief of their youths. "You were all over me during school. That's why we aren't friends anymore."

"Shut up, bitch." Maryanne laughed, unable to suppress a wolfish grin, "You wish. It was Patrick Keck that I wanted to fuck… and I did. Often."

"Then you disappeared. You were my best friend and you never even said goodbye." And that had hurt a great deal. More so, because Claire knew Maryanne had been capable of so much more than the mayhem she'd accomplished. "I read your file. Is it true you broke into the Archives?"

"Several times… only got caught once. Shoveling pig shit for a year was worth it. You have no idea how much some folks will pay for something as mundane as forbidden, tattered books."

"How did you get in?"

Maryanne licked her teeth and motioned to herself in a sweeping gesture. "This girl's got skills."

Claire grew serious. "And I need them."

The woman edged closer, trailing her fingers down Claire's tangled black hair, cooing, "You can't afford me, sweet pea."

"I know. Which is why I hate to do this." Claire looked for a moment like she might lose her nerve, but she drew a deep breath and began. "The Omegas are locked in the Undercroft. I need to set them free, and you're going to help me or I am going to tell Shepherd you laid a hand on me. He will rip you to pieces, because I'm not only carrying his child… we're pair-bonded."

Maryanne turned full Alpha. "I WON'T FUCKING DO IT!"

"You will."

The blonde paced towards the window, checking for the twentieth time for a sign of trouble. "Goddamn you, Claire. Goddamn you and your pointless humanitarian bullshit. You always were a goody two-shoes when we were kids; it was disgusting then and it's even more pathetic now."

"But I was never a pushover." Claire took Maryanne's arm, her expression one of desperation. "I am sorry, but I need you. I need the
skills
you have that I lack. If you do this for me I will never bother you again."

A deadly look came with the question. "Why not just ask your mate?"

"He's the one who locked them up." Claire pushed her hair behind her ear and stood her ground. "Like you, he's blind to what is right and wrong."

Maryanne cursed. She raged for hours, trying to talk Claire out of such madness, but the outcome was inevitable. Maryanne Cauley had no choice, and she knew it.

They fought over the plan vehemently. There was no time for reconnaissance, the pair blind to what may or may not be waiting. Diversion was one thing, but what Claire intended was insanity. But it could be done, Claire knew it in her bones. She could make it work. She had to, because if she did not give her all, risk everything, then nothing would change.

In the end, it was a shot in the dark at best… suicide at worst. But Claire, it seemed, had come to the right woman.

Maryanne Cauley knew the Undercroft—she knew entrances, she knew secrets—and though she refused to speak of why, it was obvious that once upon a time, Maryanne Cauley had been disposed of down in that dark place.

Shepherd's mother was not the only woman thrown into hell.

At dawn, Claire was exhausted but determined. Maryanne swore up and down and yanked Claire to bed when the Omega would not stop yawning. Once under the covers, it was so simple to fall into old patterns; Maryanne braiding Claire's hair just like she had when they were little.

Hoping the answer would not be as disappointing as she anticipated, Claire sighed, "The way you talk about the Undercroft, the look in your eye every time I say the name Shepherd… You know him."

"Everyone knows him."

No, it was much deeper than that. Claire rolled over to look her friend in the eye. "Don't lie to me, Maryanne. He scares you. He scares you because you
know him
. Somehow you were once involved with that monster. Are you still?"

Maryanne tried to be flippant. "Involved? I should be asking you that same question. After all, your romance is probably going to get me killed."

"I am not mated to Shepherd by choice." Claire would not let herself blink or stutter. "I went into estrous unexpectedly in front of him. He forced the pair-bond."

Maryanne had the decency to look stricken. "Don't take this the wrong way, Claire, but this is Shepherd. He's a powerful man. It seems a little strange that he would bond to a woman he didn't know… I mean, he's a warlord. People probably give him Omegas for Christmas."

Svana's words echoed in Claire's head. '
We have not shared a heated Omega in some time.'

"They do… I don't know why he bonded to me, and the one time I asked, he gave only pointless, empty words." Her green eyes grew harder, as did Claire's demand for answers. "My question, Maryanne. How do you know him?"

Pursing her lips, Maryanne confessed, "I, um, needed friends once."

"I was your friend. I would have been, had you not run off… and," Claire sighed, knowing Maryanne well enough to see she was not exactly an innocent, "done the things you did until you got thrown into the Undercroft."

Maryanne snorted. "Before I found a way out."

"From Shepherd."

"My services in exchange for my life." The girl who had never felt guilty about a single trespass she had committed in her life looked at her old friend with uncustomary regret. "I was the one who recovered the access codes to the Judicial Sector and the Citadel."

Brows drawn tight, Claire hissed, "How could you?"

"I didn't know their plans for Thólos. I swear."

Claire didn't want to hear it. "What did you think he would do once freed?"

"He was already free…" Maryanne whispered. "How do you think I got out?"

Claire's brows shot up. "What?"

Maryanne snorted at the small woman's naiveté. "Sorry, bitch, but we've been screwed for a long time."

"Do you know where he keeps the virus?"

Smirking, Maryanne shared a hard truth. "If I did, do you really think I'd be here, stockpiling and preparing for the end of the world? Listen to me, Claire, they don't know about this place. I wiped it from the records almost a decade before I was tossed downstairs. I have enough food, enough air scrubbers to get through almost a year. You don't need to follow through with your crap plan. You can stay here with me. Should the worst happen, all we'd have to do is wait until the virus did its work."

Claire shook her head. "The Dome is cracked, Maryanne. You'd freeze to death as the ecosystem fails. It's like he planned for people like you. We're all going to die; we're all going to die if nothing is done."

They were both anxious, tired… just like everyone else in Thólos. There was no point in further argument. Instead both Claire and Maryanne fell into hurried preparations. Things needed to be built for Claire's scheme, and technology learned. Maryanne's explanations, the way she could make something dangerous from nothing, reminded Claire just how out of her element she was.

Rudimentary bombs, how to override basic access panels—Maryanne was teaching her instead of just making them herself, wordlessly reminding Claire that their association would soon end and that the fumbling Omega would be on her own.

When all the tools were ready, Claire showered, scrubbing off any lingering trace of Corday's scent. Maryanne was in that bathroom applying lipstick as if they were planning an outing, not an attack against the tyrants holding the city. Blinking at the mirror, Maryanne froze, jaw agape at the sight of the Omega's naked body.

The Alpha touched without asking. "What is all of this?"

Claire didn't need to look down to know what Maryanne found so disturbing. "The price of my freedom."

Careful fingers traced the yellowing handprint over Claire's throat. "And your neck?"

An incoherent noise, a mockery of speech got stuck in Claire's mouth. "It's nothing."

Maryanne took her chin and turned Claire's face to meet her own big brown eyes. She smiled, teasing. "Your feet are disgusting. You're bleeding all over my floor."

And the pain was a blessing, the perfect distraction. "Shepherd didn't allow me access to shoes. I had to run in the streets barefoot."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes. But it doesn't bother me and it won't slow me down."

Maryanne crouched to see why fresh blood was running down her old friend's shin. "Your knee needs stitches."

"Nothing I can do about that right now."

"Sit down, I'll do it."

It was so backwards to have Maryanne Cauley be the one to tend to her; as kids it was always the other way around. Watching the fully grown woman pull a needle and some metallic thread through her skin, feeling the pinch and burn, the world seemed so very strange. "Whatever happened to your mom?" Claire asked.

"Who fucking knows," Maryanne muttered as she made another tight stitch. "Probably OD'd years ago."

Claire just hummed, distracted. "My dad died four years back. Roadway accident."

"Your pop was always pretty cool."

Claire had to agree. "Yeah… I'm glad he's not here to see this."

Maryanne rubbed her lips together as if she wanted to say something but thought better of it. Instead, she stood and gathered clothing appropriate for the mission and shoved the horrid black garb of Shepherd's Followers towards Claire.

The Omega didn't balk, just dressed silently while Maryanne squeezed her limber body into a matching uniform.

"You know, Claire," Maryanne was dead serious, knotting her hair to tuck under a cap. "Underground there's a whole 'nother world. Those who follow Shepherd are beyond dangerous."

"Whatever they are doesn't matter."

Maryanne's voice fell flat. "What I am trying to tell you is, pair-bond or no, they have an agenda. Shepherd might just kill you."

Claire had no illusions on that score. "I'm counting on it."

"I could save us all this trouble and kill you right now," the Alpha offered.

"That's awfully sweet of you," Claire teased, standing on tiptoe to press a peck to her friend's ruby lips. "But I will already be dead to you after tonight. Give me what I need and you have my word."

Maryanne tucked a loaded gun into Claire's pocket. "Promises, promises…"

"And, Maryanne," Claire added, forcing a playful smile. "You look like a slut in that outfit."

"This is the entrance to Purgatory." Maryanne pointed to the map alight on the screen between them. Tracing the snaking tunnels that lay right below the concrete footpaths of the Lower Reaches, she said, "This floor is for administration and separated from the true Undercroft. If your Omegas are being kept in this shithole, Shepherd would not stash them any lower than here. Not if he wanted to keep them alive."

Claire stared down at the COMscreen. Seeing her people locked away like livestock brought a wave of unbearable sadness. The Omegas slept ten to a cell, segregated by age, and there were less than the fifty-six that had been taken. Three Shepherd had hanged, the remainder Claire assumed had either died or been pair-bonded and dragged away. There were hardly even forty, and one was in estrous, isolated and being rutted by a stranger… the girl only sixteen.

In her heart, Claire had been terrified Shepherd may have allowed his men to inject the Omegas with the same drugs he'd used on her… to set up a brothel of mindless estrous sex for the taking, and she had to admit she was marginally relieved to find he had yet to stoop so low.

"Looking at them like that isn't going to change anything, sugar pie," Maryanne cooed, crouched at her side.

"Even you must see how sick this is." Frowning, Claire looked away from the COMscreen so her friend might meet her eye. "Don't let me down."

"I'll get you in. Then I'm gone."

Claire nodded. "For your own sake, I suggest you run fast."

As per their agreement, Maryanne tapped into the system and hacked the prison's upper level controls. Handing over the technology, she gave Claire patchy dominion of Purgatory's security systems.

"You need to know, small fry, not every castoff was released when Shepherd staged his coup. There are paths in there you don't want to stumble down. If you get lost… you let Shepherd find you." With those final, frightening words, Maryanne gave Claire a quick kiss and disappeared.

Claire had to make the next move alone. Holding a device constructed from duct tape and a few stolen circuits, praying to her Goddess that their plan worked, she flipped the switch.

Scattered explosions went off, all four of the handcrafted bombs Maryanne had distributed functioning flawlessly. Right on cue, Claire began phase two. As her friend had promised, the Followers on screen rushed towards the disturbance with alarming precision. When the soldiers were separated and in halls or elevators, she trapped the men with updated overrides to the systems they would have to countermand at each terminal.

Lips a hair's breadth from the screen, Claire took control of the prison's internal communications system. "Omegas, the doors to your cells are unlocked. Anyone who would prefer freedom to Shepherd's slavery, claim it. The guards are scattered, trapped, but I can't hold them for long. Band together, I'll lead you out. Do not forget your sister being held in the room at the end of the corridor." Venom dripped from Claire's voice. "I don't imagine Shanice dreamed her first heat would be spent mounted by a soldier three times her age."

On her small monitor, seven women, Nona included, stood and rushed out of their cells. More stood to watch, afraid but rallying. Over lingering seconds the numbers began to grow, women throwing back the bars and racing out to join their sisters. But Claire's attention was elsewhere; a band of Followers had already overridden control and broken free.

Lacking the skill to manipulate the system with the same finesse as Maryanne, Claire cried, "Four Followers have made it through. You have to stand up for yourselves! If you want out, you must fight back!"

At first sight of an unwelcome Alpha, the Omegas fell upon them like locusts. More Followers tried to grab at the women, only to discover supposedly weak Omegas attacked in packs. Even the strongest male could not stand against forty enraged females. Gunshots were fired, two of Claire's sisters fell—but all four of Shepherd's soldiers were destroyed as the group forced their way forward. By the time they descended on the room where the estrous high Omega was being rutted, the pack had fallen into a frenzy.

The rutting male was ripped away, torn apart by teeth and claws.

They scooped up their sister, and followed every last direction Claire shouted over the speakers. In less than five minutes, women began to flood the very passages the Castoffs had employed the day they broke free.

Once they had pushed past the final doors, Claire stepped out of the darkness and called out to them. Nona reached her first. Over the sound of shouting, Claire yelled hurried instructions into the woman's ear. One nod of understanding, and Nona took Claire's COMscreen.

Claire pushed her crude trigger's final button.

Blinding flashes preceded cloying green-grey smoke—it filled the prison's access road to the point where Claire could no longer see Nona, she could not smell her, and she would not have the chance to wave goodbye.

The screech of tires and trucks packed with Shepherd's Followers skid to a halt outside the causeway. In moments, armed soldiers had created a perimeter; the only plausible exit blocked.

There was no turning back. This was the end.

Claire recognized the blue-eyed Beta leading the men, watched him squinting when the billowing smoke parted just enough to show who'd dared strike a blow at Thólos' new regime. With a gun held to her temple, Claire walked forward until she was exposed to Shepherd's men.

Eyes sharp, Jules commanded, "Put the gun down, Miss O'Donnell."

Seeing them so close, so organized; the Followers were exactly as Maryanne described—killers; remorseless, walking nightmares—and she was just one woman standing up against far more powerful men.

Raising her chin, defiant, Claire shouted over the fray, "Every Omega here gets to walk away, or I pull the trigger and kill Shepherd's child."

Ignoring the accumulating smoke, Jules marched to the edge of the barricade. "And how far do you think they will they get?"

The Beta was expecting an answer; Claire did not give one. All she did was stare right back into those unsettling baby-blues.

When long minutes of silence continued, when no further move was made by the female, Jules finally seemed to understand.

Claire smiled.

"Now that I think about it," the gun still pointed at her skull, Claire took a deep breath. "Putting the women in the Undercroft was actually an excellent idea. I think we'll stay… without the debauched visitors and scheduled rape, of course."

"Do you really think a handful of women will be able to hold the prison from us?"

"Yes."

A strange look passed through the man's eyes. He looked about to speak but was silenced by the sound of heavy footfalls approaching from the shadows.

The nightmare was coming.

She felt him before she saw him. Her eyes never left Jules, but it took every ounce of Claire's self-control not to step back into the blanket of smoke and ruin her plan when Shepherd emerged in her periphery.

"Little one," Shepherd's voice was soft and enticing, flowing just like the vapor at her back. "Point the gun at me."

He was so very big. Even with a good fifteen paces between them, Claire had the impression that all he needed to do was reach out to drag her back to hell.

Though she was afraid to look his way, though she kept her attention anchored in the vibrant blue of Jules's stare, Claire's words were for Shepherd. "If I thought I possessed the skill to aim and be certain a bullet blew right through your skull, I would not hesitate to shoot you. But I've told you before, I'm not stupid. Pointed where it is, I don't have to worry about missing."

Shepherd took a step closer; Claire stiffened.

Showing her teeth, she forced herself to look at him. "Your approach is making it very tempting to pull the trigger. If I die, your child dies with me. Stop. Moving."

With her attention on him, Shepherd paused, guiding the conversation as if they were having an afternoon chat. "It is good to see that you are mostly uninjured from the fall, and that you have been eating."

"I didn't fall, I jumped." Claire lifted her chin higher, exposing the bruises blotched across her pale throat for every last Follower to see.

Only with some great effort was Shepherd able to speak levelly. "You have made your point. I will even admit I am impressed with your little coup. But it's over now."

"I don't give a fuck what you think!"

A stifled bark came from the Alpha, his mouth curved into a snarl. "I know you are angry—"

Her voice dropped low, coarse as she hissed through clenched teeth, "Angry does not even begin to describe what I am. I have been defiled, manipulated, betrayed, and broken.
I am way past angry
."

"Everything that was done was necessary," Shepherd countered, taking another intimidating step closer.

"You may have had me for a moment there, but your woman opened my eyes to what you really are." Fierce, Claire's lip curled in threat. "I should be thanking you, Shepherd. Your horrible lesson of insurrection was an inspiration. You taught me that even the weakest can rise up against tyranny with the right encouragement. Well, I'm rising up against you and the perversion of your ideals."

She had stood there long enough.

Trembling so hard she was certain every last man there could see her fear, ready to do what she did best, Claire took a backwards step into the smoke.

Shepherd countered, struggling to rein in his rage. "Do not make me come and collect you, little one. You may get injured, and I would prefer that not be the case."

"What are a few broken bones and a potential gunshot or two?" She pressed her free hand to her heart, Claire's face the image of anguish. "They wouldn't matter. I feel nothing. Nothing at all."

Even Shepherd could not deny the echoing truth in the fractured bond; it was like she wasn't even there—the greater fragment of her spirit simply gone. But she was more at that moment than she had been when her every hour was spent in a stupor underground.

She would recover.

Looking deep into such pain-filled eyes, Shepherd spoke in a voice of certainty, of authority. "Your place is with me. You will return to your mate."

"You are no mate to me." Claire spat on the ground between them. "I will stand with my people on my terms! If Thólos is to suffer, your child and I will suffer with it."

Shepherd was going to reach for her, she knew it. Claire spun, black hair flaring as she darted into the smoke. Shepherd was so very fast for a man of his size, and Claire could feel him and his Followers bearing down on her. But out of the dark, thin arms reached for her.

The embrace of an old friend was followed by a sudden loss of gravity.

Maryanne Cauley had come back, a cable propelling them high above the Lower Reaches before the raging giant or his men had even seen where Claire had gone.

The amount of security protocols that had been overwritten during the Omegas' escape was extraordinary. All the surveillance footage had been wiped, many of the mechanized doors manipulated to trap his soldiers still malfunctioning. Purgatory's grounds had been turned into a maze that took Shepherd's most skilled Followers over an hour to penetrate, only to find there was not even one Omega inside.

The females had vanished as if teleported by the smoke.

Seven Followers dead, twenty-four trapped, and one man barely breathing. Claire's plan had been either extremely well-coordinated, or she was gifted with sheer dumb luck.

Deceitfully complacent, Shepherd turned to his second-in-command. "Explain to me, Jules, how an Omega female who paints pictures for children's stories accomplished this feat with only four days to plan?"

"I can't. Not yet, sir." The Beta stood at attention, unsmiling and severe. "We tracked the Omegas to the sewer access and know they went north, but the scent…"

"Was lost in the waste they rubbed all over themselves," Shepherd finished, knowing exactly what they would do. His lip curled. "And they are armed with weapons taken off our fallen men."

"Weapons they do not know how to use," Jules offered.

"Those women went on a rampage and killed five Alphas with their bare hands. I am fairly certain they will learn how to fire assault rifles in no time." A strange feeling came to the pit of Shepherd's gut, the sensation quickly ignored in favor of the satisfaction of clenching his fists until joints popped.