Reborn (Alpha's Claim Book 3) (8 page)

She wanted
him
.

They had never openly discussed it, or even furtively shared whispers after the sham meetings they pantomimed week after week for Shepherd’s surveillance team. Both Brigadier Dane and Enforcer Corday had played their parts, openly quarreling at the old location, hosting meetings where nothing of value was accomplished. It was all a performance, but the continuous suffering of their people was very real.

The old resistance was dying. Their friends were dying—not just from violence, but from crushed hope. In the eyes of the Dome, Brigadier Dane and Enforcer Corday were two great failures.

The title did not disturb either of them. Both clung to what really mattered: survival.

Not their survival, both of them could see the writing on the wall. They needed their people to live; they needed to give Leslie Kantor and her growing band of rebels a chance.

At least that’s what they told themselves.

More people died, more disappeared.

Since the day Lady Kantor told him in secret exactly how she was going to take back the Dome, Corday could do nothing but nod dumbly. It sat there, that horrible knowledge, like a rock on his chest, but he could not see any other options.

Brigadier Dane had needed to know what her actions would be consigning, what the two of them were a part of.

That’s why they found their way to one another the first time they’d met in secret, how they found their way to the ruined safe house where the headless remains of Senator Kantor still lay wrapped in garbage bags on the table.

The causeways were empty, the city hollow, and cold, the two standing in a room that reeked of decay.

There was no one there to watch. Lady Kantor and her minions, Shepherd and his Followers... no soul knew who met and why.

No one ever visited the corpse. It was more than the smell; after all, the entirety of the Dome stank of unburied dead. People didn’t come here because only three people knew whose body was decomposing in that room.

They stood with the table between them, eyeing one another with open animosity and desperation.

Lady Kantor, her misused leadership; what it was costing those who’d valiantly served, had grown out of hand. Too many people were dying, ‘necessary sacrifices’ she would say, so her growing band of handpicked revolutionaries might build bombs from garbage. Bombs they planned to strap to their bodies on the day the
chosen
would free the city.

As usual, Brigadier Dane’s voice was filled with disdain when she addressed the younger man. “You have never been a good Enforcer, and that is because you questioned everything. Insubordination, anything but blind obedience, was not allowed to flourish under this Dome. The wise ambitious do as they are told until they reach a position where they give the orders. Then there is no need to question, because everyone else must obey. It seems you’ve finally learned this lesson.”

And that right there was the reason it had been so easy for Shepherd to seize the city, and so easy for Lady Kantor to wrestle control of the resistance into her hands with only the Kantor name to validate her. “And what part of yourself was sacrificed to attain the rank of Brigadier?”

Brigadier Dane did something unimaginable—she lifted an eyebrow and actually smirked. It was such an unusual expression to see on the hard woman’s face, that it was vulgar. “I have seen enough of the workings of this city. I have done what I could, knowing more could only be accomplished if I rose higher. Sacrifices? You become numb to them. You hang on to an ideal, and you strive not to forget it.”

The sickness that had brewed in Corday’s belly for weeks, churned. “If you are trying to justify the things we saw on Callas’s Data cube—”

“Me?” the smirk became a sneer, Brigadier Dane cutting off Corday’s quick-tempered complaint. “Boy, what you have done, your imprudence... can you even begin to grasp the consequences?”

There was a reason they came to this place, where the pair of failures might whisper in the dark, because there was no safe place to question amidst the fanatics rising to Lady Kantor’s secret cause. Corday was not afraid of Brigadier Dane’s disapproval, or in admitting he’d made a grave mistake. “Leslie Kantor...”

“Men like you are so easy to influence— you know everything, feel too greatly without questioning
yourself
. She pegged you for what you were the moment she took that first whiff. As Brigadier, I’ve seen veiled ruthlessness, the rise and fall of those who would attain the title of Senator. She is nothing new, a politician through and through, who hid in a room for the first months of this occupation thinking only of herself. When she was forced to leave or starve, she ran straight to her powerful uncle, saw an opportunity, and is using us all to achieve the highest goal a person like her might attain. The amount of people who will die when those bombs go off, the chance we might bring down the Dome, she is willing to risk all that and more to become the new Premier.”

“The enemy is Shepherd.”

The woman let out an extremely agitated breath. “How blind you are. The enemy has never been Shepherd. The enemy is us. We are fighting ourselves!”

“What you are saying is treason.”

Brigadier Dane didn’t give a fuck. “There is no government left to judge me. All that is left is Leslie Kantor, her ambition, and those so desperate for reprieve they will believe anything she proclaims as if the Goddess herself speaks.”

The words passed almost tonelessly, from Corday’s mouth. “If I move against this mission, I won’t stand a chance of saving Claire.”

“If you believe Leslie Kantor gives a single fuck about your Claire, then you’re even stupider than I thought.” Brigadier Dane ran her hand through her short, clipped hair, shaking her head at the man’s foolishness. “Have you never noticed how often she mentions your Claire? Why do you suppose she does that? Does she mention her often in front of her
rebels
? Do they hate her?”

Corday shook his head, unsure how to answer.

“The Omega is lost, we all know it. The only thing Claire exists as now is the strings Leslie pulls to make you dance as her puppet.”

The temptation to strike what had once been his commanding officer, was so strong, Corday forced himself to take a step back. “I don’t trust Leslie Kantor’s motivation any more than you do, but she has lit the spark Senator Kantor failed to ignite. She might be our only chance.”

“Yes,” Brigadier Dane nodded. “She has set the wheels in motion and there is no stopping them now. But two people can
question
, they can alter the future if both of them are ready to pay the price.”

“I promised Claire,” Corday hissed, disgusted and tired. “I have maps of the Citadel. Leslie gave them to me.”

“Leslie Kantor did not give you the Premier’s data cube so you could save Claire. She gave it to you so you would grow to hate the man whose corpse lies between us... She gave it to you so you would grow to love her in his place.”

Leslie had warned him not to look into the files, and of course it was the first thing Corday had done. Every Senator had a secret, some of them monstrous.

“What he did to Rebecca...” Leslie’s ploy had worked. Once Corday had read the file, seen horrific video footage, he had begun to despise the old man. “His dead wife was the reason Senator Kantor would not let us enter the Premier’s Sector. Knowledge of his crime would have been uncovered, he would have been exposed.”

“Boy, Premier Callas had something on everyone, and everyone had something to hide. But when Rebecca died, I saw the change in Kantor myself.” The hard woman looked down at the wrapped corpse; she frowned. “For the first time in his life, when he spoke of
the people
under the Dome, when he spoke of bettering ourselves, he meant it.”

“I cannot forgive him for what he did to that poor woman, her husband, and their children. The footage of those boys’ murder burns me every time I close my eyes.”

“Leslie was shrewd in her dissection of your,” Brigadier Dane smirked again, “ethics.”

Grinding his teeth, caught in the riptide of all the bullshit around them, Corday hissed, “How else do we stop Shepherd?”

“We don’t.”

“What?” His patience, his understanding of the woman before him, was worn out.

“You’ve left us with no options. Lady Kantor’s attack on the Citadel will take place. You will be at her side as it burns.”

Corday knew what she was driving at. “You want me to kill her...”

“After the bombs go off, right as the citizens rally.” Brigadier Dane, nodded.

“I’ll be busy searching for Claire!”

“No, you won’t. The only member of
our
resistance who can truly search for the Omega is myself. If this is what it takes, I will give you my word I will find her or die in the flames trying. So accept the fact that Leslie is not going to spare you, a known figurehead of the old rebellion, when she might have you at her side to inspire our troops to follow her into war. You have value, and unlike me, she trusts you. You’ll be in position. One bullet to the head will take only seconds, then you can kill Shepherd, or you can waste your life searching for Claire while the Citadel crumbles around you.”

Absolutely not. “I would be killed the second I pulled the trigger. You are asking me to risk my life, to fail my friend? For what?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t see it. I know you do. There is something wrong with that woman; there would have to be for her to do what she did to her uncle.”

“No...” Corday had never fathomed that Leslie might have done such a thing. “She didn’t.”

Crossing strong arms over her chest, Brigadier Dane asked, “Since when has Shepherd not advertised his exploits? When he infected our brothers and sisters in Judicial Sector, their deaths were broadcast over every working COMscreen under the Dome. When he hung the Senators, it was done before jeering crowds. Why make a secret of Senator Kantor’s demise? Why take the head off the pike?”

It was too convenient to be conceivable. “One woman would not have been able to accomplish all that was done in that night. The body parts, the missing Omegas, it isn’t possible!”

Dane nodded. “And doesn’t that frighten you all the more?”

Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat. –Sun Tzu

Well, she had failed that one. Miserably...

Claire had no idea what had come over her, but the sign of her lapse into madness was a visual Shepherd took much pleasure in displaying. His chest and back were covered in lines of scratches artfully done; her own little pattern that made it clear they were not marks gained in a fight, but adornment of a sort. More so, they were mesmerizing and she had trouble keeping her eyes from them every time he entered the room and removed his shirt for her nest.

And he was doing it on purpose.

Shepherd wanted to show them to her, he wore them proudly. Hell, she would not be surprised if he had made a point of displaying them to his entire army. A situation that was infinitely humiliating for her, was nothing but delightful for him.

Whether it was the pregnancy or the pair-bond, Claire didn’t know; all she knew was that she had not been in her right mind. Maybe the book had been right. She’d been absolutely irrational and could not stop the furious blush that came to her cheeks every time she found him looking at her with those eyes.

It was that same damn expression he’d favored her with after she had painted his portrait.

Catching his eye again, glancing away as she felt the color rise to her face, Claire heard the memory of her voice demanding that he fuck her, explaining in filthy detail the exact position she desired, how fast he was to move…

Shepherd enjoyed calling her coy in the past, and gods if she didn’t feel that way now.

There was no scolding on his end for her demure behavior in the aftermath, or how she tried to keep her distance and her eyes to herself since. Shepherd was simply patient, sitting with her as she ate, offering her a piece of chocolate every time he’d seen her since—as she’d belligerently vocalized a
need
for it.

When he did reach for her, a thing that was as inevitable as breathing, there were ages of purrs and long caresses until she was sedate and melting, even smiling softly as she arched and hummed. It was in those moments she would distantly recognize her fingers were tracing the marks she’d placed on his body, having memorized them; enjoying the feel of the slightly raised wounds.

He had just taken her again, employing the exact same position she had twisted him into that day, only having moved far more luxuriously so that she might feel it all with her legs folded between their shoulders, bent in half so that he could plunge in as deep as possible. When it was finished and she was tame, Claire lay on his chest, green eyes following the path of her hand as she asked, “How many weeks have I been back?”

A rumble deep in the sedated Alpha’s rib cage answered, “You have been back home with me for eight weeks.”

Home?

“This is not a home, Shepherd.” There was no rancor in her voice, just soft words as she stilled her fingers and woke a little from the stupor. “It’s a bunker underground in a city full of evil.”

A palm came to her cheek, pulling her attention from his flesh to see the hungry smile in his eyes. “That is correct, little one. Thólos is evil.”

The warmth of the cord deflated and her voice fell flat, “We both know it’s not that simple.”

He answered her with a long slow stroke down her naked spine. “That is not the reply you would have made six months ago.”

“Six months ago many good women I knew still lived; the city was not totally in shambles.” Her calm began to evaporate and sadness took its place. “Six months ago I had not met you.”

“And you were starving to death... hunted and tormented by your fellow citizens.”

“And blissfully ignorant of just how ugly the world could be.” Claire sighed, feeling his thumb pass softly over her cheek.

“Look at me, little one,” Shepherd ordered in a soft voice. When her gaze came back to his, her expression just a little challenging, he promised, “All that was done here, it will only inspire a better world.”

Fanning her hair over his chest, Claire pressed her ear to Shepherd’s heart. Tracing the muscles over his ribs, she sighed. “The very idea what you have done, what the people of Thólos have done, might improve the world, makes it a world I don’t want to live in.”

He hushed her and played with her hair, knowing that she meant every word. A moment later Shepherd’s great body shifted, pouring her off of him so that he might ease down above the pouting Omega. Pressing his scarred lips to where his son grew stronger daily, Shepherd inhaled. One large hand came to feel her there, to seek out signs of new life in the subtle swell of her skin.

Eyes almost dangerous, Shepherd spoke in a voice one uses on children, explaining to his baby, “Your mother is speaking nonsense.” The expression he leveled at her even as he traced patterns on her belly would wither grown men. “She thinks I do not know what is in her thoughts—that I have not recognized her avoidance of any mention of you, my son.” The palm of his hand closed over her little belly and he gripped it as if to reassure the life inside. “But I know she would never follow through on her plan. Claire O’Donnell would never harm her child nor would she suicide and abandon you like her mother abandoned her.”

The blood drained from her face, her heart seemed to drop out of her chest, and Claire gaped. He had exposed her; he had upended her lie.

Rearing up, looming his bulging mass over her, Shepherd held her guilty stare and stated harshly, “Because you love him.” Unsure if he moved out of compassion or if he was trying to draw out some type of confession, Shepherd moved back to where he had been and gathered her up so that she might rest on his chest again in her preferred position. “You would never hurt your son.”

It was an underhanded tactic, but underhanded was Shepherd’s specialty. The male was making a point he knew she had yet to address: Thólos, or her baby. It was a complicated position for Claire that only led to denial of the issue. Taking her survival day by day, pretending there was no child, was all she could do without going mad.

Thólos had to be free.

And then what?

Shepherd’s reign might fall and she would be without the Alpha who fathered the small thing inside her. Corday’s resistance might fail, and the remainder of her days would be spent underground in a life unworthy of her child while Thólos still suffered.

Either way, she could not endure.

A corner of her mind spoke over the mental chatter, whispering incessantly that her baby could never stay there—that Thólos was not good enough, and it scratched and scratched, infesting, and reminding her that she had a duty to her unborn son, that he was more important than any other life.

It was getting harder to silence that voice every day.

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak. –Sun Tzu

That is exactly what he was doing to her, even if he was holding her comfortably as he jammed in the knife.

Talk of the baby was acutely painful.

As if he knew, warm, reassuring arms wound around her, Shepherd held her with love and murmured that she need not fret, that she need only remain patient.

What she needed was so far beyond patience. She needed to strike back.

“You are the strongest Alpha I have ever seen,” Claire began, compelled to make her point. “You have limitless potential. But, just like this unborn child, you are trapped in the dark. The acts of bad men shaped and distracted you. Serving your mission, even after you climbed from the Undercroft, you were never given a chance to be part of the world, Shepherd. Like me, you have never been free.” Her eyes went to where his hand had frozen in a caress over the life they had created. “So what of him? Will he live a mimic of your life? Will he wield murder and pain against those he’s taught to hate?”

Shepherd began a slow languid stroke that ended at the scruff of her neck. Gripping Claire’s nape as if she were a kitten, he held her immobile. “You do not know of what you speak, and that is no fault of your own. So listen when I tell you that our son will be raised to greatness... nurtured and educated. Loved.” His voice dropped, grew chilling, and he growled, “But far more importantly, how could you imagine I would inflict upon my child what was done to me?”

Face impassive, Claire spread her hands on his chest. She had one weapon, the truth. “Svana was in your company days ago. What have the two of you planned for this baby? Will your schemes, your examples, make him the next Premier Callas?”

It was like watching a storm gather in his eyes. The silver went dark, the rage began to build, and the man’s expression grew almost violent. She wanted a strong response, and she got one... she got even more than she anticipated. At last, she had struck him where he was weak. It was not her accusations that had burned him, it was that forbidden name: Premier Callas.

Leaning on the link, she felt Shepherd’s boiling animosity. But there was more, Shepherd was seething with disgust.

Widening her eyes, she grasped the secret; Claire knew exactly what inspired the hostile feelings buzzing on Shepherd’s end of their bond. There was only one reason to harbor such hatred. She knew it because Shepherd had given her cause to feel the same way.

Claire said it again, just to be sure. “Premier Callas.”

The Alpha’s end of the link turned rancid, old anger crashing down between them like a wave of acid.

It was more than what that monster had done to his mother, it was jealousy.

Jealousy...

Claire could hardly believe it, couldn’t even begin to fathom why, but she knew—It was Premier Callas, Shepherd’s enemy, who Svana had been unfaithful with. It had to be for him to feel such betrayal.

Looking away from the feral mate who was silently raging, Claire fell into her thoughts, shaking her head like it could not be true. Premier Callas was responsible for the torment and death of Shepherd’s mother... why would Svana harm her lover in that way? Resting her head on Shepherd’s chest, she stared at nothing, shared in his pain through the link, and felt as if the floor had fallen from under them both.

Like thoughts of the child growing in her belly, Claire had pushed memories of the exotic beauty away each time they’d cropped up. It had felt essential to maintain her sanity and her composure when faced with the man who had defiled their bond by fucking the Alpha female. But she had to look, had to face the discomfort and sadness that squirmed in her insides when homicidal china blue eyes flashed to the forefront of her mind.

She had to, or she would turn into Shepherd—a man who had buried such anger as if it might just disappear. The link was slowly assuring that such a demise would be inevitable... his personality was just too strong.

Svana’s was a face Claire could never forget. That beautiful, frightful image carved into her.

It was as if someone had shattered a window, light pierced the darkness in her mind. The wide eyes and soft lips... she’d seen them before. Claire had never paid much attention to high society or politics. Of course she, like everyone under the Dome, recognized the key players: Premier Callas, Senator Kantor...

But Claire had seen her somewhere before.

The woman had been dressed differently underground, less glamor, less makeup, but still radiant—incredibly beautiful.

The magazine...

Claire had had it on her coffee table for months. The woman on the cover of
The Thólosite
was dressed in a gown and smiling like the princess of the city. Claire had bought it for an article on cooking, but the woman on the cover had also inspired the purchase, Claire thinking the softly waved hairstyle was something she might try herself.

What was her name? Why was Claire suddenly sick to her stomach?

It had been printed in big block letters.

There was a soft intake of breath when Claire came to terms with her blindness. How could she have not recognized such a thing when the knowledge might have been useful to Corday?

Her voice shook, her veins turning to ice. “Her name is Leslie Kantor...”

“You will not think of her, Claire.”

“She was important enough to be on the cover of the
The Thólosite.
I cut my hair to look like hers... I am a little copy of your beloved, just like she said.”

Shepherd narrowed his eyes. “You are nothing like Svana.”

A rough snap came from Shepherd’s end of the thread, as if the male demanded she stop the direction of her thoughts. Claire ignored it and opened her mind to stutter though everything that flooded in.

Leslie Kantor, Svana, had been underground only a few days ago. She had touched Shepherd, communicated with Shepherd... and she was out there, in Thólos working to destroy the city. That was why, that horrible day months ago, the woman implied she saw Shepherd rarely.

Muttering under her breath, impatient and equally horrified, Claire said, “Kantor is a very powerful name.”

Shepherd removed his hand from her nape, laying his arms stiffly at his sides, where the mountain’s fists clenched until his knuckles became white. Idly hushing him, petting his flank, Claire hummed, deep in thought, her actions merely instinctive as she stroked the angry Alpha sweetly. Shutting her eyes, turning her face to nestle in the musculature of his chest, she shut everything but what she saw in her mate. Her mind fought to piece it together, feeling as if she was on a precipice, that the moment held a great value that she needed, that Thólos needed, that Shepherd needed.