Reborn (Alpha's Claim Book 3) (7 page)

“I have yet to decipher her point of origin, but I can tell you, she was first spotted in the GW94 tunnel walking from east quadrant. She wanted to be seen.”

Considering how long she had been
punishing
them with her absence, Shepherd had some choice words to share with the Alpha female. “Did she bring the virus?”

Jules fell into step with his leader, blank and focused. “If it’s on her person, it remains unseen.”

Looking to the COMscreen offered by his second-in-command, Shepherd watched a feed of Svana fingering through schematics spread on the main table of the Followers’ Command Center.

“It’s unorthodox. Spying on your men will lead them to believe you don’t trust them.” Shepherd wanted to be angry. More so, he wanted to not feel relief his second had acted in such a subversive manner.

Jules didn’t trust Svana and it was no secret. He was thoroughly unapologetic. “There is nothing in that room I have not anticipated she might see.”

Shepherd grunted, the noise deep in his throat. It was neither an affirmation nor a negation.

The way the Alpha female had crept down there with no fanfare, spoke volumes. There was a reason Svana had breached the underground, and it wasn’t to speak with him. She wanted something. “You will wait outside while I speak to her.”

Jules turned down the corners of his mouth. “Understood, sir.”

Shepherd was not finished. “But you will watch and listen through the COMscreen. I doubt she would suspect you would plant surveillance equipment in your own Command Center, especially since we know the resistance has partial access to our communications network.”

“When I heard she was in our halls, surveillance equipment was not the only thing I planted in the room. I placed a micro-tracker on her person.”

Shepherd had suspected what the Beta had done before Jules had confessed. “We will discuss what you’ve done later. For now, don’t make me feel my faith in you has been misplaced.”

Buried deep in his expression, was a small sliver of hurt. “Brother, I am loyal to you, always. Which is why I am telling you now, do not allow her to leave that room.”

Shepherd made his final point before reaching for the door to his Command Center and leaving the Beta in the hall. “Svana killed Kantor. It’s done and cannot be changed. So remember, without her compliance, we cannot subvert the population of Greth Dome. Without her, not one of your brothers will know freedom. You, we all, need her.”

The hinges moved smoothly, even for a door of such size. As he had been ordered, Jules remained in the hall, cut off from his leader, glaring down at a dissatisfying exchange on his COMscreen.

Door sealed tightly behind him, Shepherd took a deep breath, and looked over his statuesque
beloved
. Glowing with health was such a cliché term, but it fit Svana well.

“Svana, you have been missed.”

Her dark hair was loose, glossy, and clean. She pulled it over her shoulder as if to display its beauty, offering a soft smile. “I knew you’d be angry I was gone for so long.”

Cocking a brow, Shepherd asked, “Was it your intention for me to worry?”

“No.” She shook her head, contrite, her usual imperiousness waning. “Beloved, we quarreled. It was my fault. I know that now. Once I had some time to think, I realized a verbal apology would not be enough. So I have crafted something valuable to offer you.”

Shepherd thought to lecture. “The murder of Senator Kantor was unwise.”

Her laughter trilled, china blue eyes aglow. “On that point, I disagree with you. His death was necessary, though I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it.”

There was no immediate rebuttal or argument, not from the Alpha male. Shepherd kept his silence until even Svana began to grow uncomfortable in the lengthening quiet. Not once did he move his eyes from her face, not once did he blink, he only waited for the inevitable.

When she began to look uneasy, he said, “Your actions prove redundant and provocative. You now owe Jules a debt you will never be able to repay him.” Shepherd, fisted the collar of his coat. He measured his words. “We had already infiltrated the resistance. How does removing an advantageous pawn help our goal?”

“How does it not?” Svana walked closer, as if she expected to be praised. “His murder coupled with my manipulation of those fools, has caused our only opposition to disintegrate. As of now, they are powerless, scattered, and dying. I did that for you.”

Shepherd crossed his great arms over his chest and scowled. “Svana, your role in our coup was to hold the virus and keep it safe. Furthermore, endangering yourself in an attempt to dismantle an organization
I allowed
to exist is, in fact, subversive to our cause. The resistance offered a rabid population just enough hope to keep them lazy and waiting to be saved. If they have no souls fighting for them, they will begin to fight for themselves.”

Svana was done playing, done trying to smooth over their dispute. Her voice grew hard. “They already have begun
to
fight for themselves
. Your Omega stirred up the city with her flyer. Rebel recruitment increased, as did guerrilla attacks. Thousands of people keep her image in their pockets.”

Cocking a single brow, Shepherd warned. “I caution you. Desperate Thólosens are nothing more than a pack of ravenous dogs. Remember, we are outnumbered and cannot leave until satellite imaging shows a storm free environment over the Drake Passage. Considering the season, our exodus could be months away. Do not stir up trouble.”

Svana threw up her hands, half in defeat, half in exasperation. “I did not come here to argue with you. I came here to warn you.” Reaching into her coat, the woman produced a packet of hand written notes. “You need to protect yourself.”

Shepherd took the offered papers, and found the photograph of a man he despised. Shepherd hesitated, his eyes drawn to the circle of red marker around Corday’s hand.

“Enforcer Corday wears a woman’s gold band on his smallest finger.” Svana’s nonchalance slipped, her voice hinged on desperate. “Every time he hears the name Claire, or talks about her, he touches it, toys with it. When I asked him about the ring, he confessed. Has your Omega told you she’s betrothed to him? Has she told you he promised her he’d end your life? Remember that while you are enraptured by your pair-bond, she has appointed another man to kill you.”

Seeing her china blue eyes looking over him with pity and disappointment burned. Shepherd swallowed, squared his shoulders, pretended he did not feel a knife slice straight through his heart, and lied. “She told me. The confession was... cathartic.”

“I see...” Svana braved placing a hand on Shepherd’s chest, stroking up to touch the bare skin of his neck. “I am begging for you to forgive me, my love. Look through the information I have brought, do what you will with it. Please remember what we are to one another.”

His voice, it came out worn and sad. “I never forgot, Svana.”

“I know you are going to ask me where the virus is, and you expect I have been keeping it from you—that I will continue to keep it from you, as if we are in opposition and not partners looking to build a great future together.” Heartache was open in her voice, in her expression, and falling in liquid testament from her eyes. “In order to reaffirm what we are, I’ve brought it. It’s yours.”

Reaching into the layers of her clothing, Svana produced a biohazard banded cylinder, the thing so small and unassuming, it was hard to believe what that little device was truly capable of. Inside something smaller than Svana’s fist lurked a nightmare, the very disease that almost eradicated the entire human race.

She offered it freely, her one bargaining chip gone. “Take it, my love. I don’t want you to have reason to doubt me.”

The cylinder was placed in his hand. Closing his fist around it, Shepherd sighed. “When you act on your own without talking with me, I fear for you. It was not a question of doubt.”

Voice dropping to a whisper, Svana’s eyes shifted to the man’s scarred lips. “I wish I could kiss you.”

The tension softened in Shepherd’s face; he smirked. “I will kiss you the day you take your throne and free our people.”

“Yes, that will do.” A warm smile on her mouth, Svana slipped away and eased towards the door. “Goodbye, Shepherd.”

The virus now in his power, he let her go. “Goodbye, Svana.”

It was three minutes before Jules dared enter. “She’s gone, spotted above ground moving east.”

Once the door was sealed, Shepherd looked to his second-in-command and saw that the Beta fully understood what had just happened. The Alpha cracked his neck, the man miserable under a stone-faced façade. “Have this analyzed to confirm the virus is inside and the containment untampered with.”

Jules displayed the depth of his feelings in one infinitesimal hitch of his brow. “You lied to her.”

Yes, Shepherd had lied to her, because Svana had lied to him first. “Have this room swept for surveillance equipment
you did not plant
. The guard stays outside my room, even when I am there.”

“Yes, sir.”

While folding laundry, Claire sensed the link chime like soft bells. The sensation was a fair deal calmer than the inferno she’d felt over the last hour. Shepherd had been exceptionally angry, Claire was relieved he’d gone and that the rage was not directed towards her.

And then she’d worried something was terribly wrong. Misgivings came with the manipulation of the pair-bond. Worse was the doubt. Claire never did know just what stirred him up, and they both knew he’d remain mute to her questions. He never told her anything about how his time was spent tormenting Thólos... as if she’d forget what he was.

A warm hand slid down her flank. “You are thinking of me.”

Claire jumped under the unexpected contact, yelping as her heart leapt into her throat. Since she’d bitten him, he had taken to sneaking up on her, lingering in the shadows... watching her. It was always unsettling, Claire unsure if he’d been doing so all along.

Now, the link was
open
—he could not hide from her.

“If your plan is to murder me by scaring me to death, you’re on the right track!” Claire glared over her shoulder, barking, “I should sneak up on you and see how much you like it...”

His lips were against her crown, the beast all grumbly and soothing. “You would never be successful in such an endeavor.”

One hand cupping the subtle bump of her belly, Shepherd enfolded her in his embrace, offering a treat on the palm of his other hand.

She snatched it at once, shoving a chocolate in her mouth, all the while arguing, “I might not be as sneaky as you, but I am a lot faster.”

“Yes.” Shepherd grew marginally annoyed at the reminder. “You are very fast. A good trait for an Omega. Gloating, however, is less desirable. Eat your chocolate.”

And there was that other new thing, the smirk he was learning to inspire. Claire popped another truffle between her lips, slaked and impish. “So you are trying to feed me candy until I’m fat and slow?”

Shepherd purred, enticing the Omega when he rolled his groin against her. “My mate is a glutton, but I exercise her often.”

Mouth full, Claire argued. “Sex is not exercise.”

Shepherd nestled closer, thoroughly pleased she’d engaged in a playful back and forth, and very eager to reward her. Or he was, until Claire backed away, her scent suddenly laced with sharp anxiety.

Shepherd watched her fidget and dart her eyes to every corner, he watched her waver between anger and alarm.

Distraction typically realigned his mate, and he was perfectly comfortable with manipulation when the outcome would make her calm. Maintaining the distance she’d put between them, Shepherd cocked his head. “What have you painted today?”

Claire waved towards the table so that he might look for himself before she began to sniff at the air.

Keeping his eye on the woman, Shepherd approached her work. A cursory glance went over what was splashed on the paper. He saw her point of view of the very afternoon he’d first laid eyes on her. She’d painted him to be monstrously large, herself small, draped in rags, holding a bottle of pills. Jules stood sentry, his cool-eyed disdain captured perfectly. Every detail was beautifully done. He would have told her so, but in his heart, Shepherd knew his appreciation of that moment was not what she’d hoped to encourage.

His pleasure would inspire her pain. Claire only ever wanted him to see more and be moved to change. He already was more—a great deal more.

He waited for Claire to make her speech, to offer her insight and whatever lesson she’d cooked up all the hours he was away. Instead, she ignored him, nervously toying with the bedding.

Shepherd cleared his throat. She didn’t look. He chose a neutral comment of their shared memory. “You pulled down your scarf to swallow one of those pills. You exhaled. That was the moment I first caught your scent.”

Claire stilled. Her eyes didn’t leave the nest, but she did speak. “How many hours did I stand there?”

“Six.” Shepherd set aside Claire’s painting, leaning a hip on the table. “You stood in the Citadel for approximately six hours.”

A line formed between her brows. “It felt like much longer. I’d been so sick, but I could not leave... because you would not acknowledge me.”

“Women come to the Citadel daily to offer themselves to me or my men. All are ignored.”

“I’m not sure what to make of that statement...” The idea made her skin crawl. Claire worried her lip. “You could be wrong. They might only wish to speak with you.”

Shepherd’s offering was gentle, the man crossing the room so that while he spoke he might trace her claiming marks. “You were different, little one.”

She didn’t mean to cringe. Claire knew he had not intended to insult her, but she did feel something. It was not a good feeling. Truth was, Claire understood the motivation of such women. After all, had she not done the same thing, trading her body to Shepherd? “Not in the long run.”

He absorbed her reaction, her poorly veiled shame, her misconception of injustice. Fingers burrowing into her hair, he purred all the louder. “You are my mate, Claire. Not a whore. You carry my child... There is no correlation to what those women offer and what you share with me.”

Claire looked back at the table, thinking to edge around him. “I can understand why they would offer themselves. I do not appreciate that you call them whores. They are just trying to survive.”

He could have made a snatch for her, he could have pinned his mate to the bed to show her his displeasure with her hesitation to be near him, but Shepherd let her be. It was more than her abnormal scent, she was acting very strangely.

Again he gave her space when she walked away.

When she got to the table, out of nowhere she set her fist to the wood and snapped at him, “Why did you not bring a tray?”

Because he had spent the last hour in conference with Jules, furious to find that Svana had indeed stripped off every stitch of clothing she’d worn underground and stashed them in an abandoned home. “Your meal is being prepared as we speak.”

“Oh...” Recognizing her rudeness, the blush in Claire’s cheeks, the tone of her voice, was self-conscious. The flush deepened an instant later, embarrassment replaced with growing agitation.

She circled back to the bed, brushing past Shepherd and began to sniff the air again. Turning on him, eyes narrowed, the hiss came back to her voice. “Something is wrong with this room. Did you change something while I was sleeping? Move something?” Her attention darted all over, Claire growing breathless. “Fix whatever you did.”

Shepherd narrowed his eyes, unamused with the strangeness of her behavior. “I have changed nothing.”

“No. no.” She looked at him, had the nerve to point and blame. “Something is different; something is not right in here.”

“There has been no alteration, little one.”

She growled and fisted her hands. Right before it seemed she might start shouting, she seemed to snap out of it. Confused, Claire forced a softer tone, stammering, “Of course not... Everything looks the same.”

“Is there something that you desire for the room?” Shepherd cocked his head, measuring her every breath. “Something you think is missing from our nest?”

“No.” She tugged her hair, once again looking around and very uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“You are behaving as if your nest were threatened.” As if that explained everything, the man crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to confirm that he was correct.

The weight of the glare she leveled at him was monumental. Rationality fled and Claire shrieked, “It is, you jackass. The room is wrong. FIX IT!”

“In what way?”

Was the man an idiot? Beyond caring, she threw up her arms. “I DON’T KNOW! If I knew what you had done to the room, I would fix it myself.”

“Do you want me to leave?” This was not normal; Shepherd needed her normal. “To retrieve your meal at once?”

“Yes.” She spun around, changing her mind, “No. You have to stay. This is your fault. You don’t get to leave until you fix whatever you did.”

Shepherd stood taller, commanding, “On the bookshelf, top far right, is a book with a white cover. Bring it to me.”

Claire huffed, shuffling her bare feet over to what he demanded. She grabbed the only white book and threw it right at the man. It bounced off his chest, landing on the concrete with a thud.

The Alpha growled—it was not the guttural call to mate, it was a warning, a threat, and something that would have sent grown men white as a sheet. Claire ignored it, choosing instead to wring her hands and pace.

He came upon her so quickly that when a great arm slipped around her middle and hoisted her up, she shrieked in surprise. Once seated at his desk, Shepherd pulled her to his lap, held the squirming Omega still, and opened the book. The giant flipped through the pages, stopping when he found a marker, and raised the book to the female’s eye level. “This is what our baby looks like in his current week of development.”

Claire stiffened, staring at the glossy page.

He tapped an underlined paragraph. “And here it says that at this stage in pregnancy, hormone fluctuations will occasionally make you exhibit irrational behaviors.” The arm about her middle tightened, the greatly irritated male growling, “Take note, little one, that I am being extremely indulgent of you at this moment.”

She felt his nose at the back of her head, heard his deep intake of breath, and read the book’s offered list of tips for the father. He was right, she was acting crazy. Nodding, she admitted, “I think you may have followed ‘how to handle pregnancy mood swings’ to the letter: ‘Do not argue, offer food...’”

A small gleam in his eye, Shepherd agreed. “I did.”

She was a little embarrassed. “Considering your temper, I suppose I should be impressed.”

With the mood seeming to have passed, Shepherd sought out the trigger. “Articulate what brought on your distress.”

“I have no idea.”

The Alpha had the audacity to chuckle, the skin at the corner of his eyes creasing.

Still annoyed, Claire muttered, “You’re a bastard.”

He gave her hip a light smack. “Watch your mouth.”

She began to protest, wanting up. “But the room is wrong, I can feel it. And I
need
more chocolate, and I hate the grey walls, and I have this weird urge to eat charcoal, and you stink of Svana.” Her mouth snapped shut, green eyes beginning to burn once she recognized the truth in her words. He did reek of Svana! Growling like she might rip out his throat, a haze of fury clouded her every thought. “
That is what is wrong with the room
!”

Dashing the book against the wall, Claire inhaled deeply, her nose to his chest.

Wisely, Shepherd held still, let her crawl over him so she might find the limits of where the scent might linger. He’d caused this discord by unthinkingly not considering such an outcome, but he would not allow Claire to believe the worst. She smelled him everywhere, clawed her small hands into his clothes, finding every last trace. The stink was so subtle, she was surprised she’d even noticed. The man did not smell of sex or slick or a recent shower. In fact, he mostly smelled of her.

Cautiously, Shepherd offered a remedy to the issue. “Shall we bathe?”

We?...

Claire pulled away as far as his hold on her would allow. She repeated what he’d crowed only moments before, the phrase much more menacing coming from her lips. “Take note, I am being
extremely indulgent
of you at this moment.”

Shepherd drew breath as if to speak, but Claire held up a finger, and cut him off. “You stink of the Alpha you fucked in my nest a minute after you found her trying to murder me and your baby! Speak and I might just have to kill you.”

The Alpha kept his mouth shut—but it was not her tone or threat that stopped his lips, it was the smell of his mate’s arousal already seeping, hot and thick, into the fabric of his trousers. He watched her small hand hike up her skirt, saw her reach under to cup her sex. Once her fingers were covered in slick, she met his eyes, smearing her hand down his neck, directly over the spot where he stank of his
beloved
.

Gathering more of her wetness, Claire soaked the patch of his shirt until she could only smell herself.

It was not good enough.

Unable to comprehend anything beyond black rage, Claire clawed the fabric and ripped Shepherd’s shirt to threads.

Her nose went back to his exposed chest and she let out the most threatening growl an Omega could make.

If he was hushing her, or reprimanding, touching, or in shock, Claire was absolutely oblivious. Every fiber of her being demanded she stake claim, that she scratch her marks all over his body, that she leave a sign all other females would see.

She left him bloody.

Breathing hard, she reared up until eye level with the man. “Now you will fuck me, hard, in every way that pleases me. And when it is done, you will get me food, because I’m fucking hungry!”

He was on her with such force the breath was knocked from her body. Shepherd did exactly as his mate demanded, pounding into her with a fury that set her howling amidst their shredded clothing. In Shepherd’s experience, there had never been a coupling like it. She was beyond estrous, beyond fiery passion. Her angry possessiveness blended so beautifully with the lustful need to claim what was hers—but it was so much more than that. What began as violent evolved until they were more than physically joined. He had what he wanted, her covetous emotion honest and pure in the bond. Shepherd gluttonously reveled in it.