Warm… soft…

The nest was too comfortable to leave. Who would want to leave a place so safe? A place her mate shared, where no one would dare to touch her. The windows’ light almost seemed intrusive, a part of Claire longing for the dark and solitude of the underground where she had been safer than she’d realized.

All it had cost her was her freedom and her sense of self.

What good was freedom now?

No, the nest was best. Whatever the bedding was made of she could not say, but it felt like velvet and there was enough to burrow as deep as she wanted. If she was careful, if it was dark enough, and Shepherd was beside her to hold on to, there would be no bad dreams in that nest.

She told herself this, and she lied.

They had arrived only the night before, the pitch black showing her little of her new home. Shepherd carried her because he preferred it, because the nearness of armed and uniformed Alpha strangers made her nervous once they had disembarked from the transport ship. There were gates with high walls, a new Dome that did not smell of rotting flesh.

He took her into a stately fortress; an elevator swept them to the top. There were courtyards, fountains, green things… security, privacy, a mansion if she’d ever seen one. Once inside, Shepherd had to pry her off so he might bathe her, rubbing where her fingers had grown swollen because she’d held him so hard.

The shower was far grander than the one they’d shared before, but Claire noticed little, severely uncomfortable with the idea of Shepherd seeing her naked once he began to tug at her dirty nightgown.

She knew these feelings were foolish.

But she cowered and clung to the fabric. He stopped and removed his own clothing first. He stood before her, stripped bare and still beautiful, the perfect Alpha specimen. But she was sickly, scarred, and she didn’t want him to see.

Her reprieve was short lived. Shepherd tugged at her simple sheath, tore it, giving her no chance to refuse. Once naked, if silver eyes caught where another’s cruel nails had marred her skin, if that weighty gaze ran over bites from men who were not her mate or stitch marks from closed incisions, she didn’t see. Claire kept her eyes screwed shut, her arms tight around her middle, and she cried.

But then there was warm water washing the smell of the sweat from her hair, warm hands massaging in shampoo just like she remembered, and she grew pliant. The man’s understanding of the human body could be a wondrous thing. Shepherd knew where to knead, which bones to press, and just how to draw a hum from a broken Omega.

He was happy. She felt it sing through the link.

She was empty, so she let his emotion fill her up.

Her arm slipped about his waist, her face to his chest so the Alpha could finish a ritual he had always enjoyed.

There had been moments like that in the past that had been theirs no matter what was going on beyond them. In Thólos, Claire had chosen to disregard them, to ignore them out of anger. After Thólos, she had fought to remember each nugget of secret peace, clinging to them like a life raft.

It was surreal to be living it, to stand in the comfort of the shower where there was no need to feel guilt for enjoying warm water over chilled skin.

“I like this.”

Shepherd was very pleased. “I can see that, little one.”

The shower had been nice; the nest was better. Everything smelled of Shepherd. She could rest there. She was safe.

The usual torture of searching for sleep was driven off by it. He was there, she wasn’t lonely. He purred and petted. Nightmares only woke her twice.

That’s how she knew it was real. Even with Shepherd there beside her, she was terrified when horrid memories stormed in.

When he asked her about them, she lied.

* * *

The question of sex was a complicated one. The act of fucking was healthy for Alphas and Omegas, essential to the bond—some would even argue chemically necessary. She had slept almost two days upon arrival, waking only when forced so Shepherd could press her to eat and swallow medication. A firm schedule was important, and he knew Claire had a tendency toward escapism should he not enforce it.

He’d held her, let her sleep, and had not tried to initiate penetration again no matter how hard he was or how much he ached to pump seed into her belly. She had been skittish, hadn’t really enjoyed the first time beyond the compelled orgasm, and needed a reminder that physical pleasure was permissible.

Shepherd gave her forty-eight hours. When her time was up, there was one more daily injection and when she was smiling through the drug’s high, Shepherd burrowed under soft covers. She hardly moved. But, when his tongue swiped right between her legs, exactly the way he knew she loved best, his Claire woke with a stifled cry. He delved deeper, lapped and sucked, flicking about inside her as she squirmed.

“You are perfect here.”

He gave her no time to think on his words, Shepherd moving to tongue her swelling nub so his fingers might explore where she seeped slick. It was almost easy to gorge himself, swallowing up all she offered, nipping just enough for her thighs to spread obscenely. Over and over he met her eyes, watched her pant for him as her hips jerked. He let her come that way, where she was stuffed full of only his fingers, his tongue frantically licking at her clit.

“Shepherd!”

She had not called his name on the transport ship.

Hearing it drew a growl of approval, a large Alpha prowling over her to urge that sound again. Where she shied, he forced his way, his erection heavy against her thigh. That first taste of her mouth, the flavor of her pussy still on his tongue, was bliss.

He surged in, hips snapping to sheath fully in one swoop. Claire’s breath hitched.

He fucked in again. She gasped.

“Touch me, little one.”

Her body was twisted, one leg straight, one hooked on Shepherd’s arm. She was pinned where they fit together, unable to rock her hips or wriggle away. Green eyes remained locked on the veined rod, seeing it disappear inside her, watching it retreat wet with her fluid. At its base was the bulbous hint of the coming knot.

She didn’t move. She stank of fear.

Shepherd took her hand, aware she had not heard him, and put it on his face. “Touch me, little one.”

Her attention left his cock to find him excited, silver eyes burning and so very in love. His cheek had been shaved, was smooth under her fingers, the scar in his lips puckered near her thumb. His neck was still thickly muscled, but what caught her attention, what made him hers, were the claiming marks she traced while Shepherd fought himself not to rear and pound harder than her weak body could tolerate.

“Claire, kiss me there.”

She wanted to, wanted to scrape her teeth on her mark. She also wanted to run away, to hide.

“You’re mine, little one. I’m yours. Bite me as hard as you like. Hurt me if you need to.”

A heat grew in her belly, a sense of possession that tightened her cunt and made her want to do all those things. As if Shepherd had read her thoughts, he set her leg free, rewarding good behavior with swirling grinds of his pelvis where friction would only make her croon. The second her teeth locked onto the marks she’d left in his shoulder, Claire came, lapping at the taste of him, breaking skin so she might know the taste of his blood again.

The male roared. Jets of come, the swelling knot, the Omega’s back arched and Shepherd cried out like a dying man. Everything inside him wanted to fill her up. Another rush of his seed bathed her insides, Claire so tight around him that for the first time in a year, he felt whole.

His tongue moved to her ear, Shepherd demanding as that last rush of fluid poured from him to fill her up, “Tell me you love me, little one.”

Breathless, still clenching around an organ offering pleasure she’d forgotten, Claire panted, “I love you. I’ve missed you…”

Shepherd kissed her shoulder, peppering the scar he’d given her with affection.

This time, when Claire began to cry, it was not from pain.

While his Omega sobbed, he flipped them over so she might own the position she loved most—so she could rest her ear to his heart while the knot held her tied. So he could tell her things he knew she would not want to hear where she was most comfortable and unable to get away.

“You have a schedule here, Claire, a responsibility to pick up where you left off in your recovery.”

He had her in the mating high, he had her drugged on his seed and opiates. He did not have her compliance. “No.”

“In the morning hours you’ll meet with Dr. Osin.”

“No doctors.”

“Afternoons may be spent as you wish, but therapy is not an option. I have given your doctor leave to enter this house at will, even this room, should you think to avoid the work you must do. You will find that she is not a woman who will allow you to slack.”

Feeling anger toward Shepherd was something far too familiar. It felt right, and it felt ravenous. “You are still a bully, but you have nothing you can force me with now. Who are you going to threaten to kill if I disobey?”

He gripped black tresses tight in his fist, pulling her head back so she might meet his eyes. There was no softness in his words, and no mercy for the sting in her scalp. “I love you, but you need to recover. You cannot live your life hiding in this nest. I won’t allow it.”

She wanted to make a cutting remark about his hypocrisy, but those eyes held hers and old guilt came instead to make her lip tremble. Memories of Thólos—of grief, loss, pain, and failure, took the steel from her spine.

Claire wilted.

No quarter was given. More commands were issued, Shepherd outlining the life she would have should she recognize all he offered.