Corday's assumption was accurate. Betrayal by those closest to Claire had allowed Shepherd to abduct his friend. Standing with the masses gathered before the Citadel, he watched three emaciated women being shoved forward to be gawked at and heckled by the crowd. The Omegas had been charged with theft and battery, Shepherd himself shouting their sentence as the terrified females were dragged, then propped up so each might have a noose fitted around her scrawny neck.

Tens of thousands had come to watch the sentencing, Dome Broadcasts having announced the upcoming executions for days.

Thólos Dome had once been the pinnacle of evolved human culture, maintained and exalted no matter the ruins left far behind and far away—the greatest of the Domes. Capital punishment had not existed before the breach. The worst male offenders were sent to the Undercroft, the females to the farming levels to labor. And now the city was enamored with such morbid pageantry, cheering for their conqueror, and hungry for blood.

It was an extravaganza, a visual warning to remind the population who was in charge. It was a sham.

Shepherd postulated, eloquent and captivating, listing the three Omegas' sins, calling them cowards and aggressors—rattling off a record of crimes so ridiculous Corday found the crowd's gasps preposterous. How could they not see what this was? Could they not grasp that those skeletal women were terrified and pleading... that they had been gagged so their shrieks would be nothing but noise?

Shepherd approached the Citadel's archway—turned into a macabre scaffold—large and terrible, the Da'rin markings on his arms flaunted as if the pain they caused him were nothing. The convicted Omegas sobbed pathetically, their eyes darting over the crowd in search of deliverance, mercy... anything.

"Lilian Hale, Xochitl Ramos, Barb Guppy, you have been found guilty and are sentenced to death by hanging."

Shepherd himself, the monster who had Claire in his possession, kicked each support from under the terrified females' feet. They fell—a short drop, their toes kicking a few inches from the ground. Through it all, Shepherd watched them jerk and thrash, fixated. Fifteen agonizing minutes passed before the last of the women stopped twitching.

The rabid crowd lost its edge when the women's uncovered faces turned grotesque shades of purple, the corpses' eyes bulging. Two of them had wet themselves and, in the end, it appeared as if Thólos recognized and began to suffer the fear Shepherd had intended to inspire. The three bodies were left there to swing in the breeze, exposed to the birds when Shepherd turned his back and walked away. The mob began to disperse.

With hands deep in his pockets, Corday moved on. Some part of him had hoped Shepherd would have Claire at his side, that he would flaunt her, though deep down such an idea was ridiculous.

But Corday needed to see her, to know she was okay. For her to see him, so she might know he was fighting for her.

There were so many unanswered questions, so much that weighed on his shoulders, and when he closed his eyes each night, it was her in that grave he saw being covered in dirt—Claire's green eyes, staring dead and unblinking at the sky, which haunted him.

Shepherd was a psychopath. It had been two weeks and Corday was not sure if his friend was even still alive. The temptation to approach, to ease just close enough to see whether he carried her scent, took Corday's feet up the steps and into the Citadel.

It was madness, he knew that. He had totally lost his mind. But with the crush, with the fanfare and the rowdy froth of the crowd, he was unseen and unnoticed. The stink of the room was intrinsically gross. With unwashed males and a few of the more nasty Alpha females, the air was laced with an aggressive musk that mingled into a pungent stench that would warn off the vulnerable and timid. Corday could imagine Claire walking into such a place, could see her being swallowed up.

She had claimed a riot broke out at the start of her heat, that Shepherd had killed a lot of people to claim her. If it was in the midst of this group, she was lucky they had not started ripping off her limbs.

But Shepherd had fought the mob for her...

That was the one part Corday still could not wrap his mind around. Shepherd was a killer, the type to enjoy the bloodbath. He'd just murdered three women. So why fight for Claire, why pair-bond?

Edging through the crowd, mimicking the savage behavior of those shouting for more, Corday went unnoticed. He only needed to get within fifteen feet before he smelled the scent Shepherd wore with pride. Claire's slick—Shepherd's trophy—was fresh, as if he'd only just had her before executing the Omegas Corday's gut told him were responsible for turning her over to the brute.

It was all too surreal, too double-edged. But Claire was alive. In that, Corday found reassurance. So he must remain strong for her—for all the oppressed—and he, like the other Enforcers, would find a way to end this madness.

Gritting his teeth, he left the Citadel.

* * *

Shepherd found her under her burrow again, fast asleep in a circle of his scented garments. His Omega was almost always sleeping, a side-effect of the early stages of pregnancy. Turning her into the curve of his body, he saw her grimace, draw in his scent, then come awake startled.

Pensive, she began to sniff at him, scowling deeper each time she did. It was impossible to miss her displeasure at whatever she found. Stranger still, she made no secret of her appraisal, climbing over him until her nose was breathing in the air exhaled from his mouth.

Revulsion sat thick in her eyes.

Shepherd let her climb out of bed to approach the bathroom, where he could hear her turn on the shower. Her new ploy, the extensive cold-shouldered silence, continued. Claire was not going to speak to him. She simply marched back in the room with her hand over her nose, her silent way of telling the Alpha to wash off the smell.

"Explain your issue," Shepherd growled, watching her grimace deepen.

Her tongue was sharp when she lowered her hand. "You stink of many hostile Alphas... you contaminated my nest."

He rose from the bed, narrowing his eyes at the disgust on her face. "Your tone is undesirable."

Claire wiped her face clean of her unfriendly expression, needing him to wash, refusing to give him a reason to fuck her while he smelled of the very squalid men who'd almost raped her in the Citadel.

Her heart picked up pace. An off note vibrated out of tune from her end of the thread. "Please don't touch me while you smell like… them."

The way she whispered the entreaty, the odd fear in her eyes, made him frown and skirt away from where she stood, pleading. Shepherd moved into the bathroom.

She stripped the bed in a flurry, bunching up all the offensive sheets to dump by the door. New, unsatisfactorily scentless bedding was put on at once.

Claire was already burrowed when he came back, smelling only of soap and Shepherd. His hand ran over her cloth-covered body. "Come out of there."

She twisted and sat up, finding the monolith naked at the side of the bed.

Piercing silver eyes dissected her trepidation. It was worded as a question and a lure. "Do you still find me offensive?"

In many ways, yes. "No."

He cocked a brow, challenging, "Are you certain? I do not wish to contaminate our nest."

Unwilling to invite negative attention, she moved to her knees to nose his stomach, hoping the action would satisfy him enough that he might leave her in peace. "You smell as you should."

It was another one of those new games of his, Shepherd's crafty ways of drawing her out, the manipulation to earn attention outside of her persistent anger. Climbing over her, arranging her body so their skins were flush, he reached for the covers and pulled them over their heads, recreating the soft, dark burrow she liked best.

Feeling her nose at his neck, hearing her absently sniff, it was clear his Omega was appeased—even humming her strange music, contented when his fingers started to manipulate the muscles along her spine. Soon enough, Claire was utterly tranquil, her soft breaths revealing slumber was a heartbeat away.

A rasping breath preceded, "What have you done in my absence?"

Half-asleep, she grumbled, "The same thing I am trying to do right now."

"I have other plans for you."

He felt her body tense, the Omega expecting to be manhandled. A catch of breath hitched before a tone devoid of emotion seemed to strangle her words. "I'm tired."

Correcting her, Shepherd flexed the arm strewn across her lower back and answered with his own low reassurance, "It is natural at this stage that your body feels lethargic while it adapts to its new task. This malaise will pass."

It seemed like such a predictable explanation for her reluctance.

Claire put her chin to his chest and glanced towards the man burrowed in her nest. He ran his palm up her body until it rested flush against her cheek. Watching her reaction, knowing she thought darkness concealed her, he found her expression was not grimaced in the miserable distrust he'd stomached since her return. Instead, it was softly rendered into a state of the resigned acquiescence she refused to show where she thought he might see it.

Taking time to trace her lips, to watch her close her eyes and find a moment's peace under his touch, Shepherd wondered aloud, "You are still angry with me for inducing estrous, even though you were well-cared for during and since."

Claire stiffened, her face forming back into a reflection of sadness. "I suspect you desire a specific answer. I am too drained to figure out what it is."

There had been little conversation between them in their short acquaintance. Most dialogue usually ended the instant Shepherd no longer found her replies acceptable. The frustration of fighting to be heard had passed into disillusioned acceptance. As things were, Claire possessed little interest in anything but sleep.

In that dark little tent of blankets, she looked towards the sound of his breath, chewing her lower lip and wishing that moments like these, the times he would seem gentle, were her reality, that the dark nameless warmth and male body was someone else.

Speaking through the purr he projected gently into her smaller body, he asked, "Beyond leaving the safety of this space, what would lessen this discontent?"

"A window."

Burrowing the pads of his fingers against her scalp, rubbing just enough so she'd close those unhappy eyes, all seemed so much better when his mate almost leaned into his hand. "There are several shelves of windows waiting across the room, which you have pointedly ignored."

"I don't need to learn how to be a dictator. I don't want to be anything like you."

Shepherd smiled. "I agree. You would make a terrible Follower and would require constant punishment for insubordination."

A palm cupped her face and brought it fractionally higher. His voice in the dark breathed, "You are smiling."

Was she? No, she could not have been. "And how do you punish your Followers?"

The pad of his thumb traced over her forced pout, Shepherd teasing, "Would you prefer corporal punishment over being physically attuned to your proper course?"

There was a stifled coughing noise, and Claire moved out of his palm and pressed her face to his chest. A shudder wracked her body, Shepherd feeling her lips curve against his skin. And then it escaped—a second burst of strangled laughter.

The purr returned in full force. "And now you are laughing..."

"Of course not." She cleared her throat, trying her damnedest to keep her lips from twitching.

The pads of his fingers skimmed her ribs. Claire flinched, stiffened, and then bit her lip to stop her forced, laughing shrieks. "Shepherd!"

"Yes?" He trilled his fingers over her flank as she shied and tried to slip away, only to be caught in all her blankets.

They twisted as he mercilessly tickled. All the while, Shepherd noting each slip, each little quake of a giggle to escape. He seemed alive, full of a new, unusual energy as his ribs expanded and contracted above her in rapid, excited breaths. "Little one, you are alight again."

Automatically sucking her lower lip in her mouth, Claire grunted, "You're smashing your baby."

His weight shifted, and thin branching crow's feet developed outside his eyes as Shepherd observed the female trapped beneath him.

Scarred lips pressed to her neck, the behemoth sucked in a deep, rasping breath. "I favor you this way, little one."

His body flexed against her, and suddenly the massive killer was playful, setting his hip between hers. Immediately unsettled, Claire realized she had behaved badly in her fatigue. She had invited attention, she had engaged... and he seemed very happy about it. Taking her hand, he put her palm on his chest and drew it down the length of his torso, arching into the compelled touch like a spoiled cat.

Claire watched her fingers on their course, wondering idly if he even registered, or cared, that it was only his force on her wrist which continued the caress. She wondered if the thread spoke to him as it did to her. What manipulations was it working in his mind?

The ripple of knotted muscles over Shepherd's ribs, the hard line of his belly, so much mass and heat. Her eyes traveled up to find him watching her clinically, gauging her expression. The moment became far more confusing, as did the light furrow of his brow and the almost intrigued expression surrounding his liquid mercury eyes.

His body shifted, Shepherd drawing Claire's palm higher until it rested against the swirl of tattoos on his thick neck—the forefront of his Da'rin markings. He sniffed and growled low, releasing the pressure of his hand on hers. "I am sore here."

The beast stilled and waited, covering but not crushing her, his complaisance urging her only to stroke him. It seemed a reasonable thing, but she hesitated. Touching him in coitus while her mind was on another plane was one thing. Giving him relief simply because he wanted her to... she was resistant to offer it.

When his hand moved to her breast and began to knead the mound of flesh, Claire stiffened, bracing as she understood his point. His erection had been growing between their bodies and was already pulsing and ready. She could rub him, or he could fuck her.

He was giving her a choice.

Her small hand reached for the covers, to recreate the wrecked burrow, then her hand went back to the thickly muscled nape of his neck.

The beast released her breast, growling low and long at the feel of her hand kneading his spine.

The sensation of touching him seemed so very bizarre. Thinking of it as a chore, considering the act clinically, Claire let her hand recognize where there was tension in the musculature, where she could feel scars. The more she dug in, the deeper his purr became. It seemed the behemoth was nearing sleep, his weight settling a bit more atop her, but that was not what distracted Claire's attention. It was the still hard meat of his cock, and how it would jerk, as if Shepherd were flexing a muscle every so often, butting against her sex. Secondly, her breast, the one he'd caressed in the unspoken offer, was sensitive, and the nipple distended to the point where it ached. Claire had to take great care, as she rubbed Shepherd's neck, to ensure the mound of flesh did not come into contact with him, that the inappropriate thrill when the peaked nipple scraped heat was ignored.

It was maddening.

Even in the early stages of pregnancy, her body reacted to his nearness far more strongly than it had before. Where there had been disgust, Claire began to feel stirrings. It was only a physical reaction, but it felt like a betrayal of her very self when revulsion disappeared and her mind tried to shut off the torrent of endless internal reproofs.

That was why he'd done it, she was certain. Pregnancy made her crave the nearness of the father, almost inspired the interest Shepherd seemed to demand. A long worried breath passed her lips. The giant shifted just a little. As if some threshold had been crossed, some test finished, he seamlessly began to ease the head of his cock into her supine body. Claire pretended it was unwelcome even as she continued to stroke his neck.

She moaned.

Her expression hinted that she found his callused fingers distasteful, but the flush on her cheeks gave her away when slowly he returned his large hand to her swollen breast.

There was something under the surface of the act she could not put her finger on, something in the way the pad of his thumb circled her flesh, his cock still slowly pushing inside her, as if testing the waters. It was too much as if he was waiting for some revelation, some great moment, and like a bucket of cold water Claire realized what had happened.

Shepherd had never made the growl.

There was no derision, no mocking of her confusion and instant panic, only the satin movement of his hips thrusting forth until her slick passage was filled to the brim. They shared breath. Shepherd rolled his hips, watching her eyes in the dark as Claire came to terms with what had led her to tremble. Her body had broadcast the scent of slick, and he had acted instantly to fulfill something her mind would have never allowed.

She had wanted him.

His warm fingertips left her breast to trace her lips, the line of her jaw, Shepherd watching her hooded green eyes close completely.

The seduction seemed organic—missing the measured calculation he usually employed—but Claire's mind was in turmoil, and she had to do something. It was like a flash of inspiration, the only way she could fight back, because his new dominance over her body had to stop somewhere. He might be drawing soft gasps and murmurs from her lips, but she had the power to think of another. At first it was almost easy, her little mental defiance. She thought of the one person she knew Shepherd hated, his unknown nemesis—she thought of Corday.

Like the flow of a river, Shepherd turned them both until her burrow fell away and he was holding her above him. There was no dark shelter where her face and feelings could hide, he had exposed her... but so long as her eyes remained closed, she could maintain defiance and pretend.

He rolled his hips even as he commanded her, "Little one, you will look at me when I fuck you."

The weight of his gaze drew her attention, and automatically the fan of her lashes lifted. Claire looked through passion drugged eyes. Green found shining silver. All thought disappeared, the image she'd tried to maintain vanished as if it had never existed. There was only Shepherd.

"Good girl."

Large hands lifted and lowered her hips, the pace still slow, Claire braced on his massive chest to do as she was compelled. Leaning into his touch, caught up, she sucked his fingers. Shepherd angled to hit the place she presented, drawing out her gasps until she began to keen softly. Being pleasured by the Alpha had always been a sensation of mind-bending carnality, but at that moment, all she could register was shining silver and soft touches. In combination with a long hum, her pussy twitched and clasped Shepherd's cock like a fist, drawing the Alpha deeper, enticing him to spill. He did, groaning as he yanked her writhing hips flush against his so he might knot deep in her core.

With the splash of heat in her belly, she was humming, contented. Shepherd pulled her closer, chest to chest, groaning long and loudly as another wave of come shot from his cock just as her pussy clenched for more.

They were locked together, and would be so for some time by the feel of it. With her cheek to the damp skin of his chest, Claire listened to his heart. At moments like that, the thread no longer seemed greasy. It seemed clean, and even when she pretended it was not there, it hummed, singing to her.

Painful self-loathing returned.

There was no comforting purr when her mind grew anxious, no pets to soothe her tension. Shepherd wanted her to recognize the quality of their exchange. Shifting as if to put distance between them, Claire felt the huge bulbous anchor hooked behind her pelvic bone reminding her resistance was pointless. Trapped, she tried to be still, to allow the waves of castigation to burn each and every vein.

In a voice almost laced with compassion, the male offered, "Your reaction was not unnatural."

It began to feel as if the whole thing had been planned, down to the very breath she drew to speak. "And your neck," she began in a voice full of self-hate, "does it still hurt?"

"Your touch eased the pain." Feeling her bury her face against him as if ashamed, he ceased the lesson and offered a purr, allowing his arms to come around her, to cradle her as she needed but could not ask for.

* * *

It was not much longer, perhaps only a handful of days, before Claire began to sleep less and to grow anxious when left alone. She no longer found joy in her hours of seclusion as she had before he'd infected her with poison. Instead, isolation left her edgy. When Shepherd was not present, time dragged by. She found herself longing for his return no matter how much she denied it and hid in her burrow, praying for sleep to eat up the hours as it had before.

Ashamed of herself, she tried to hide her relief when Shepherd came through the door, did her best not to look at him too long. It didn't make any difference. He knew that very first time, and it showed in the intensity of his curious expression when he smelled the air in her direction. He responded to it with a smile that crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes, and by immediately taking her body with a practiced, calculating sensuality, watching her obsessively with those all-seeing eyes. It was as if he knew what was warring inside her, knew that she was losing—grasped that Claire found it harder to hate him, and struggled even to hate herself.

When she fell to pieces and the shame knifed into her, she began to cry as if lost. Shepherd played his hand, behaving seemingly patient, and continued the manipulative assault on her convictions by comforting her with deep purrs even as he mounted her, fucking the Omega until she forgot she had been upset in the first place.

The culmination of her ruin was the perpetual attack that persisted even in her sleep. Claire's dreams were filled with soft things, warmth, and the scent of her mate... his voice, the feel of his roughened hands slipping over her skin. The dream grew stronger nightly, and to her horror, she awoke half aware and throbbing for him to fill her. She instinctively reached for him the third or fourth time she'd awoken in that state, trailing her hand down his muscular body, pressing closer in her dazed need while she hummed in the dark. Shepherd responded with absolute enthusiasm, rolling his silken weight on top of her and groaning long and deep to find her already dripping wet. In that dreamlike mating, Claire could not get enough of his skin, cried out for him when his cock replaced where his fingers had been exploring, and held him as if he were hers, as if he were precious. When a corner of her mind rebelled, she shut it off, unwilling in that moment to recognize her failing, needing the fantasy just once where she was happy. And just like that, she lost another part of herself to a monster.

As he moved inside her, the thread resonating in joy, she realized how easy it could be—how dreamlike, how intoxicating—if she would only forget and submit. When she urged him to go faster, to give her more than slow, soothing thrusts, she came apart underneath him as he pounded away, the bond throbbing as powerfully as her pussy when she burst apart. Shepherd knotted deep, the sounds he created, the transcendent quality of his iron eyes, making it clear it was the most fulfilling orgasm he'd ever known.

He praised her for hours afterward, stroking and purring, and she wished he would not speak. Claire did not want to hear how well she had pleased him or how beautiful he found her. It was making her remember that she was Claire and he was Shepherd, and all the things he had done, and all the ways she had failed in so short a time.

When she woke again, he was working at his desk, breathing in and out in a rhythmic purr that seemed so commonplace she hardly noticed it anymore. With him shirtless, Claire could see every line of his muscles, the dips and curves of a man built to break things. All that strength covered in a testament of murder...

Pulling a dress over her head, she sat at the edge of the bed and watched him.

Shepherd turned and looked at her, approval obvious between his lashes.

How far she'd fallen. Mortification made breath difficult. "How are the Omegas?"

The change in her captor was immediate. All trace of amusement vanished, and in its place was the hardness and dominance he exercised expertly. "They are exactly as they should be."

"Subjugated and imprisoned?" Claire challenged, standing up to force herself to pace. She should have been pacing for days... why had she stopped pacing? Why had she not asked sooner? What the fuck was wrong with her?

"Come here."

Her barked answer was immediate. "No."

She needed to go back to the status quo, to remembering to hate the father of her baby, not to admire his body... never to allow pleasant feelings for him. She should be wishing him dead, not prizing his attention. Wringing her hands, she marched, pointedly ignoring the giant rising from his chair to subdue her.

A meaty hand locked on her shoulder atop the claiming marks Shepherd had inflicted and tended each day. The discomfort of compressing tender flesh made Claire wince. She pressed her lips into a line and refused to look. Heat rose from his body, seeped into hers, and the smell—the necessary scent—forced her to close her eyes and focus to maintain defiance against a man who was her foe, not her lover.

"You will cease this at once." His voice was not hard.

"I will not."

His tone dropped considerably, it promised things. "Little one..."

Trying to shrug out of his grasp only enticed Shepherd's anger.

That was good, wasn't it? He had been too gentle, pretending he was not a beast who imprisoned and poisoned her. She needed to see the dragon, to hear the angry growls, to feel the thread buzz badly out of tune.

The fan of black lashes lifted, she looked him dead in the eye. "I will not stop."

"Your fear of change and this acting out is beneath you."

Frustrated, Claire clenched her fists. She wheezed.

A voice dripping reason came from lips that had tasted every inch of her skin. "If you wish to mate, you do not need to pick a fight to justify your desire to yourself. That is what you are doing, little one, expecting that my reaction will be to respond by mounting you—because you do not want to acknowledge that you are already wet and ready."

That was not what she was doing! Was it? A look of horror came to her face when she realized that she did smell of slick, that she was incredibly aroused... but she was also angry. She put her head in her hands, to hide her face, wishing she could just explode. "You do not understand me at all!"

"Then tell me what the point of this tantrum is?" he challenged in a mellow voice, still refusing to show the anger she wanted so badly to foster. "There will be no change to the Omega situation. You know that. I know that. Conversation on the topic is pointless and basely inflammatory... you desire my reaction, and we both know what you want me to do."

Claire started yanking on her hair.

Shepherd spoke again, "If you do not ask in this instance, then I will not give you what you want."

A sly smile, a nasty hateful grin, came to Claire's lips. She lowered her hands and looked into the unaffected silver. "I can tell you what I want! I want the Omegas to be treated as humans, not livestock. I want them to have the choice in whom they mate—to be safe and fed, and not treated like sex toys for your disgusting Followers!"

He still sounded so calm, but the embers were igniting. "I caution you to carefully consider your next words."

Her eyes fell to the expanse of his chest, staring hard where the thread was attached. She thought of the needle he'd jammed into her. She thought of his promise on the roof. "I am starting to remember myself. I will find a way to be free."

In one quick yank, he shook her roughly. "You will never leave this room!"

The customary discord was back, a shrill piercing pluck at the cord. Claire breathed in relief to feel it as Shepherd yanked her towards the bed. She was thrown down, the giant looming tall over her. But he did not touch her, only glared, his chest heaving, as if he wished to rip off her head. Then he turned and left, locking the door loudly to make his point.

Her victory was short-lived when uncomfortable loneliness set in. He did not return to her. At length, the blue-eyed Beta brought her next meal and Claire understood she had been upgraded to solitary confinement.

She was pregnant, her scent no longer enticing to his men. Shepherd could avoid her as much as he wished and have his peons bring her food... and she would simply have to endure it.

As she ate a dinner of lamb and roasted potatoes, she began to cry, missing Shepherd's presence and hating herself for it.