Reborn (Alpha's Claim Book 3)

by Addison Cain

  Lowering his chin to his chest, allowing a subtle sinister curl in his lip, Jules spun a perfect lie. “Claire has asked me to talk to you.”

  Corday refused to rise to the bait.

  Jules taunted, “You lack complete subtlety in your expressions. Five years of torment in the Undercroft would cure you of that weakness. I spent more than a decade underground. What do you think it did to me?”

  Corday said nothing. He said nothing because there was nothing to say.

  Jules was more than happy to fill the silence. “Many prisoners are quiet in the beginning. If they don’t talk, the nightmare isn’t real.” Jules cocked his head to the side, running his eyes over the Enforcer. “It doesn’t take long for them to learn that the nightmare is all that exists. Unfortunate enlightenment leads to despair. Despair leaches away everything else, until a clean slate is all that’s left. We were all like you once—silent prisoners. Soon you will be just like me. Leslie Kantor saw your potential and took advantage, she has done well in conditioning you to fit her needs.”

  There was a thick oppression in the air, a weight that made Corday’s body feel immersed underwater. Grinding his teeth until the muscles in his jaw jumped, Corday barked, “What do you want?”

  “I don’t like you. You are not a good soldier; you would be an even worse leader.” It was conversational, Jules’s admission. The man even had the audacity to cross his arms over his chest, his deadly rifle’s barrel resting against his shoulder. “The entire city will be caught up in the flames of revolution in a matter of hours, and all you can think about is your selfish need to free one woman instead of trying to protect your people.”

  “I will tell you nothing.”

  “Keep your plans and your war. There is only one thing I want to know.” Edging closer, Jules let his voice drop to a terrible, grating hiss. “I want to know where Svana is hiding.”

  Corday knew that name had been planted on purpose, and could not stop his reactive growl.

  Jules did not miss a beat. “Do you love Claire?”

  The Beta refused to answer, but his face contorted into an image of fury.

  “Do you believe Claire loves you?” Jules pressed, growing more menacing with each word.

  The air in the small room seemed to thicken, grow dense with the poisonous hate. The stink was coming from Corday

  “Tick tock, Enforcer Corday.” Jules gestured towards the window, pointing to where a fragment of the Citadel could be seen in the distance. “The answers are there. Claire is in there. Are you going to let them die over one woman’s greed?”

  Corday shook his head because it could not be true. It was all some trick so he would betray the rebels, too convenient a name to drop. “I have never heard of a Svana.”

  “But she has been in this room with you. The very woman who hurt Claire, you have been indulging for months. A lovesick fool who pines after Shepherd’s mate is the exact kind of toy she would have enjoyed the most. Twisting your mind, your memories of so sweet an Omega to reflect what she desired, is Svana’s specialty. I suspect her victory wasn’t hard. You doubt your friend. You believed the woman who saved your life betrayed you, even if it was in a small, coerced fashion.”

  Throat tight, Corday’s voice faltered. “Stop.”

  “Begging already? But we’ve only just begun.”

  A great pain growing behind his eyes, Corday said, “You cannot imagine I would believe a word from your mouth.”

  “I’ll confess that you were not under surveillance when Claire must have told you about Svana, so I don’t know the details of what the Omega shared. But, I was with her after it happened, I found Claire laying on the floor. What did you call Svana, a sex-offender?”

  There was no point in continuing to pretend that name had no effect on him. Jules had noticed it, and Corday was accomplishing nothing playing dumb. He ground out the words, “Enough! Svana is Shepherd’s lover.”

  “Again you are wrong.” There was no hesitation on Jules part to share the secret. “Svana is Shepherd’s partner... or she was until Shepherd fell in love with an Omega. Now, she is his rival for power.”

  Corday swallowed the sour taste growing on his tongue, sick with the possibility that the terrible man might be telling the truth. “You make him sound weak.”

  “Love is an interesting thing.” A knowing glow in his eyes, Jules looked pointedly at the Beta who’d made foolish decision after foolish decision all based on his love for Claire. “Svana will know we uncovered her betrayal in three hours. Her forces will attack immediately. I am telling you this because I know there is no way to stop them. Even if I kill her, even if you kill her, the slaves she has created will act out her will. Shepherd will be able to mediate a portion of the attack, but bombs will still detonate. How many, I cannot say. So, how will you save Claire?” Unflinching, Jules demanded, “You tell me where Svana is hiding, and I will tell you what Maryanne Cauley would not.”

  “You have no proof that Leslie Kantor is Svana. I will tell you nothing.”

  “Perhaps you are right. Sometimes it is best to let storms run their course.” Jules smiled, his whole face turned strange with the action. Straightening, he nodded his goodbye. “Claire is kept in the basement: corridor 7, sub-room 3. As the Citadel begins to crumble, she will be crushed to death. Or, if she is really unlucky, she will be trapped under layers of immovable rubble to slowly die from dehydration. Maybe her painting of you will keep her company in the dust and lonely dark.”

  Once the door was closed and Corday was left alone with his thoughts, he began to shake. It was as if he’d just survived hours of torture, as if just a few soft-spoken words had irreparably damaged him.

  Groaning, trying to roll away from whatever was shaking her awake, Claire found her body stiff and numb. Head swimming, it all started to come back. Thólos was going to be turned into a pile of corpses; the Red Consumption would be unleashed. A virus the man sitting at her side, the adoring mate holding her eyes, claimed could not be stopped.

  “You have been sleeping for many hours, little one.” The purr came strong and sweet. “You must eat now.”

  The last thing on the planet she wanted at that moment was food.

  Claire opened her mouth to complain, only to have a spoonful of something pressed between her lips. Swallowing instinctively, still caught in the fog, she tried to focus on the one man who seemed to blur into two and make him listen.

  Shepherd forced more food on her tongue.

  “When you have finished, I will help you dress for the journey,” That raspy voice was commanding, almost stern, as if he were relaying orders to his Followers. “Then you will be sedated again.” A warm hand smoothed back the hair on her forehead. “And next time you wake up, we will be in our new home.”

  “Please...” Claire barely had time to voice the entreaty before more soup was spooned into her mouth.

  “It is important that you eat, or the anesthesia may make you ill. Swallow.”

  He fought her when she seemed willing to be difficult, rubbing and pinching her throat just enough to earn an automatic response until the whole bowl of soup was gone.

  When it was finished, her transformation began. There would be no more green dresses in Thólos. Instead Shepherd outfitted her in the clothing of his soldiers, tugging warm layers over limp appendages, lacing her feet into boots, everything dark concealing fabrics, while Claire lay there, dizzy, and half cognizant from the drugs.

  Shepherd kept up a constant stream of what to expect, telling her of the team that would escort her to a waiting transport ship, all explained in a matter-of-fact tone as if she would care.

  She didn’t.

  Even under the influence of drugs, Claire tried to force her thoughts to muster. She tried to think of Thólos, but could only imagine the last things she’d seen in the causeways, dreamed up for the thousandth time the faceless dark-haired women whose bodies littered the streets, the dead frozen boy in the alley, all the Omegas who had gone missin
g, saw the faces of those who had been left in the city to die.

  And what of Thólos, what was left now? The dregs? The worst possible offenders? Would they stand up and fight? Would they evaporate in a burst of blood and wash away everything that had happened here?

  This place he was determined to take her, would Shepherd force the people of Greth Dome under the yoke of his philosophy? A mess was inevitable, all of it based on the horrible evil that had been done in her city. And if she was dragged away, no one would know of the people who had sacrificed and suffered... so many inspiring stories, stories of good men like Corday, would be lost.

  The world needed to know that not everything under Thólos Dome had been dishonorable. Who would tell them?

  Refusing to even think for a moment that he might win, Claire stopped all her black thoughts and fisted her hand in the fabric of his sleeve.

  Shepherd took her fingers in his, watching her, waiting.

  Whatever drug he had given her dulled her emotion, made her listless and rag-like, but she still had the power to accuse, “You gave me your word, Shepherd. On the ice you promised me.”

  “You were trying to kill yourself, little one. I would have promised you anything,” he admitted freely, a hand closing around hers like an anchor, “anything, Claire. You cannot fault me for needing to protect my mate and child. I’d made a mistake, it needed to be rectified. You needed to recover your health and wellbeing in a situation where you no longer had to spend your thoughts on worry for those you count as your friends. You would have done the same had the roles been reversed.”

  “Is that why you drugged me?”

  The man nodded once, placing his huge palm on her belly. “You can be very reactive, and you are very upset. I cannot be with you every moment right now, and I cannot allow you to lash out and harm yourself.”

  Claire felt warm tears seep from the corner of her eyes.

  Suicide had been her plan, her only recourse against Shepherd: to punish him, to deny him who he would have as mate, to keep his child from him. Yet time had worked on her just as Shepherd must have intended. The baby was more than a blob of cells that made her constantly ill. It was a little moving sign of life... her son. And the man who had created him was at her side, tending her as if she were a dying woman.

  But she wasn’t dying and she wasn’t going to kill herself. Shepherd was right; she could never harm her child. And so he’d won the war against her. And Claire knew, deep down, he had won weeks ago. That did not change the lingering fear something very bad would be exacted for his sins.

  Claire’s voice broke. “You’re going to lose, Shepherd. I don’t know how, but I know you will. You are going to lose everything in this madness. All your good intentions, all your progress, will have been for nothing if you follow this evil agenda.”

  “Now is not the time for arguments. When this is over, when we are established in our new home, grieve your friends if you will. In time, you will see I was right. We stand on the dawn of a new world. Do not be afraid of it, little one. You never have to be afraid again.”

  She could hardly see straight, but she did try to fight when another syringe was produced and injected into her arm. Then there was no reason to fight, for the world was nothing but strange noisy dreams.

  Chapter 10

  Out of breath, Corday burst into Brigadier Dane’s sleeping chamber, startling the woman awake. The man was wild, doing nothing to restrain his voice. “They know an attack is coming. They are probably listening to us even now.”

  There was no time for nonsense, Dane furious the man would speak of resistance matters in a room they both suspected was bugged. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I had a visitor tonight. Shepherd’s second-in-command, the Beta, he was in my house.” Corday peeked through the blinds, looking for movement outside. “I’m sure he’s followed me.”

  Shoving the covers from her body, Brigadier Dane rushed to dress. “And you led him here? Have you lost your mind?”

  Using the meat of his hand, Corday wiped the sweat dotting his forehead into his hair. “You don’t understand. He told me where Shepherd is keeping Claire.”

  She let out a groan, as if she could not believe the stupidity of the man standing before her. “You idiot!”

  “Hear me out. Do you recall the name Svana?”

  Dane’s brow grew tight with thought. It took her a minute to pin it, but she had heard that name. “Half a year ago you reported Svana was the name of Shepherd’s lover... the woman who attacked Claire.”

  “Yes. Tonight Shepherd’s Follower offered Claire’s position in exchange for the location of this woman. He claimed she’d gone rogue, said she was looking to unseat Shepherd and take his power for her own.”

  It sounded like a very scary parallel to a woman neither of them trusted. “Tell me you did not betray Leslie Kantor’s position.”

  “I didn’t and I don’t have to. The man gave me Claire’s location anyway. Basement corridor 7, sub-room 3.”

  Brigadier Dane shook her head. “He lied to you, Corday.”

  “No.” Vehemently, Corday disagreed. “I don’t think he did. Look at it from a broader picture. They know the attack on the Citadel is imminent, he told me so himself. He also told me they understood there was no real way to completely stop it. They know you and I are key figures of the resistance, because they have been watching us all this time, but they don’t know where Svana is. She outmaneuvered them, manipulated us, and I don’t have to go where Leslie Kantor hides for Shepherd’s Follower to find her. I only have to show up on the front lines, her soldiers will take me straight to their leader.”

  There was something massive Corday had missed. Brigadier Dane closed her eyes and let out a weary sigh. “If they know rebels are going to attack, the virus will not remain inside the Citadel. All the casualties and structural damage will be for nothing.”

  Which is why Corday had run here. There was one, terrible option. “If we tell them what we know, we can minimize both of those factors.”

  It wouldn’t work, and Dane was wise enough not to play right into their hands. “If they thought you had any relevant information, the Follower would have taken you. We know they are not above torture. More importantly, Leslie has been clever in compartmentalizing her forces; both of us lack details on the attack.”

  “I know the intended detonation point of at least six of the bombs. We know the names and faces of the men and women chosen to wear them.”

  After a moment of thought, Dane was solemn. “If you were to do this, to betray the rebellion, no matter your reasons, you are condoning Shepherd’s rule. As it stands now, the rebellion still has some power.”

  “He said Svana,” Corday shook his head, clarifying, “I mean Leslie would learn that Shepherd had uncovered her plot within three hours. It took me thirty minutes to get here. In two and a half hours, something is going to happen. What?”

  “I don’t know.” Dane looked miserable, as if she’d wished she’d never woken up. “No matter if she’s Leslie Kantor or Svana, don’t deviate from the plan. Even with Shepherd’s knowledge of the attack, this might be our only chance to free Thólos. Let her attack him... then do your part.”

  Corday could not help but ask, “What of Claire?”

  “If you swear to me you will do as you promised,” Brigadier Dane offered her life, on the miniscule potential Claire might actually be saved, “I will find a way to keep our bargain.”

  “They will know you’re coming.”

  Dane snorted a laugh. “Thanks to you, they know we’re all coming.”

  Before the two might find comfort in their mutual agreement, the ground shook. It was a slow moving rumble, one that grew louder, almost deafening. It was not the distant boom of detonation that made such a racket, it was the following roar of bending metal and screams of falling glass.

  Dane threw back the blinds, her view of the disaster sucking the breath from her lungs. “No!”

&nbs
p; The Citadel had not been the source of the blast. Someone had detonated explosives right against the glass of the Dome. The East and West sky were caving in.

  “It’s too soon...” The words were spoken with such disbelief that shock appeared on Shepherd’s face. “Svana has discovered we are prepping to launch.”

  When the unexpected blast had torn girders and solar power collection plates from their moorings, Shepherd had watched from the Command Center, calculating as damage reports flooded in. There was no denying what they saw. Rebels had purposefully shattered two massive segments of the Dome’s protective glass. Shepherd, the Followers gathered in the room, stood there, while the northeast and southwest barrier wall crumbled. The city was turned into one giant wind tunnel.

  Svana had altered the battlefield.

  Turning to the Followers gathered behind him, Shepherd did not hesitate to counter her move. “Lock down the Citadel. Broadcast a fallback order and shut down communications and power to every segment of the Dome outside this building.”

  Watching the monitors, an outside change in air pressure was already sucking out huge gusts of debris. A soldier diligent at his post warned, “Shepherd, with catastrophic failure of the Dome, the temperature in the city is rapidly dropping. If we divert power from the Dome’s heat generators, our men outside will freeze to death.”

  Under incredulous brows, Shepherd’s eyes burned. “They won’t have time to freeze to death.”

  The soldier didn’t understand, “Sir?”

  “This was not like an attack against the Citadel, their enemy. This was an attack on the population. Panic will ensue... riots. Cutting their power will slow them down.”

  Typing furiously across the Command Room’s console, another soldier interjected, “Sir, I cannot shut down the communications network. The fallback order has not been sent.”

  “What is preventing it?”

  Frustration was palpable in the man’s voice. “Someone has taken control of the system.”

  A message began to roll across the screen: People of Thólos, the rebel forces are in possession of the virus. Storm the Citadel, destroy our enemy.