by Addison Cain
Even armed with the greatest weapon in history, he was powerless.
She held control, her absence aside.
He’d put her on that untouchable pedestal himself. In tormenting Thólos, he’d created for her the perfect fodder to fling at his wall. Svana knew what to look for in the hearts of men, and had used her experience to her ultimate advantage. Worse, she had done it right under his nose.
Jules, Claire, had both tried to warn him.
No matter the roaring ice of the wind, Shepherd stood like a beacon atop the steps of the Citadel and fought for the brothers who’d offered their devotion and the woman whom he loved with every fiber of his being.
He’d felt Claire’s panic through the pair-bond for hours, and ached that he could not comfort what he knew must have been frightening for his mate. She was calling for him through their link so loudly that Shepherd was almost certain he could hear her voice caught in the shrieking gale. More than once it had stolen his focus, but he had persevered in his duty.
The hours defending the Citadel were hard fought, but they had survived the siege through almost one day.
Looking at the battle below, Shepherd knew his men would not make it one more. There were millions tearing at the barricades, hastily constructing rudimentary brigades to reach the Follower’s sanctuary. Some had even begun attempting climbing the sides of the Citadel with ropes flung over anything that might hold the weight of a man.
There were too many.
His men were outnumbered, and though those who stood by him had superior weapons, the savages below with their kitchen knives and swinging pipes no longer seemed to care if they lived or died.
The herd was slowly breaking through the barricades, using the dead as shields as they crept closer by the minute.
There were not enough bullets, not enough men, to take them all down.
Sooner rather than later, it would all be over.
Shepherd took a deep breath and took his eyes away from the line of filthy citizens rushing his gates, turning his attention to Claire’s sky. It was a beautiful sunset, a small flurry of snow falling lightly. His mate would have enjoyed such a glorious view. He would have enjoyed standing next to her while she looked at it.
It pained him greatly that she was so distraught. Longing to feel her comforted, he tried to send her love and reassurance through their bond, a thing he had done for hours.
Shepherd wanted to give her more. But he could not.
All he could do was punish the city for ruining their future and forcing him to leave his mate and child alone in the world. All he could do was take Svana from the city she wished to rule.
He would break any who made it up the steps with his bare hands, watch them bleed, and smile.
Then he would unleash the virus and die for Claire.
The grand doors of the Citadel wide open at his back, Thólos in shambles at his feet, Shepherd tensed at the sound of running feet behind him.
Breathless from running, a Follower rushed towards him. “Svana has been collected.”
Shepherd almost closed his eyes when a wave of warm relief ran over his flesh. At last. “Report.”
“She’s dead. Jules dumped her body on the transport’s gangway and told us to pack it on ice immediately. He took a med-kit from the ship, sir, and abandoned his post.”
Shepherd had no words to match the look of incredulity that blazed in his eyes. “Where is he now?”
The Follower was grim, shaking his head. “Unaccounted for, sir.”
Shepherd’s lashes flared, the Alpha glaring. “How long before that ship can be in the air?”
“The engines are cycling now. Five minutes to launch.”
They might not have five minutes if the rumbling Shepherd could feel vibrating from the Citadel’s dirty marble floors was any indication. Too many raged outside. There was a finite number of bullets available, and it was only a matter of time before one of Svana’s bombers crept near enough to detonate. If the building was brought down before the ship was airborne, everything would be lost. “Forgo system checks. Launch immediately.”
The order was given just as the building lurched. Segments of the north ramparts began to crumble, one side of the Citadel folding in on itself. Another bomb detonated, Shepherd was thrown, a wall breaking his body’s trajectory and breaking his bones.
Hours had passed since it had begun, hours in which sedation that had been a blessing dulling her panic and pain began to fade. Now that Claire dimly recognized all that had been done, she was far beyond screaming.
She no longer remembered their faces, only told them apart by the way they made her body jerk when they raped her.
Hard and fast, he was the one inside her when her child began to die, when the real blood began to flow... and he had howled like a wolf as if the gush of red fluid easing his way inside her body had pleased him. Then there was short and twitchy, he was the one who rode her the most violently, clawing his nails into her skin, marking her with little bleeding puncture wounds shaped like crescent moons.
Half aware, reeling from another blow when she refused to part her lips for the filthy cock held to her face, Claire blinked gummily and heard it again—the Undercroft prisoners were screaming for her in the halls.
She’d thrown up three times, vomited all the semen they’d shot down her throat each time one of them fucked her mouth and forced her to swallow as she choked on the gushes. She was still lying in it, face down, and it was cold, and pink. Sometimes she cried for Shepherd, when she grew lucid enough to feel the pain. Mostly she just stared at the cell’s only door, watching the feet of monsters shuffle by in their rags, terrified they would turn their attention on her and reach through the bars.
One swollen eye went wide when the third of the Alphas pulled her hair so hard her head was forced back. She heard him grunt savagely, knew him from the others by the way he liked to grope her when he rutted, and felt him knot amidst the bleeding wreckage of her body. There was no sound from her throat, only a strange echo that seemed to seep from a place far away.
“We agreed no knotting!” A growled complaint was flung at the man with his head thrown back, too busy moaning at the ceiling to pay any attention. “It was my turn next, and now you got the cunt stuck on you cock. Pull out!”
The only answer was a low phlegmy moan, the sound more animal than man. A sharp series of tugs shook the knotted pair, one of the men trying to yank the bastard away. It was useless, his knot was locked behind her pubic bone, but it woke Claire from her stupor, encouraged a shrill stab of horrific pain, and though it had been hours since she’d been able to manage it, Claire found another scream. The high-pitched shriek and the sobs that followed were wretched, a thing full of hopelessness and pain.
“Don’t kill her yet, cocksucker. I want this piece to last longer than the last ones.” It was the one who had laughed when her miscarriage began, the cruelest of her assailants who warned. “You’ll just have to wait it out.”
“What’s that noise?” the man who had been trying to pry short-and-twitchy off let go, and moved to the door. “Get the bitch to stop screaming!”
But they couldn’t, she screamed and screamed, no longer human, staring out through the bars as more of those tattered legs came into view, certain the Undercroft demons had come for her.
Claire’s arms stretched until her joints began to burn, she fought the binding again when the monster outside paused and grabbed the cell door in an attempt to force it open. A ragged face appeared, but where she had been expecting lips pulled back to show sharp teeth, what looked back at her was outrageous fury and wide eyed concern.
It was just like Shepherd’s story, the shadow ripped the bars straight out of the rock to come inside her cell. A demon had come to claim her for itself. The noise of her attackers’ panic echoed off the walls. There were grunts and screaming. Like magic, the knot inside her shrunk, and the invading painful thing was pulled out. Another wave of blood gushed from her in its wake.<
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There was a roar of noise. A great beast stood over her. The rope was cut, gentle hands turned her over in the pool of vileness. She could hardly see, couldn’t understand why she was being lifted from the bed.
The three men who had used her lay naked and blood smeared, sprawled on the floor where they’d fallen.
“My name is Brigadier Dane.” The Enforcer touching her was female, her eyes determined and shaken as she covered Claire’s nakedness with the Omega’s discarded coat. “You’re safe now, Miss O’Donnell.”
Chapter 13
There was so much blood, Claire clung to the woman with the soft eyes, the one who had come to save take her from the pool of pain and take her out of that cage. She only had the jacket and her long hair to cover her, but once they were clear of the tunnels, the Enforcer tried to wipe her down with her own shirt, cleaning the wounds as best she could, while Claire leaned against the wall in a stupor and felt more of her insides slip out.
“They killed my son,” that was all she could manage, confused and unsure where she was.
“You are miscarrying.” The older woman nodded sympathetically. “Yes.”
The sounds of a battle raged all through the city, and Claire dimly recognized what it must mean. A revolution had begun. That’s why strangers were rushing by. That’s why the woman had saved her.
It did not fill Claire with the rush it should have, there was too much pain for that. But somewhere past the shock she knew, though her life was over, at least a few would be redeemed.
Under the support of Brigadier Dane’s arms, Claire tried to walk through the heaving crowds. Her savior was shouting over the mob, calling for a medic, a doctor, anyone who might staunch the Omega’s wounds.
Claire was bleeding to death—no amount of makeshift bandages and encouraging words from a stranger would change that. Nothing would bring back the son that had been ripped out of her womb. All that was left was to die with her mate.
The instant the woman turned her back to dig though the nearest dwelling for some supplies, Claire found the strength to get up from where she had been placed. On the cusp of unconsciousness, her legs did not want to work, fresh blood was running down her thigh, but Claire forced herself out the door, shuffling through the streets, a trail of red drops speckling the ground behind her.
It was like moving through a dream, climbing upward towards the light. What remained of the Citadel was shockingly close, Svana having arranged her torture near the very place Claire had been forced to call home.
The war, the rebels, they were right in front of her, all around her. Gunfire, explosions, screams, but all she could feel was Shepherd. He’d been right there the whole time.
She walked as steady as she could, but tripped over the mangled body of one of Shepherd’s Followers. The cracked marble steps, those same steps she’d walked up the day she met Shepherd, were only across one last barrier. She opened her eyes, realizing she had almost fallen asleep, and knew all she had to do was crawl through the field of corpses and pull herself up to where she felt her mate’s great pain.
That was what gave her the strength to move again, to crawl forward even as the ground shook, and huge chunks of the Citadel began to fall off.
None of it mattered. There was only time for Shepherd.
Claire continued forward.
Her love was so close, and there were only a few more stairs to manage. Claire pulled herself up that last step, resting against the nearest pillar to catch her breath.
Her vision swam just as another corner of the Citadel began to crumble.
The great door was before her. Claire shuffled through blood and glass, finding her legs again, ignoring the way her bare feet felt each shard. And there he was, twenty meters, ten, five...
On his back, still as a corpse, Shepherd lay.
Half-dead, she went to him, saw his silver eyes find hers and fill with horror as he took in what she’d become. All her black hair was matted with blood and fluids, the corners of her mouth torn and crusted. There was so much damage, a river of fresh bright red trickling down her battered legs, smeared from her journey on her thighs.
Falling to her knees at his side, she tried to speak his name, voice hoarse, to call out to the man bleeding and trembling as if trying to move. But he was badly hurt, bright red, seeping from under his charred armor.
There was a noise in his throat, those silver eyes trying to express love past the panic.
Pawing his face, seeing that her fingers were gnarled and swollen, Claire whimpered in grief as she tried to crawl over him. “Svana took our son from my body. She gave me to three monsters, Shepherd.”
One large hand twitched, Claire knew he wanted to hold her, but could not. So she lifted it to rest on her hip, splayed over him, pressed to his side where his armor was black and burnt.
She sought comfort from a dying man who could hardly bend his fingers to grip her hip.
Whatever had damaged him, she did not have the power to see. Claire’s fading attention found only the wet, silver eyes pleading with her as they grew dim, heard the wrongness of Shepherd’s far too spaced apart breaths.
The last of her life drained from between her legs in a pool of red, Claire sagged, her ear above where his heart should have been beating.
Thólos earned its freedom, Shepherd’s tyranny ended, and Brigadier Dane wrestled control of the resistance from the few surviving members of Leslie Kantor’s rebel contingent.
With no one willing to share the true story behind the uprising, unfitting as it was, it was Dane who was lauded by the public as the hero who’d saved them all.
When a hasty election placed her in the lifetime appointed position as Premier, Corday kept his silence.
What Thólos needed was solidarity, focus. They also needed to come to terms with the fact that despite round the clock cleanup crews picking through the Citadel’s rubble, the virus was still unaccounted for.
To survive the cold, the population moved underground, daylight hours barely warm enough to conduct repairs to the Dome’s infrastructure and search for necessities.
What happened in the Undercroft, the life of the people forced down there, was not worth speaking of. It was no life at all.
Until the Dome was repaired, there was no other option.
In the months of toil underground, Corday wore the ring, never once slipping the golden band off. He’d developed a nervous habit where he twisted it so hard it bit into the webbing between his fingers. He wanted it to hurt; he would never let himself forget what she’d given, how she’d suffered... how he’d failed her.
Not after the way the masses portrayed Claire O’Donnell as a traitor, not after the government inquest and the amount of times he’d given testimony for the girl on the flyer.
To the public, verbally crucifying a dead Leslie Kantor as a traitor was not enough, confirmation Shepherd had been killed, insufficient. They wanted the culpability of the living. Who better than the dead terrorist’s mate, the one found half-dead and draped lovingly over his body.
The Alpha’s corpse had been confiscated, she’d been taken away, and each time Corday had fought his way into her sickroom to see her, Claire had been in a coma, surrounded by armed guards, savaged and only breathing by ventilator.
Standing as Premier, Dane extolled Claire’s vital role in the resistance, advocating for the woman as much as she reasonably could without inviting riots. As the weeks carried on and survivors began to slowly recover, more stepped forward to speak for her. Strangers holding her flyer testified that she’d been their inspiration, claimed the Omega had offered her strength for the entire city.
That did not stop Premier Dane’s soldiers from taking her away.
Dane refused to speak with him on the matter. It took Corday six months to find what they had done with her, petitioning any member of the hastily scraped together government who would listen, demanding to see his friend. He stirred up trouble until the Premier had to assure the torn public that
Claire O’Donnell, war criminal, was not being mistreated.
But Corday was about to judge that with his own eyes.
The location of her imprisonment was classified, yet there Corday waited, Dane at his side in the only place under the Dome that was still warm. There were manicured lawns and stunning architecture, a quiet corner of the only functioning region above ground crafted into Claire’s new prison.
It was a location Corday knew.
All this time, Dane had kept Claire in the Premier’s Sector, out of the grime of the Undercroft, and hidden away where no one could touch her. And not only her, but many Omegas who would never survive the close, dirty quarters trapped with the masses underground.
The North Wing’s barred doors were pulled open, and inside Corday saw a place of beauty. There were so many windows that light drenched everything, and though there were armed guards, they seemed employed to keep people out, not force them to stay. Everything was clean, the furniture rich, an Alpha doctor stood waiting to escort the Premier and her guest to the Omega.
The man in the white coat glanced suspiciously at the unwanted visitor.
To Corday, the entire thing was awkward, backward.
Her door was a heavy oak thing, carved and weighty on its hinges, the last barrier Corday would have to cross to get to her. Premier Dane unlocked the panel and pushed it in, the robust Alpha female moving before them to announce her arrival in a jovial voice, nothing at all like the tone in which she’d greeted Corday.
“Good afternoon, Miss O’Donnell. An old friend has come to see you.”
And then there she was. Sitting in an upholstered chair, her face turned towards the nearest window, looking out at the surrounding greenery and nearby trees. But she did not move, not even a tick, when Corday stepped nearer.
He knelt at her side, looking over her body for some sign of mistreatment or damage. There was no bruising or sign of neglect, but it was clear from the glassy faraway stare in her eyes she was highly sedated, and that alone was very telling.
