“Come,” Jules murmured, rolling their bodies so she might use his shoulder as a pillow. “There will be no nightmares tonight.”
Her light was fully in his power, utterly engulfed. Jacques could not get through, Jules thoroughly amused to feel him try, and try, and try. And fail.
And Brenya? She could not get out.
Some part of her sleeping mind must have known she’d been trapped, for she stroked at the walls Jules had built around her, as if seeking a crack to slip through.
There was no escape.
She slept, and he held her, comforted her, his demons teasing and guiding her dreams. Through his vigil, he gave her peace, white flowers, and thoughts of him.
Wind in her hair, a walk in the woods. Warmed by the sun, with a man at her side.
A man she must trust, no matter what she may see.
A man with dark hair and limpid blue eyes who interlaced his fingers with hers and reminded the dreamer that he would be with her forever—that everything he would do was for her highest good.
And that she had to love him anyway.
4
Greth Dome
“You’re not listening to me!”Maryanne had not slept in three days. Sharp, voice frayed at the edges, her outburst cut through the dank air of her quarters, the sterile perfection Shepherd demanded lost under strewn papers and hours of manic work. The mess ignored, slender fingers flew across her console, the staccato rhythm of violent keystrokes punctuating her frustration as she shifted between control panels. “Just look at this!”
Caught in the illumination of her monitors, Shepherd stood stolid, arms crossed, expression frozen in that maddening, unreadable mask that she hated and feared in equal parts. Not that Maryanne dared look away from her work to observe him. She justknew.
She knew that smug fucking face so well it was imprinted on the back of her eyelids.
Yet the prick had not spoken a word since she’d dared summon him in a panic… not commented on her frantic report.
It’s not like Maryanne intended to have everything go to shit in the middle of the night. Or that she could have possibly known Shepherd had been mid-knot inside Claire. Normal people should be sleeping at this hour!
How was that her fault?
She’d die a thousand deaths before acknowledging the oversized bulge in Shepherd’s trousers… the cause clear as day. Maryanne could see from the corner of her eyes that Shepherd was still half hard behind his slacks. Black fabric not fully concealing the wet patch semen was leaving as fabric clung to the shape of his knot-swollen dick.
Which meant the brute had been balls-deep in her childhood best friend, mid-climax, and her call had pulled him away at an inopportune time. The ballooned flesh had yet to fully deflate properly, unspent cum backing up into his balls.
An unsatisfied Omega was a cranky Omega, and Claire was probably in quite a mood right now.
An unsatisfied Alpha… was dangerous.
Yet he was not snarling, nor growling, nor threatening to pop her head off her shoulders and kick it around like a ball.
It was worse than all that.
He was staring.
Shepherd had not asked any of his pointed questions or made any of his unnerving philosophical speeches. He’d just stood there as she’d shown him that Jules was unreachable and the Beta’s world was about to end.
Without intervention, Commodore Havel would be dead in a matter of hours.
“Look.” Nail bitten to the quick, Maryanne jabbed her finger at the screens. “Here, and here, and here.” Three separate feeds lit up in succession, each showing different angles of Central’s elites’ finest backroom dealings. “This has all taken place in the last hour. And these aren’t isolated incidents, Shepherd. Manyof Central’s more scary warring factions are finding common ground and building alliances.”
The feeds displayed live, closed-door meetings in well-appointed chambers—Alphas in Bernard Dome’s ridiculous formal attire, crystal goblets of wine in hand, faces animated as they discussed imminent insurrection in hushed tones. Another feed displayed the heated exchange between representatives of two formerly hostile families, now deep in negotiations on how to free Jacques from prison and place him back in power as soon as possible. On a third, an Alpha female, one of Jules’s most vocal supporters for change, staggered away from her vanity, crimson blooming across her back where her husband’s knife had burrowed deep. The male yanked it free and drove it in again. And again. Blood everywhere… shouting that she was a traitor to the usurper clown.
It was then Maryanne dared fully look at him, finding Shepherd’s eyes were still not on the screen but on her. Gazing in a way that let her know he had not glanced at the intel… not once.
