Swallowing audibly, Maryanne forced her features into something Follower-like in an attempt to give him what she thought he was looking for. Fighting the instinctive bitchy twist of her mouth… because one wrong expression and she would be a corpse. “As my reports have shown, three weeks ago, the more powerful families of Central were either at each other’s throat, cowing toCommodoreHavel in a bid for power, or panicking over the loss of influence with the new regime.”
She dared add in a gesture, a little bit of flare and Maryanne-style showmanship. “Perfect, right? Their disorder kept the Dome stable while… what, thefortyfollowers you handed to your best friend tried to reorganize centuries of society with a sledgehammer approach?”
It was more than exhaustion that drove Maryanne to dare such a tone with Shepherd; it was outright disagreement. A bone-deep conviction that they had made the wrong play. Because if Jules died, she died. “You overthrew Thólos withthousandsof men trained in the Undercroft. Had decades to prepare. Bernard Dome is different. Forty followers, a few vials of Red Consumption, and no time to plan is literally going to see your friend murdered.”
Shoving lank, stringy, unwashed hair off her face, flickering monitors highlighted the dark circles under Maryanne’s eyes. “I tried to tellyou. I tried to tellhim! I risked my life to openly disagree with something stupid weeks ago. But nooo—no one listens to Maryanne. What the fuck does she know? Well, buddy, I know sex, and I know the kind of scumbags you’re dealing with. I used to scam them all the time back in Thólos.”
There it was, the deep well of her resentment for this man, for this unfair situation, this prison where she had the god-like ability to watch everyone else live their lives while she was trapped behind an unlocked door. “Jules took it too far when he stripped Central of their Beta sex workers and replaced favored servants with men and women who were about to be terminated for aging out of the system.He insulted them. And you know what that did to a bunch of mean, horny Alpha males? I’d like to say they are not taking it out on their wives… but I can’t. Because Ihavehad to watch that so I can make reports on who is violating whom. Why, you ask? Because families are now arguing over marital rape and contractual physical obligations. But one thing theyallagree on is that this would not be an issue if the Beta slaves were returned… or if Jules would give them Greth’s Omegas. Which Jules is not supplying. Theywantcomplacent pretty slaves, Shepherd. Or, they want Omegas they can exploit.”
Remaining perfectly, infuriatingly still, Shepherd asked, “Your point?”
Shrill words flowed, something that sounded an awful lot like actual emotional investment in this never-ending assignment, Maryanne throwing her hands up to the sky. “Never mess with the pleasures of those you would manipulate! I know you know that. I mean, shit, I watched how you played with Thólos. Central losing their favorite sex toys drove these pigs to work together over pussy. Now they want him dead badly enough to convince themselves they can outsmart Jules before he can unleash the virus. And some of them are shrewd enough to realize they need to cut off the satellite feed so you—and by you, I mean me—won’t be able to interfere from Greth Dome. And they can, Shepherd. Do you hear what I am saying to you? They will, in a matter of hours.” Pressing her fingers together to make a point, she snarled, “They are this close!”
Hand flying over the console once again, Maryanne pulled up another feed, showing blueprints being passed between members of what appeared to be Bernard’s emergency response team. “They’re coordinating. This group is already planning containment protocols and reprogramming which doors will drop, sectioning the Dome into tiny fragmentsthey would controlonce the satellites are offline. They could, theoretically, circumvent the virus should Jules release it. Honestly, it’s crude but clever. Bernard Dome is preparing in a way we never had time to. Jules’s advantage is at an end.”
Reaching for a bottle of water, Maryanne paused long enough to gulp like a wild animal, her throat working convulsively, a ragged suck of breath following. Leaning back in her chair, exhausted to her bones, she added, “And you’re just standing there glaring at me. And where is Jules during all this? Unreachable. He’s gone no contact while Jacques Bernard isstrapped down to his hospital bed and being ridden by Lucia like she’s in heat.”
Slamming the bottle down, Maryanne jostled the plates of untouched food atop her console, gesturing to yet another screen. The feed rotated until a flicker of new footage washed over the room. Jacques Bernard, naked and sweat-slicked, thrusting up into an equally nude Lucia.
But it wasn’t a tryst.
The Alpha was pinned under a lattice of restraints. Bound at his chest, torso, thighs, shins, wrists, ankles… a gag sealing his mouth. Unable to consent as the clearly skilled Omega undulated her hips, milking his knot while he came with a muffled roar.
Maryanne grimaced. “Care to explain that one to me? Because… gross.”
“What exactly do you want, Maryanne?” That was it. That was all Shepherd offered. The menace, the monster, the master who held her leash totally unaffected.
And that just annoyed her to no end.
He’d destroyed Thólos for less.
Preached to the masses in the Undercroft that the corrupt world needed to be burned to ash and rebuilt. But now, seeing this? Knowing every sordid detail in the mountain of reports she’d prepared? Nothing.
“Excuse me?” Freezing mid-shoulder-roll, Maryanne’s eyes widened. Dumbstruck that he was so unmoved, her jaw ticked. Her eye twitched. “What do I want? I’d like to take a shower… but I can’t, can I? I can’t even get up to pee! I can’t look away from these screens or the data relay for one second. I’ve had to watch this absolutely disgusting crap escalate—because if I don’t, Jules will die!”
Enunciating every word as if she were truly a simpleton, Shepherd let her see just how tolerant he was being of hermeltdown, and just how close that grace was to ending. “Stop wasting my time with theatrics and speeches, Maryanne, and get to the point. What. Do. You. Want?”
To slap him. Really, really hard.
But that would be an even more painful death than the one that might be awaiting her if she couldn’t convince him to listen.
Drawing in a deep breath, Maryanne put fingertips to temples, as if rubbing little circles on that hollow flesh might do more than remind her that she was covered in a layer of grease and absolutely disgusting. Which made her all the more angry. Because she knewhe knewexactly why she had called him there. Why she had waited until it got this bad to make her pitch.
Because Shepherd’s mind was fucking terrifying, and those menacing eyes could see right through her.
So why make her work so hard for it?
This was theonlyway to save Jules.
Her laugh was brittle, a woman at her wits’ end. “Send me to Bernard Dome. Right now. This very second. And give me all the equipment I want. All of it. And weapons. And Georges Gerard. He knows Bernard Dome’s physical systems inside and out. The ventilation, the power grid, the maintenance tunnels—everything I can’t cover while running surveillance and analysis. Tell Central an influx of Omegas is arriving so they’ll let me land.”
The movement deliberate, controlled, Shepherd unfolded his arms and placed his palm flat against the console’s edge. Leaning over her, so close she could smell his soap under Claire’s slick and the unfortunate drying cum in his pants. He held her eyes, made her tolerate the intensity of such a gaze, so she could hide nothing as he rumbled out a mean, “One word that there is a ship of Omegas en route to Central, and you’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, of Alphas lined up to fight over them. Disenfranchised, angry males who have been denied theirfavorite sexual outlet for weeks. Attempt to disembark without said Omegas… and a mob will rip you apart.” He leaned just a hair closer, casting a shadow dozens of screens could not overcome. “How many females have you chosen to traffic in this scheme to get out of your comfortable prison?”
“It’s not like that!” Shoving away from the console, her chair rolling back to slam against the wall, Maryanne faced off against her lingering hunched nightmare. “This—this isn’t about me! This is about Jules!”
“Is that what you’re telling yourself?” Rising like a mountain to tower over her, Shepherd looked down his nose at her. As if she were just as selfish and grotesque as she had always been. “Hidden under all your false outrage lingers hope that I might not notice the tremor of anticipation in your voice. That I would only smell fear, and filth, and rotting food in your room, not excitement. That I might fail to register the manic glimmer in your eye… the dream you’re clinging to that if you help Jules win the war, maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a new life. Prestige. A fresh start far away from me. Out of the shelter I have offered you. Away from my control.”
Sputtering, she could offer no more than “I don’t?—”
