Knocking against her breastbone, Shepherd gave her three hard taps with his finger. Each sharp and mean, shaking her ribcage. “And you can help him hold Bernard Dome. You can help himconquerit. You know that, and you’ve weighed the potential payoff. Otherwise, you would never risk your neck.”
How dare he! After all the hours she’d slaved, after all the plots she foiled! “Millions of people in Bernard Dome will die when civil war breaks out. With my knowledge of the players and my skillset, they?—”
“Will still die. But you’ll be on the winning side, ready to reap the spoils.”
Her voice failed. Maryanne pulled at her hair as if she might rip his accusations right out of her mind. And then she glared. She glared with all her selfish human heart might offer. “Yes! With my help, Jules will live. And he will have his Dome and his mate. And you will have your satellites. And I will have a new life… and I’ll be a fucking hero. Without me, hewilldie.”
“Perhaps.” Delivering his decree in a sinister pitch, the shadow of death itself, Shepherd spoke as softly as the ugliest sin. “How many females have you selected?”
“Thirty.” Her eyes widened at her own voice, at how natural the confession sounded on her tongue. And there it was. The truth. And with it, she could no longer meet his eyes or feign outrage at his condemnation.
Guilty tears streaked down Maryanne’s face, carving paths through days of accumulated grime, as she sold her soul for a second chance in life. “Thirty women that your Followers have shown no interest in. Thirty that are not particularly smart, well-connected, or useful.”
“Only thirty?” Every word was both punishment and a lesson. A reminder that she might have lived her life playing petty games, but this was not a game. It was war. And he’d already seen how loyal she had been to the cause when it came to her own skin. “Why stop there? Do you think your upcoming actions in Bernard Dome will only cost the lives and dreams of thirty innocents? No, Maryanne. You need to inspire chaos. Take a hundred. I’m sure you have files already queued.”
“No…” Shaking her head, Maryanne outright refused, pressing her lips together, suddenly looking so young. “I’m not taking one hundred women to suffer in Bernard Dome.”
Voice soft, almost conversational, Shepherd gave her his final lesson. “If you’re not willing to sacrifice one hundred innocent people to save millions, you are useless to Jules.”
Her hair hung lank and dull, unwashed for days, curtaining her face as she bent forward and began to sob into her hands. The Alpha female was as pathetic on the outside as she felt inside and tried to tell herself she was not a bad person. That there was a higher good. That Bernard Dome’s Betas had been enslaved, justifying in her mind that they should be free. That so many more would suffer if she did not take this chance. And that shedeserveda real life. That she would earn it and make the scales even. Tremor in her voice, Maryanne accepted his terms. “I’ll… I’ll take them.”
“And you will give ten unsuspecting women an overdose of fertility drugs once on board.Ten, Maryanne.” With a pat on her head like she’d been a good dog, Shepherd gave the order. “You will need a riot on the landing pad to get your equipment and Georges Gerard to safety unseen. And wipe that mess off your face. Jules won’t have the time or inclination to tolerate your theatrics like I do. You leave in one hour.”
It was too much, far too much sin to ask her to bear. “You’re a monster.”
An acknowledged one with no shame… none at all. “Altruism doesn’t exist in people like you, Maryanne. Just as it doesn’t exist in me. Don’t waste time trying to sell yourself on a lie.”
With a sweep of her arm across her desk, plates, stale food, and weeks of scribbled intel went flying. Rot splattered the floor. Secrets she’d worked herself to the bone to collect scattering like trash.“I’M NOTHING LIKE YOU!”
Shepherd’s eyes dared sparkle, his mouth twitching as if amused, as he turned toward the unlocked door to leave. “On many levels, you’re exactly like me. Just exponentially weaker in mind and body.”
5
“What the fuck are you doing?” the female Overseer shrieked in broken French, bracing her hands against the cockpit’s roof, her hair floating upward from the freefall.
A hundred and two souls trapped in a plummet, the vessel Georges attempted to fly, lurching, shuddering, nose tilting toward the ocean in a sudden downdraft. The horizon failed, blinding sun pitched, the ship’s tail thrown high.
Red lights strobed. Alarms screaming even louder than the terrified women in the hull.
White-knuckling the ship’s yoke, adrenaline burned through the Beta’s veins. His mouth tasted of glue, the exact flavor of the acrid sealant used to seal solar plates. A terrible, horrible, ugly taste.
Worst of all, years on Beta suppressants, he’d never had to feel anything close to terror. Now, every tremor, the unbearable, bone-deep vibration of dread, helplessness as he pulled on a yoke… visceral… fighting to redirect a vessel pushed past its flight tolerances and not break it apart in the sky.
He’dtriedto explain to the Alpha, Maryanne, why it was unwise to fly so fast. Why the females in the hold were too many. Packed too tight. The weight distribution incorrect.
And though it seemed she understood all he said in his soft-spoken explanation, her clipped, broken response made it clear her ability to speak his language was deeply lacking.
And when he told her it wasn’t possible, she snarled at him.
Shewasn’tasking.
This was an order.
He now reported to her.
A woman practically vibrating with a need to get out of Greth Dome as quickly as possible. Ordering him to board the old ship and demanding he take off before he’d had time to orient himself with the controls.
Females jammed into the cargo hold like sardines. No sitting room. No safety restraints. No toilet. Complaining while even more bodies were shoved in as the cargo doors started to close.
