He would kiss her and call her hislittle one. Play with her hair and pet her until she melted into a humming, contented thing.
Maybe.
Soft feet padded across the floor when the nest was complete, not to pace. No. To bathe. A simple shower. A repeat of hernight routine. Long hair brushed, creams applied. Perfume even. Something to change the scent markers in the air.
Lotion.
A clean, flowy nightgown.
She had so many of them, never worn. And wondered if Shepherd had supplied them to her for moments exactly like this.
It would be like him. The bastard always a dozen steps ahead.
She’d done well, even considered some time alone in her garden. But stepping outside without her mate was too much for one deeply damaged Omega on a night such as this.
Bed beckoned, and she tried. Claire really did. She tried to sleep in that rebuilt nest scented with slick and tinged with Omega fear. She sprawled on his side, her nose to the sheets, and waited.
All night.
When the alarm filled the room with birdsong, she pushed up from the nest, rubbed hair back from her face, and went through the motions of an exhausted woman who had faith.
And a dead child.
And honed skills to survive it.
Tucked away the grief.
And went to the kitchen.
A beautiful kitchen with polished brass fixtures and elegant curves. Paned windows from ceiling to floor, a stone patio, and a garden the man who loved her nurtured, because he knew she adored flowers.
She’d been staring at a particularly pretty bloom when he’d appeared out of thin air. A man his size possessing some magic that kept his movements as silent as the unburied dead he’d left rotting on the streets in Thólos.
He was just part of the room, as if Shepherd had always been there.
Right there at his spot on the other side of the counter. Warm thumb’s path curving over her cheek in a caress. Gentle. Familiar.
“I missed you, little one.”
The way he spoke, the guttural Undercroft accent, she loved it so much that a tear fell… which his thumb was there to catch.
Because he knew.
“I love you.” Breathed from the lips of a very tired Omega. “Hungry?”
“Yes.”
And thus began the creation of another wasted effort on green sludge. Her act of affection for her difficult, dangerous, deceptive, evil, loving mate.
Had he mentioned her behavior in his absence had been impeccable, she would have started screaming sooner. But he didn’t.
Silver eyes weighed and measured each movement she made in the creation of his disgusting drink. Scarred face gentled into something less intimidating. Hulking form careful not to cast a shadow on his lady, yet stolid and very much there.
“Is… everything okay?” A soft, feminine voice for a lilting, loaded question.
A direct reply, a deep guttural assurance. “It is.”
Green eyes that had been soft, sharpened. They narrowed. The hollow spaces below them shadowed from lack of sleep and a night of stress.
