A definitive male. “Yes.”
“Really?” Oddly curious, Claire peeked up at him, needing to see the silver eyes she’d painted a thousand times.
He knew just what to say. All he had to speak was the truth. “Steal from her the only thing she cared about. Make it into something better. And maybe wonder if the world gave it to you because she would have infected Greth with her greed until it was even uglier than Thólos.”
“And you would have helped her do it.”
That got him. Placed a pause in a man that seldom lost his words. “You think you cannot be happy with me, not the way you want to. But I am happy.I am.You make me happy. Just being near you… it makes me so happy. Even when you cry, I’m thankful I get to hear it. And yes, I would have helped her, and maybe I would have always been blind. Butyousavedme.”
Ignoring the little flutter in her heart, Claire made her point again. “I’m not going to that dinner. I’m not. And if you tryto make me, I’ll tell everyone what you did. You cannot always win.”
“I will give you anything you want if?—”
It was her turn to cover his mouth. To show him the side of her that was still huddled on the frozen ground of Thólos next to that dead boy in the alley. “I want my city back. I want Maryanne in my kitchen in an hour. I want my son. I want to know that I can trust you. You can’t give me any of that.”
“Claire.” The old him wasn’t dead after all. Shepherd narrowing his eyes, threatening, just as he had in the bunker when she’d refused to play house. “There is no one in the world you can trust more than me.”
“I’d trust Corday.”
And that? That set him off, Claire enjoying that he felt just as miserable and hurt as she did.
To know your enemy, you must become your enemy. - Sun Tzu.
And for the first time—knotted and trapped—Claire did not allow Shepherd to get the jump on her with his purr or his fingers on her clit. On top, she began to rock her hips and fuck herself on his knot, holding it inside her as she stole pleasure he would have forced. Leaning back so the blankets fell away, glaring down with rage, with love, with shame as she wrapped her hands around his throat and squeezed just enough to make a point.
There was no dinner with Annette and Guadalupe, because he fucked her until the bed broke. She took it, all of it, because that was what she deserved. And for a brief, terrible moment, she wondered what it might sound like to break something off of Svana’s corpse.
And then… she began to feel better.
Claire was sore,and bruised, and her hips ached terribly. He’d bitten her, he’d pinned her, he’d fucked her way too hard.
The ache was deserved.
Enjoyed, as Claire sat on the floor by their broken bed, sunlight streaming through the window as she spread out little handwritten notes she’d collected from her mate since arriving in Greth.
Little memories that were hers.
And his.
Sweet.
When she was alone, occasionally, she’d pull them out and spread them around her, drinking in her mate in a way one might drink down sweet poison.
The quotes, the orders, the arrogance, the thoughtful notes of devotion.
The man wrote intense love letters, some of which were terribly disturbing, the Alpha capable of tearing her apart with little more than pen and ink. Or making her laugh.
A Mr. Thomas Edward just informed me that I had a feather in my hair. It has been five hours since I left you. -Shepherd
A handwritten letter in the scrawl of a mass murderer. And yes, the idea of her husband walking amongst his men all day where no one dared tell him there was a feather in his hair was something Claire found pleasure in. After all, he’d destroyed her nest and ripped apart her favorite pillow that day. Not that Shepherd would have been properly embarrassed.
Still, the note, on its plain white parchment, tugged up the corners of her lips.
There had been other, kinder notes penned with his thoughts of her while they were parted, so much more meaningful than a quick COM message.
She’d had no idea how much he truly loved her green eyes, or that he had the skill with language to describe how her hair felt running through his fingers.
He would send her bits of wisdom on days when she struggled. As if the male had memorized every last word of each book he had kept in his room underground. Of course he had.
