Those books were missing in this new home. There was no Sun Tzu, save the scraps Shepherd scribbled down for her. There was no Plato.
She could have asked; he would have provided it. Probably handwritten from memory. Maybe one day she would. But for now, these little notes.
Each one a weapon, serving him in a specific purpose, gathered up by her despite their sting of sweetness like mana from the heavens.
He’d begun this practice the first day she’d started painting again. Little notes delivered to her—simple things he could have sent via COM. But he didn’t. He took the time and put pen to paper.
Claire saved them all. Even the ones that made her feel like death would be better than reading those words ever again. She’d saved them all, in a box tucked away in her bureau. Pulling them out when the mood struck and fingering the soft edges of the well-worn notes.
Some of them she’d never been able to look at twice. But today, she was compelled.
A tear fell. Just the one.
And her hands reached for the open box waiting before her so she might do something she knew she should not. Readthose precious notes, spread them out, know their scent, punish herself.
The world would be surprised to know the Alpha male wrote terribly disturbing love letters. They might not be surprised to know he could also kill with a few words.
Our Collin would have celebrated his first birthday this month. I would like you to paint him for me.
There had been no incident to warrant that note, just a date she had never allowed herself to consider. A baby that had been lost, so many layers of complication behind it that even the notorious Dr. Osin would never be able to unravel what Claire felt.
Because, sometimes, she didn’t know.
Being forced to face her failings… Claire had not spoken to him for three days after receiving that letter. But she had painted the picture. One he pulled from the easel himself, her husband offering the softest, “Thank you, little one.”
And she had not seen it since.
Claire didn’t know where that painting hung, if others could see the imaginings of her little boy. If anyone might possibly know how much of her pain was on that canvas.
Claire didn’t know if a single Follower might suspect that Shepherd felt things deeply yet never displayed them to the world. Only she could see, his link open and honest, even when that honesty was acid. Even when he lied to her. Knowing that he wasn’t sorry for any of it.
Coming to terms with the unsettling fact, that he grieved their lost child even more than she did? It might be her greatest shame.
That was more than an Alpha commander walking around with a feather in his hair.
And for some reason, that was the note she held to her breast as she breathed through it.
There was a love for that note that shehated, a need to have it burn her with the naked honesty of a male and the corrupted dishonesty of herself. Claire had never mourned Collin. Not as a person. She had been too lost in the why of his death to remember the person lost while she had walked to the Citadel.
She’d grieved her loss and pain, not the fact that Collin didn’t get to grow up.
So she wept, alone on the floor, clutching that hated and loved note so tight it deformed the parchment.
When she had exorcised those demons, she put all the notes, all the sweetness and barbs, back in her box and put it back in her drawer.
Beside it, green waited. Green dresses, green robes, green everything. Yet there was one green thing that had been relegated to the back. Local flavor. A top that cut off under one’s breasts. A breezy skirt that tied at the hips. So many times, Claire had seen something of this nature on her COMscreen.
Thólos had been surrounded in snow, and though before the Dome had cracked, it had been warm within, the clothing had been conservative in comparison. Greth was flamboyant.
Greth was sweltering.
Greth women were sexy, they were loud, they were fun… according to her COM.
Claire was quiet, soft spoken, dowdy, and prim. She was boring, even in the most scandalous clothing Shepherd might find her. And it felt strange to pull that silk over her hips, to knot the blouse under her breasts. To adjust the shoulders of her top to display her bitten claiming mark.
Which did not bleed as Shepherd’s did that day.
He was always careful with her. Even when she drove him past reason.
