Maryanne had the decency to look stricken. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Claire, but this is Shepherd. He’s a powerful man. It seems a little strange that he would bond to a woman he didn’t know… I mean, he’s a warlord. People probably give him Omegas for Christmas.”

Svana’s words echoed in Claire’s head. ‘We have not shared a heated Omega in some time.’

“They do… I don’t know why he bonded to me, and the one time I asked, he gave only pointless, empty words.” Her green eyes grew harder, as did Claire’s demand for answers. “My question, Maryanne. How do you know him?”

Pursing her lips, Maryanne confessed, “I, um, needed friends once.”

“I was your friend. I would have been, had you not run off… and”—Claire sighed, knowing Maryanne well enough to see she was not exactly an innocent—“done the things you did until you got thrown into the Undercroft.”

Maryanne snorted. “Before I found a way out.”

“From Shepherd.”

“My services in exchange for my life.” The girl who had never felt guilty about a single trespass she had committed in her life looked at her old friend with uncustomary regret. “I was the one who recovered the access codes to the Judicial Sector and the Citadel.”

Brows drawn tight, Claire hissed, “How could you?”

“I didn’t know their plans for Thólos. I swear.”

Claire didn’t want to hear it. “What did you think he would do once freed?”

“He was already free…” Maryanne whispered. “How do you think I got out?”

Claire’s brows shot up. “What?”

Maryanne snorted at the small woman’s naiveté. “Sorry, bitch, but we’ve been screwed for a long time.”

“Do you know where he keeps the virus?”

Smirking, Maryanne shared a hard truth. “If I did, do you really think I’d be here, stockpiling and preparing for the end of the world? Listen to me, Claire, they don’t know about this place. I wiped it from the records almost a decade before I was tossed downstairs. I have enough food, enough air scrubbers to get through almost a year. You don’t need to follow through with your crap plan. You can stay here with me. Should the worst happen, all we’d have to do is wait until the virus did its work.”

Claire shook her head. “The Dome is cracked, Maryanne. You’d freeze to death as the ecosystem fails. It’s like he planned for people like you. We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die if nothing is done.”