“You know, Claire,” Maryanne was dead serious, knotting her hair to tuck under a cap. “Underground there’s a whole ‘nother world. Those who follow Shepherd are beyond dangerous.”

“Whatever they are doesn’t matter.”

Maryanne’s voice fell flat. “What I am trying to tell you is, pair-bond or no, they have an agenda. Shepherd might just kill you.”

Claire had no illusions on that score. “I’m counting on it.”

“I could save us all this trouble and kill you right now,” the Alpha offered.

“That’s awfully sweet of you,” Claire teased, standing on tiptoe to press a peck to her friend’s ruby lips. “But I will already be dead to you after tonight. Give me what I need and you have my word.”

Maryanne tucked a loaded gun into Claire’s pocket. “Promises, promises…”

“And, Maryanne,” Claire added, forcing a playful smile. “You look like a slut in that outfit.”

3

“This is the entrance to Purgatory.” Maryanne pointed to the map alight on the screen between them. Tracing the snaking tunnels that lay right below the concrete footpaths of the Lower Reaches, she said, “This floor is for administration and separated from the true Undercroft. If your Omegas are being kept in this shithole, Shepherd would not stash them any lower than here. Not if he wanted to keep them alive.”

Claire stared down at the COMscreen. Seeing her people locked away like livestock brought a wave of unbearable sadness. The Omegas slept ten to a cell, segregated by age, and there were less than the fifty-six that had been taken. Three Shepherd had hanged, the remainder Claire assumed had either died or been pair-bonded and dragged away. There were hardly even forty, and one was in estrous, isolated and being rutted by a stranger… the girl only sixteen.

In her heart, Claire had been terrified Shepherd may have allowed his men to inject the Omegas with the same drugs he’d used on her… to set up a brothel of mindless estrous sex for the taking, and she had to admit she was marginally relieved to find he had yet to stoop so low.

“Looking at them like that isn’t going to change anything, sugar pie,” Maryanne cooed, crouched at her side.

“Even you must see how sick this is.” Frowning, Claire looked away from the COMscreen so her friend might meet her eye. “Don’t let me down.”

“I’ll get you in. Then I’m gone.”

Claire nodded. “For your own sake, I suggest you run fast.”

As per their agreement, Maryanne tapped into the system and hacked the prison’s upper level controls. Handing over the technology, she gave Claire patchy dominion of Purgatory’s security systems.