Even aware of his simmering wrath, the blue-eyed Beta stood vigilant at his side.

Stuffing down bitter rage, unwilling to be seen as less than perfectly calm, Shepherd continued his surveillance and kept his growling to a minimum. Jules would be dealt with for his failure once Claire was returned. As Alpha—the creator of the bond—Shepherd would prove to the lesser Beta that his Omega would come to heel without pointless negotiation or bribery. That was the natural order of things.

Claire would be found, and she would submit. In time, she would love him.

But the bond whispered that she wanted to die, that she would find a way soon. And that possibility was the tiny mustard seed of doubt cracking his obstinacy.

In hindsight, Shepherd recognized that he should have coddled her after Claire’s tantrum all those weeks ago. But he wanted his mate to see why she’d suffered the meltdown. She had to admit she desired him, responded to his presence, that things had improved. Shepherd had given her the space to consider such weighty insight—left her to feel the loss of the mate she needed—so that she would know without question what her true, natural feelings were.

So she would behave and adore him.

Even Shepherd had to admit that his attempt to condition, his rejection of her presence, must have made his mating with Svana seem deliberate—another punishment.

The feelings inside Claire once it began, the degradation, it could not have been worse.

Improvement did not come with time. Her terrible desolation had not abated with freedom or success; Shepherd could feel it flowing from her like an endless bubbling poison. Claire was past the point of despair. It was a thing he had witnessed countless times in the Undercroft—a cessation of spirit. But the Omega had spoken; her eyes had been full of fire when she faced him on the streets, a marked improvement from the vacant figure who had subsisted on air in his den.

And it was the Beta smiling at Svana that had roused her. Corday was the one Claire had run to, his food she’d accepted. He was the man Claire preferred to him.

Shepherd deliberated on such an outrage, frustrated further to see Svana playing the fine lady—touching Corday, wooing him gently, all the while digging less than subtly for information.

What game was Svana playing?

Svana had a great many strengths, but the Alpha female had a tendency to miss the minutiae. It was for that reason Shepherd was sure she had no idea he was watching, that the Enforcer’s apartment had already been bugged… that Followers were listening to their would-be queen.

As the conversation between Corday and Svana continued, the stiffness of his second-in-command was impossible to miss. Jules found the whole thing distasteful.