Moving away before he could give in to the temptation to carry out such a punishment before its due time, Shepherd forced himself to ignore the other traces of Claire lingering on the bed: the long dark hairs on the pillow and smears of her blood on the sheets.

In the bathroom, Shepherd found the dress she’d worn when Claire refused to eat, ripped and ruined, stained from wounds accumulated from a highly dangerous fall—a fall that could have easily killed her.

Shepherd did not know how long he stood in that dark cluttered space clutching that dress, wanting to rip at the fabric just as badly as he wanted to take it with him. But no sign of his visit could be left behind. Stuffing it back into the laundry container, he noticed the waste basket brimming with wrappings and white paper of used bandages, blood soaked cotton balls, all the signs that the Beta had tended her wounds.

It made him want to squeeze the man’s neck until he felt his vertebrae pop apart.

The very air in the apartment was offensive.

Corday’s smell had scented his female once before. It was clearly his sweaty clothing she had been wearing when the Omegas had turned her in. Worse was the odor of Svana’s musk, picking apart Claire’s sweetness in a gross reminder of what had been created in his den when all his weeks of dedicated exertion to draw out his Omega were spoiled by an action as rudimentary as sex.

Through his inspection, his ire only grew, and Shepherd knew he had to leave before the stink of his outrage escaped his carefully buttoned coat and high collar. Vanishing like a phantom, he moved at last to confront his beloved, finding her unaware of his entrance into the dark apartment chosen for their private meeting.

Closing the door to face down the subject of his anger, Shepherd addressed her with a blank expression. “Greetings, Svana.”

Svana purred over her shoulder, her voice full of the richness of their shared history. “Must I remind you, Shepherd, that you do not summon me and leave me waiting.”

Ignoring the lack of subtlety in the reprimand, Shepherd stepped closer. “How very beautiful you are this evening.”

She smiled, her lips curving up like a cat lapping milk. “Am I not beautiful every evening?”

The warmth of his hand came to her shoulder. “Enforcer Corday is a fortunate acquisition. Exactly when did you infiltrate the resistance?”

“My love?” Svana’s hands were already slipping up to cup his neck, to press to the small amount of warm exposed flesh so that nothing might be between them. “Are you not pleased at how easily they trust me? I can control them… mislead them.”

The feel of her body under Shepherd’s palms was familiar. “Nothing but ourselves could stand in the way of our success.”