She would rather face Shepherd's wrath for wearing his clothing without permission than wait around naked like an odalisque. Digging through the room's modest dresser, Claire found a sweater that would pass for a dress on her much smaller frame. Pulling the grey thing over her head, she was relieved to find it clean, the garment holding only the faintest trace of his scent.

Stomach rumbling, she began to pace, her eyes inadvertently looking toward the part of the room saturated in the dried reek of their combined estrous emissions: her nest. Claire had built them before in seclusion—it was an obsessive part of the heat-cycle, everything arranged just so. Blankets, pillows, all forming the shape that best suited the Omega. That made the females, or in the extraordinary exception the Omega was male, feel safe. The idea of nests had always fascinated her, the way she knew exactly where every piece should fit, the comfort she took in lying in the finished product; even though the ones she'd created in seclusion had never been used to mate.

Betas didn't nest. And base Alphas, or so she'd heard, would mount any Omega without allowing the nest, in a frenzy to begin the seeding. Proper Alphas understood the necessity. Shepherd had let her build it, had supplied extra blankets and materials aside from the usual things already on his bed. He'd even tried to help, crouched naked at her side, tugging fabric and fluffing pillows to hand to her. When he'd become too involved, she'd snarled and pushed his hands away. The nest was her job. He was an Alpha; his only job was to fuck her in it.

Her first mated nest was supposed to be something beyond special, a cherished memory, and not a thing that made her eyes well each time she foolishly glanced in its direction.

There was nothing special about the fluid crusted, sticky arrangement she had woken up in.

Frowning, Claire looked away before she screamed. The door was in her line of sight, one metal blockade between her and air that did not stink of sex. Pacing again, she tried to steady the wave of horror in her gut. The lack of windows, not knowing if it was day or night, feeling trapped underground, was itching uncomfortably under her skin. She didn't even know where she was in relation to the Dome.

The longer she walked the length of the room, the more she wanted out of it.

She ran to the door and tried the knob, knowing it would be locked but needing to feel the immovable metal with her own fingers. The cry she made was unavoidable. A sad whimper of someone who'd hoped. Someone on the verge of panic. She was a prisoner bound to a man she did not know, hungry, scared, and suffering an unwelcome thread that would not stop existing no matter how hard she willed it away.