Shepherd knew she would say yes, that she would subject herself to him to save every life he’d mentioned. Claire could already feel it through a link that should not have been there; a burning barb knocking about where her lungs fought to expand. Her breath hitched painfully, and she fisted the leather of her jacket over her heart. “There is one more life I want.”

“Who?”

Despite the invasion of the clawing worm, Claire sneered at the Alpha. “I will only tell you if you give me your unequivocal word that this person will never come to harm.”

“And if I do this, you will return to me and live fully as my mate?” It was what he wanted, she could see it, feel her just a little bit more through the link, and he did not stop the malicious greedy evil that fostered his grin.

She felt his pleasure, glanced into rapacious eyes, and saw every ounce of his desperate elation. “Yes.”

Shepherd nodded and crooked his fingers. “You have my word.”

“Maryanne Cauley.”

There was a flash of insight, a minute narrowing of the eyes. The Alpha nodded in understanding—the slippery traitor… Maryanne Cauley, a prisoner who’d once sworn her allegiance to him in exchange for safe haven in the Undercroft, was the one who had helped Claire free her Omegas.

Claire took a step towards total abasement, cursing the Gods when the march to Shepherd did not shatter the ice and suck her down. The weight of her cold fingers she set in his, not returning the smile when the devil’s hand engulfed hers. Shepherd touched her face, and she instinctively jerked away when the heat of his palm cupped her cheek.

His large thumb brushed away the line of tears. He knew she was in pain by the burden of the intensifying bond clawing its way past her resistance.

Intense, overexcited, he reached for her, unwilling to wait another moment to cart her home. Claire continued to fight the claim, clutching at her heart, battling to maintain the sense of endless nothing that had carried her to the ice. She did not want to be Claire anymore, oblivion had become her armor. If there was no Claire, there was no pain. Nothingness was her pride… then she remembered she had no pride. She had lost it all the day she started to care for the man cradling her in his arms.

As if he knew her thoughts, he gripped her a bit tighter to his chest and gloated. “Forty-three lives, Claire.”

Her eyes screwed shut at his use of her name, the unwelcome anguish at the memory of the only other time he had spoken it ruining her. She lost the war—Claire felt something: the hurt and grief she had been unable to feel that day, and everything shattered.