Had she?

There was a purr, a short offer of soothing as he pressed his digit further up her ass, knowing the stretch was unwelcome, but using it to make sure she listened to every damn word he said.

“I left his corpse strung outside my cell, his cock hanging from his mouth as warning to others. He was only the first, and I was surrounded by dark-hearted monsters. As I grew bigger, grew stronger, the small and feeble would come to me, offering their mouths or their bodies for protection from those same men who hounded them. I found them repugnant, weak, and beneath me. I killed several just to make my feelings on the topic clear.”

The thumb in Claire’s mouth stroked her tongue in little circles as he spoke. “One day, something from the light found me in the dark, a young woman with a knife of her own. It was already bloody.”

Svana.

“She’d heard of me, had crawled into hell to seek me out. She gave me the means to rule and asked for nothing. Her visits were often, her affection splendid. Like me, her mother had been killed before her. Like me, her future had been stripped away.

“Her mind, the things she knew, were beyond anything I had been taught. She offered to share such wisdom, brought me books, found worth in the monster whom inmates feared. The angel even brought me the file with my mother’s name on top.” Shepherd nuzzled her cheek. “In that missing person’s dossier was a photograph. My Beta mother, before the Undercroft rotted her teeth, had been very beautiful, like you. I hated hearing her screams.”

Claire put her hand to his flank, she felt his pain break against her.

The Alpha continued. “I could not save her, and to this day could not tell you which one of the demons underground was my father.”

Claire did not want to let his history touch her, but it was so pathetic she could not help but feel pity.

“I was not the only man trapped in that dark by corruption above. Like my mother, more than half of the men forced below were innocent enough, but inconvenient to the powers that be. I learned secrets from them, things you cannot imagine… if you only knew the infection creeping through the hearts of this city, little one, if you could read the stories scraped into the rocks below us.”

Why was he telling her this? She began to struggle, and flinched when his finger inside her surged deeper, stretching her until she stilled.

“Open your eyes, little one.” The growl was menacing, guttural. “You will look at me when I say this.”

She did not want to look at him, felt invaded by that single, oversized finger, and the way he still teased at her tongue with his thumb. Jerking from the penetration, she met his gaze.