Abiding disgust for what she’d seen, run from, feared... not all of it was Shepherd’s influence. It came from her.

It shamed her.

Her memories of happier times were growing tarnished. She was finding flaws in them—almost as if Shepherd were whispering in her ear the darker things she’d endured and refused to acknowledge. Thólos had been dangerous her whole life. She’d hardly felt safe walking the street alone, even in broad daylight... because the city had teeth and claws.

No one had talked about it, but Omegas out in the open had always been snatched up by predators. Thólos’ rich and powerful… the ones who made the rules… taking without permission, pretending it was all civilized, all acceptable. After all, who on earth had the power to stand up to the Senators, the Enforcers, the Judges?

Shepherd was right. She had never once been free.

Even in civilized Thólos, her life had been one of perpetually hiding what she was. And what of the Betas? Had they felt the pinch? Had they been tired of proletarian toil? Had they suffered oppression?

Alphas too had fallen victim. Claire’s own father had lost all social standing with the suicide of his wife. Before the body was even cold in the ground, the government had ordered them to leave her childhood home and move to a neighborhood just above the Lower Reaches—Claire’s father publically condemned as failure undeserving of midlevel life.

That new home had been damp and cramped. On the rare warm days, the air outside had stunk of garbage. Her father had weathered it with a smile and constant jokes. He had done everything for her, as if he’d suspected she was Omega long before puberty confirmed it—and was trying to atone.

Never once had he told her not to use the soaps that made his daughter smell like a Beta. He’d paid for her pills without asking her what they were for, made sure she had all the time she wanted with Nona.

Based on his personal experience, her father had known the world was unsafe for her, and he had done his best.

He’d known Thólos was miserable and bad, and shielded her from all of it long before Shepherd’s targeted campaign had turned the city against itself.

Her mate said what no other Alpha would dare. He’d called the leadership deceivers, the citizens swallowing every word…

It made them worse still. Thólosens chose to bow and cede to his will out of fear, not because they took his words as gospel. It was because they were bad. Why else would they use the new paradigm to riot, rape, murder, indulging in the darkest parts of the human experience?