Everything had been too much. Too much fear, too much heartache, too much anger, too much desire. Overwhelmed, Claire closed her eyes and gave over to the thing her body needed most. Shepherd tucked her limp arms into the sleeves of his coat. Hitching her about his waist, his knot still joining them, he walked out the door, her naked body and their joining covered by the drape of worn leather.

Outside the waste facility, the Omegas were being herded onto transport prepared to take them to the Undercroft, a few snarling, others screaming, but the majority simply scarfing down supplement bars his Followers were passing out.

Claire missed it all in her dead slumber.

7

Claire felt no warm haze, no fulfilling sense of contentment upon waking. Instead, a deep-seated ache drew her brows tight, only growing worse when she shifted. Someone had run her over with a transport rig, wrung her out... left her wasted. Confused, her lashes parted, and Claire saw nothing but subterranean gloom and walls of concrete.

It was the smell that brought it all together, the nest of familiar, soft blankets rich with the scent of her mate.

Not mate... Claire had to remind herself. Shepherd.

She hated that his stink offered reassurance in her discomfort, that the thread was humming delightedly, telling her it was okay to feel weak so long as he was nearby to watch over her... that everything was back as it should be. The worm pulsed and grew warm in her chest. It was that manipulative pair-bond which had distorted her in the first place—Shepherd's influence, which had broken her apart day after day when she ignored her mate's call to return—that led to exhaustion and hallucinations. Now it was writhing in contentment, spinning a web of the seductive lie of shelter and safety.

It seemed stronger than before, that cord humming between them felt tighter in her chest. Was it because of his total victory over her? Or maybe because she had stumbled straight to him in her craving for sleep? Claire didn't know. All she knew was that her struggles, her denial and stubbornness, had been for nothing.

They were bound. Even in her hiding, he'd exercised control.

That grey-walled room was not shelter. It was her prison. Shepherd had her in his cage, she was back under his thumb... and she would probably never leave that room again.

Swallowing down distress, Claire recognized his great weight dipping the mattress at her side, her thigh flush to his back as if she'd pressed near while she slept. Shepherd was facing the wall, his elbows on his knees, staring forward, lost in thought.

Licking dry lips, Claire thought to scoot away, only to fall back to the pillows with a curse. The pain was great, shooting from her shoulder so sharply it was all she could do to breathe.