Shepherd didn't even know her, his love was based off something she could not put her finger on.
What more do you want from me, Shepherd?
I want everything.
The image of Svana, of the expression on her face and the subtle flaring of her frightening blue eyes… The Alpha female had been displeased with her existence, Claire was certain of that. The woman had also been surprised to find her pregnant. Yet to his face, Svana had numbly accepted that Shepherd would have a toy… one the crazy Alpha female thought should have looked like her, as if every Omega she claimed they shared had been facsimiles of her exotic beauty.
Why would his consort, one Shepherd admitted he loved, not know he'd taken a mate, or that he had created a baby? Why had those eyes looked at Claire almost as if she were a mere nuisance, an aggravating rebound?
Rebound…
Svana was my lover and I thought she was also equivalently my mate. I learned I was wrong.
Holy shit. Svana had been unfaithful to Shepherd's devotion.
Understanding dawned and Claire's jaw dropped; she was a rebound. Her skin began to buzz as if overstimulated, her mind flew into a thousand directions at once. Shepherd's whole world had been shaken and his mutilated reaction had been to take an Omega—to continue his dedication to the woman who'd freed him from the Undercroft, but ease his own troubled heartache by forcing another to love him as he longed for Svana to love him.
"Why are you crying?"
Startled, Claire looked up to see the blue-eyed Beta had come with a new tray. Turning the paper pinched in her fingers towards the intruder, she ignored his question and just showed him the rendition of Shepherd in watercolor.
With brows drawn low, Jules looked at her painting, then looked away immediately. "You do not lack talent."
"So I've been told," wiping tears off her face, Claire conceded. "Does he know that you talk to me?"
"No."
"I'm glad that you do."
Such startling eyes in such an expressionless face, it was an odd sort of imbalance. "I know."
With a sorry smile, Claire pushed the painting of Shepherd aside. "You asked why I was crying. I was crying because I just sorted out… why he took me. I am not sure if I feel worse for my own ruined life, or for a man who is so fucking clueless. Shepherd may think brushing aside his pain over Svana's infidelity will make it go away, that by taking a mate he might fill that void… but love does not work that way."
Jules stiffened. "Your assessment is incorrect; do not think of it again. Such thoughts are unhealthy for your son."
"Why do you say son? How do you know it's not a girl?"
He sniffed the air but did not alter his expression. "I had two sons once… the subtlety of the scent is specific."
She echoed, "Had two sons?"
His voice never wavered. "My children were murdered when my wife was taken from me."
Everything in his statement was exactly what was wrong with this whole damn situation. "Children are dying in Thólos now; others' sons and daughters!"
Jules answered blandly, "It is unfortunate your people prey on the weak, but what we allow is necessary."
Claire stood, she railed at the Beta. "Necessary? Explain it to me, then! Explain yourself to the woman your master has ruined because he didn't know how to handle his hurt feelings!"
"Discuss it with Shepherd." Face blank, Jules left, locking her back in her cage.
Discuss what part with Shepherd? The part about how she was superfluous and he just had not figured it out yet, or the dead babies part? Lying back on her space of concrete, Claire stared at the ceiling and felt like she was drowning in all the fucked up mess of things, the twisted histories, and the pathetic chain that was forged by a man with the emotional intelligence of an adolescent.
She would talk to him all right; she would make him look straight at what a hypocrite he was. She would show Shepherd what she'd discovered, the truth of what he was doing through her eyes… not his distorted vision. The Gods had even directed her to the signpost of what a sad joke everything seemed to be. That boy. That curled up child she had rested on, the corpse with no name and nothing in his pockets. He would be her mascot, and Shepherd would have to look at him and answer to her.
Claire mixed her paints and began to recreate that lonely moment in the alley. There were hours to spend on the work, hours wherein she detailed the brick, the cold, the withered child, and herself… fast asleep against the cadaver's stiffness.
She had never painted herself before, used the memory of her black hair on her cheek to mask most of her face, but it was her. The same curled up slender form, the bone structure that screamed Omega, all in the clothes she'd stolen from Maryanne.