“And you wish to offer some trade with me for knowledge?” he growled derisively, angry, because he could see plainly what his mate thought to bargain with.
“You could just tell me,” Claire added, absolutely serious.
“I could.” A malicious light turned his expression to evil, the pad of his thumb ghosting over her lips. “But I won’t.”
He was expecting her to deny him, pushing her so she would drop the subject and he could win with minimal effort. But she couldn’t. The very fact he was reluctant to discuss what he sensed in her thoughts made it clear it was something she needed to know.
Her purpose had not been forgotten.
Thinking back on the conversation with Maryanne, the idea of redemption, Claire frowned and asked him softly, “Could Shepherd change?”
“No, little one. In this I could not.”
And it was so heartbreakingly sad. Feeling her eyes well, looking into the face of her captor and her Alpha, Claire met mercurial eyes harboring an expression caught between insult and reassurance.
She drew a deep breath and offered the only thing she had left. “If you answer all my questions, I will give you your kiss.”
Voice cold as death, Shepherd spoke. “It is not so simple, Claire. If you wish to speak of our history, to know of my Followers’ inner workings, then you must prove you are dedicated to me in every way. I will need much more than a kiss.”
But she had nothing else to give him.
Shepherd stated plainly, “You will tell me every detail of this plot you’ve thought to carry out against me.”
She shook her head, scowling slightly. “What plot? You know what I want.”
“You are lying, little one. You think you have been cunning in the war you wage. But I have decades of experience and have outmaneuvered your every move. There will be no negotiation. Either you give me what I want, or I tell you nothing.”
Claire did not even hesitate to lay out exactly what she desired. “I want you to fail in Thólos, Shepherd. That is not a secret. Even pair bonded to you, even carrying your child, I would stand against you in this matter for as long as I could. I also won’t pretend I don’t partially understand your motivation, that what I saw out there didn’t sicken me. But a cause that uses the suffering of many, innocent or not, to make your point, is something I could never condone. I have to believe in redemption or all I have done has been for nothing.”
“I already told you the resistance was fully infiltrated months ago,” Shepherd explained, his voice was riddled with disgust. “You were not duly upset. The reason you accepted my words was because you hope, you believe your Corday might overcome the invisible prison he’s trapped within.”
“My Corday?” The pit of her stomach dropped out, Claire understanding just who Corday had been smiling at out of frame of the pictures Maryanne had brought her: Svana. “Are the pair of you really so insidious?”
“The reason I was called away before our first dinner together, was because Senator Kantor had been beheaded. Since that day, the resistance has crumbled into dust.”
Claire blinked twice, her face impassive, and felt that flicker of guilt knowing the resistance had been infiltrated because of her, because Corday had been seen with her. Green eyes looked to his chest, to where they were chained forever, and she tried to convince herself that Shepherd was lying, that he was trying to trick her.
He was not.
She’d been the one lying... lying to herself. And she could have stopped all of this if she’d only ignored her pain and focused on fact. If only she had let herself recognize the woman sooner and warned her friends.
Shepherd always flipped the table on her in these battles, outfoxed her with cutting information he could wield like a weapon. Not today. Today she would make her stand and she would not back down.
Claire shared her story. “I was warned by Senator Kantor himself, that should the city be made aware of who I was and what I was to you, that the resistance would hand me over. I was told I had to be hidden. I begged him to reconsider, argued that his best chance would be to use me and the baby as a hostage—inciting a rebellion at once in hopes you would not unleash the virus. He declined. In that moment, I knew any operation that mirrored yours, that counted one life as insignificant, would fail. The truth is, I have had no faith in the resistance. My faith is in the few unruined by you. My faith is in the few who survived your worst and came out better.”
He took her jaw, held it gently but strong enough to make a point. “Do you really think you’re going to win?”