The Beta stood a distance away, at attention, stiff yet twitchy... and glaring at her in that way he did. “You need to progress more. You need to accept what’s in front of you.”
The painting’s final touches were rendered, Claire squinting at her project, looking for flaws. “If I was to tell you how much I hate your enigmatic bullshit, would you believe me?”
“Thólos, Miss O’Donnell.” The man grunted. “You can’t save Thólos.”
“I don’t want to save Thólos.” Setting the brush aside, she gave him a long look. “I want Thólos to save itself.”
“And there is that clever brain I keep hearing about,” the man snorted, rolling his eyes.
“For my only friend down in this prison, you’re kind of an ass.”
“I am not your friend.”
“Yes, you are.” She turned the painting towards him and watched his eyes flick down momentarily to appraise it. “I doubt you intended to be, but you are.”
Jules always sounded so unamused, leveling that dead-eyed gaze at her. “You made me look different.”
At his words, Claire burst out laughing.
Pushing the painting towards him, she mused, “I wonder if all of you see yourselves in some distorted way. This is what you look like, Jules.”
Pinching the parchment between his fingers as if he found it distasteful, Jules lifted the painting and frowned at it. “I want to see your other work.”
“Even the paintings of Shepherd?”
“There are more than one?” It almost seemed as if he cocked a brow, but there was no movement on his face.
For some reason the question embarrassed her and color flamed in her cheeks. Claire didn’t answer. She reached for her stack of paintings and leafed through them, removing several and setting them aside before placing the bunch before the Beta.
Unsmiling, he set his wet portrait down and began working through her collection, her images of Thólos, the nightmares she’d seen all there for him to examine as he flipped through the pages. Some paintings she could see were meaningless, boring to him. Some he stared at a little longer. There was no comment made until he reached the picture of Corday making eggs in his kitchen. “You should not have painted his rival.”
“Corday is not Shepherd’s rival. Corday is my friend.”
Flatly, Jules claimed, “Not anymore. Svana has him now. She’s turned him against you.” Those demonic blue eyes gauged her reaction. “It wasn’t hard.”
Of course she had. Leslie Kantor would have locked right on to him.
“You already knew...” For just a flicker of a second, Jules appeared intrigued.
Claire still had something to hold on to—something important the Follower discounted. In every photo she had seen, Corday still wore her ring. Whatever Jules, Svana, or Shepherd believed was not the total truth. So long as Corday wore that ring, he still had faith in their shared belief.
That was all that mattered...
A curve came to the corner of the man’s mouth. “Do you still think I am your friend?”
Face bloodless, Claire looked up from where her eyes had been boring a hole in the table. Leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest, Claire countered, “And the Omegas? How have they been corrupted?”
“Do not worry on their account.” He set down her paintings. “They are still cossetted and well-fed.”
“And Maryanne?”
The jerk took a grape from the lunch tray Claire had yet to touch, popping it in his mouth. “Will get herself killed eventually. Nothing anyone can do about that.”
Claire growled, menacing and angry. “If you eat one more grape off that tray, I will stab you in the eye with this paintbrush.”
Jules actually laughed, every aspect of his face coming alive. But the burst was hoarse and almost unnatural, a long unused reaction that ended almost before it began. But a smirk remained. “During training I have seen the scratches and the claiming mark on Shepherd. You are quite a possessive little Omega.”
“Be careful about who you call little, Beta.”
Whatever false playfulness he had been enacting faded, but he was not offended, not even in the slightest. Putting his hands on the table Jules leaned over and asked, “When she tries to kill you, what are you going to do?”
The answer was simple. “I’m going to die.”
The way his thin lips stiffened, Claire could see he was disappointed in her answer. “Your dramatics do not impress me.”
“I think you comprehend a lot more about what’s going on than even your leader. Shepherd knows she does not love him, she has used him, yet still he, like you, believes in something incomprehensible and obeys.” Claire tapped her finger on the table. “With all this knowledge you both follow the psychopath we know wishes Shepherd’s mate and his unborn child dead. The situation as it is, with men like you, how long do you really think I will survive? You and all your unsolicited guidance, friend, do not impress me.”