Page 37 of Born to be Broken

“I was smaller than you are now the first time I was cornered. My back was to the wall, a man with sores on his face pulled out his member and reached for my throat. What he didn’t know, what nobody knew, was that my mother had whored herself for a knife. I shanked my attacker. During the struggle, I earned the scar across my lips that you in your estrous called beautiful.”

Had she?

There was a purr, a short offer of soothing as he pressed his digit further up her ass, knowing the stretch was unwelcome, but using it to make sure she listened to every damn word he said.

“I left his corpse strung outside my cell, his cock hanging from his mouth as warning to others. He was only the first, and I was surrounded by dark-hearted monsters. As I grew bigger, grew stronger, the small and feeble would come to me, offering their mouths or their bodies for protection from those same men who hounded them. I found them repugnant, weak, and beneath me. I killed several just to make my feelings on the topic clear.”

The thumb in Claire’s mouth stroked her tongue in little circles as he spoke. “One day, something from the light found me in the dark, a young woman with a knife of her own. It was already bloody.”

Svana.

“She’d heard of me, had crawled into hell to seek me out. She gave me the means to rule and asked for nothing. Her visits were often, her affection splendid. Like me, her mother had been killed before her. Like me, her future had been stripped away.

“Her mind, the things she knew, were beyond anything I had been taught. She offered to share such wisdom, brought me books, found worth in the monster whom inmates feared. The angel even brought me the file with my mother’s name on top.” Shepherd nuzzled her cheek. “In that missing person’s dossier was a photograph. My Beta mother, before the Undercroft rotted her teeth, had been very beautiful, like you. I hated hearing her screams.”

Claire put her hand to his flank, she felt his pain break against her.

The Alpha continued. “I could not save her, and to this day could not tell you which one of the demons underground was my father.”

Claire did not want to let his history touch her, but it was so pathetic she could not help but feel pity.

“I was not the only man trapped in that dark by corruption above. Like my mother, more than half of the men forced below were innocent enough, but inconvenient to the powers that be. I learned secrets from them, things you cannot imagine… if you only knew the infection creeping through the hearts of this city, little one, if you could read the stories scraped into the rocks below us.”

Why was he telling her this? She began to struggle, and flinched when his finger inside her surged deeper, stretching her until she stilled.

“Open your eyes, little one.” The growl was menacing, guttural. “You will look at me when I say this.”

She did not want to look at him, felt invaded by that single, oversized finger, and the way he still teased at her tongue with his thumb. Jerking from the penetration, she met his gaze.

“These men, this rotten society—in your goodness, you fail to see the flaws. I could tell you things that would keep you awake at night. Everyone, man and woman, hanged outside the Citadel participated in, or knowingly ignored, atrocities. Like the imprisonment of my mother.

“And yes, years ago Svana became my lover, and I thought she was also, equivalently, my mate. I learned I was wrong. She is a driven woman, powerful, but you are the mate the Gods designed for me. Had you been dropped into the Undercroft, had I smelled you once, I would have killed every man who tried to touch you. I would have claimed you and dragged you to my cell, bent you over my cot, and fucked you where every convict might see through the bars… so that they all knew you belonged to me. Do you understand?”

There was no answer for such a barbaric statement.

Shepherd sniffed her, growled. With his finger still submerged in her ass, he worked his cock deep inside where she was wet and ready. She gave a little scream, muffled by his thumb as he began to rut. There was nothing tender, it was pure aggression, but it satisfied in a strange way. The overfull feeling, the way he left no place untouched as that uninvited digit squirmed around. She climaxed so quickly it was startling, felt his knot press against her quivering passage as he removed his finger from her rectum.

Claire screamed when her orgasm twisted into a tuneless vibration that wracked her bones.

When he shot his load against her womb, each spurt was matched with a roar. Head buried at her shoulder, lips at her neck, Shepherd pressed his chest to hers, to the place where they were tied. The cord sang, burned, ached, pleased, and consumed.

His thumb left her mouth, Shepherd pleased when he ground his knot inside her and his little one came again.

Crushed under him, his Omega moaned, lowered her lashes, and found sleep in the clinging arms of what may, had circumstances been different, been a good man.

“What do you mean she’s not here?” Corday demanded.

“I mean, Enforcer Corday”—Nona offered a tired sigh—“that she isn’t here. Claire slipped away days ago and has not returned.”

Behind narrowed eyes, Corday’s mind raced a mile a minute. The worry was making his stomach churn, and by the look in Nona’s eyes, it was clear she was just as upset, only concealing it better.

As if trying to offer the young man an explanation, Nona said, “I think she simply decided to go home.”

“To Shepherd?” he snapped, anger written all over his face. “Claire would never do that.”

“She had been low on spirits, Enforcer. What I am trying to tell you is that she most likely went home.”

“You are wrong,” Corday spat the words. He had spoken to Claire only three days prior. The Omega had given him her ring… she’d made a vow. “Did those women run her off?”