His own great anger fell back behind an alarmingly placid expression. "Was it not your explanation that our love transcended the physical? My desire for a corporeal mate should mean nothing to you."
The woman circled Shepherd in the dark, calculating her next move. Something seemed to register and Svana's eyes grew warmly seductive; she licked her lower lip. "It is not too late should you wish to breed me. Think of the greatness of our combined power. The necessary drugs could be found and we could begin at once."
"Even as glorious as you are, the chances of an Alpha female conceiving with Alpha male sperm are very slim-carrying to term even more so." Placing his great hands on her shoulders, Shepherd outlined what was unchangeable. "Claire will bear my offspring and serve as my mate, and you will rule at my side once Thólos is in ruins and my army has delivered Greth Dome from those who usurped your family's claim to the throne."
"The Omega is unsuitable. A foul creature of this city is unworthy of such an honor!"
Shepherd hissed, agitated that she would further question him on the matter. "Claire was untouched, her body pure and receptive. I was her first. That is only one example of how Thólos has not tainted her."
Svana laughed, scoffing. "An Omega of her age … No, dearest, such a thing is not possible. You have been fooled."
"Through the bond she can hide nothing from me." Where the flawless cadence of the words came from, he did not know. Nor did he miss the tiny shift in Svana's expression when he said, "I have absolute faith in Claire's former celibacy and her current fidelity."
"Fidelity. I see … you question my behavior." Svana understood his deeper meaning. Composing her face into an expression of pain she asked, "Are you trying to hurt me?"
"No, beloved." Shepherd bowed his forehead to hers, working to calm the torrent of anger before it swept him away.
Her body softened against his, conformed to his strength, seeking to mollify. "If you wish to keep a pet then I expect that you will share her with me."
The concept turned his stomach, felt incredibly wrong. "I am certain, given your introduction, that she would be unwilling to mate with you if asked. It is impossible."
Svana's derisive snort preceded, "It would not take long for the Omega to learn her place … one which is below me. She may have fought my initial touch but you are her Alpha; her opinion matters little. She is nothing but a physical vessel for your needs."
"Initial touch?" It was like the spark of a forest fire, Corday's accusation, sex offender, wrecking Shepherd's last vestige of calm. It cost him a part of his soul to accuse, "You tried to touch her sexually and she resisted. That is why you struck her … "
Svana seemed unperturbed, shrugging. "She refused to spread so that I could taste … I merely wanted to confirm the scent of her pregnancy-which I did."
A surge of violence almost overwhelmed his control. He shook, felt the dagger of the link twist hideously in his chest. The female Alpha had dared to touch his mate inappropriately! Svana had hurt Claire simply for being defensive and sexually obedient to only him. Shepherd blinked, fighting not to reach out and break bone. "That is unacceptable, Svana! Beyond your needless attack of a weak and pregnant woman, such behavior is so very against your nature that I question if you have lost yourself. How would you even consider what you have done as appropriate?"
Her eyes narrowed, she showed her teeth. "You keep her to fuck her. What is yours has always been mine."
"I claimed her as a mate!" It was almost a roar but so soft it seemed strange that the windows shook with unseen force.
"And then unquestioningly fucked me right in front of her, proving she is nothing but a sorry replacement. Because I am the one you adore. The scrawny Omega is only a diversion you believe to be more important than she is because you foolishly pair-bonded in a moment of weakness." A purr came from Svana's chest. "I understand now that I have neglected you. The situation will be rectified and from now on I will see to your physical needs. There need be no animosity between us."
Shepherd blinked, jaw clenched as he looked down. His beloved had reached out to lower his zipper, her elegant fingers pulling out the flaccid length of Shepherd's cock. Svana began to stroke. It was the anger that sent his blood pumping and made him stiffen in her grasp, the fury that pulled forth the low animal growl as he latched onto sensation to escape the unbearable realization of what his beloved had done.
Rubbing her thumb in smooth circles over the tip of his cock, she cooed and leveled him with a hungry stare. Caught up in the grip, in the way Svana knew exactly how to earn a response, Shepherd tore at the fastenings of her pants, already rutting her hand in desperation to redirect so much wrongness into something right.
The apartment they were in was in shambles, the stained mattress he pressed her to as disgusting as the rotting chain in his chest. Gripping his staff in his fist, he met her eyes, lined up with the opening slit of Alpha pussy, and shoved in remorselessly hard.
The immediate sense of victory he saw in her shining eyes was appalling. Gripping her legs and turning his attention to look out the dark window over the city he'd conquered, he rammed hard and fast, just as he'd done on Claire's nest to save the Omega's life.
Just as before, Shepherd found less satisfaction in rutting a female who did not possess the smaller frame and the tighter cunt that would milk him when she came, that would draw out his essence until every last drop had been savored. There was no musical voice sighing his name as if it were the most beautiful sound in the world. Alpha females did not respond that way; they were built to mate with Omegas, to be dominant … they hardly even self-lubricated.
Shepherd felt no humming connection, no mental depth, just aggressive, angry sex … and it was eating at him. Svana was performing well, making her calls and trills, spreading wide to show the beauty of her body. It was not enough. His abject fury did not abate, it only distorted, it left him in ruins, and Shepherd began to feel the unsettling wrongness grow with every thrust.
He did the unthinkable and flipped Svana over, to mount his beloved from behind so he would no longer have to look at her. She gasped, tilted her hips at his strength, and seemed to relish the rough handling. To keep her head forward, Shepherd fisted her hair, immediately noticing the tactile wrongness of it. It was not silky black, but a coarser brown, and his growl led to no surge of wetness that bathed his cock and beautifully scented the air.
The woman he rode was not his mate.
Even with his eyes closed, even thinking of another, all he could see was Svana … altered, seemingly tainted by what she had done, by what he knew and could not forget. Once she came, tugging at her clitoris in little flicks of her fingers, Shepherd could not continue for another moment. Pulling out, he tucked away his already softening dick.
Spinning about, she gaped at him. "Dearest … everything will be as it was. Come, let me soothe you. I know what you need."
Already she was reaching for his zipper again, leaning forward from the bed to take him into her mouth.
Brushing her hand aside, he continued to right his clothing. "No, Svana." Shepherd felt an impure film on his skin, everywhere Svana's hands had crept over him unclean. "It was wrong for me to take you now. Your assessment was correct, we have surpassed physicality and I will not defile our bodies by attempting to mate with you again. Things have changed, we must both accept that."
Her voice cracked. "You cannot possibly prefer another to me." Svana stood before him, demanding he see reason. "Especially a woman who defies you; who prefers the pretty Beta downstairs."
Shepherd lowered his chin to his chest, the deep furrow between his brows sinister. "Claire is unenlightened and misunderstands my purpose. The very fact that she abhors what I've done to her people demonstrates her worth."
"I am the one who loves you," the beauty pleaded. "Do you not see that she hates you? Has run from you … The Omega could never love a marked man from the Undercroft. You disgust her."
The sharp sting of Shepherd's tattered bond concurred. "But she is still mine, carries my heir, and is under my protection." He grew, cracking bones as he postured. "You will not touch her again, Svana. Do you understand me?"
"You will come crying to me when everything you imprudently created falls apart." Svana nodded, staring forward as if she could see into the future. "And I love you so greatly that I will give you the comfort you do not deserve."
Shepherd could not tolerate another moment of such spite. After what he had heard earlier, the lie spilling from her lips, it was painfully obvious Svana had never intended to let him keep his due. She'd expected that he would cast off the Omega. Nothing he had done had satisfied her-and like the monster Claire believed him to be, he'd stood by and let Svana debase his mate … even willingly participated.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he heard Jules's words echo for what felt like the hundredth time: You allowed Svana to manipulate you into dishonoring your pregnant mate.