He scowled deeply.
Internally the Omega was a jangled mess, yet outside Claire remained placid, her face emotionless, and Shepherd greatly disliked it. He’d rather she cry and purge, than remain blank… reinforcing her misgivings. His mouthy, strong Omega was poisoning herself.
Shepherd called an end to their stroll. He swept her into his arms. She didn’t complain, she didn’t notice. Even marching her back into their room, where Claire was safe in a familiar place did not alter the flatness.
Food was brought; she didn’t want to eat.
He purred; she stared into space.
Where was his thank you? Where was his reward? She should have been content, praising him… humming! Why was she being difficult again?
Instead, the Omega began pacing like she used to, fretting and wringing her hands. And then she did something that pushed him beyond the pale. Claire lay down on the floor, nonverbally refusing their bed, frowning as her eyes traced the cracks in the ceiling.
The seething mountain had had enough. Standing over her, Shepherd ordered, “If you wish for rest, you will rest in our nest.” He then pulled off his shirt, holding it out so she might get up and place it accordingly, giving her one last chance to act on her own.
Claire waved a hand at him and made a snorting sound.
He nudged her with his toe, eyes narrowed, growl deep. “Get up.”
Claire shook her head and spread out further on the floor.
He’d drag her to the nest if he had to, break her of such behavior. Leaning down, preparing to tug her up, Shepherd put his face in her line of sight. “Get. Up.”
Claire planted her foot right on his chest and pressed him away, hissing, “Piss. Off.”
The male froze, eyes flared in furious disbelief she’d had the audacity to physically challenge him, to look at him with such eyes... to hum out of tune on her end of their bond even though he’d given her what she wanted.
A meaty fist wrapped around her ankle. Claire showed her teeth, and that was all it took to push the monster to react. She yipped when he yanked her leg, the Alpha falling upon her so fucking fast the Omega never stood a chance of escape. Twisting until he contained her, he toyed with his food. Allowing Claire to wiggle and slip, Shepherd made a mockery of her strength, so that she might find how utterly useless such resistance was.
Claire wrestled with every ounce of old anger. Grunting and hissing, freeing an arm only to lose its mobility a second later, kicking a leg that was pinned in a heartbeat. Hardly aware, her nose went to his neck. Out of nowhere she groaned lowly, the strange burning thing inside her growing more satisfied by the struggle. When he moved again, when the rippling bunching flesh shifted, Claire got her arm free and instead of clawing her way out, she found her fingertips running from the hollow of Shepherd’s throat down his defined torso, the Alpha arching immediately into her touch, his ribcage expanding in a great breath.
When Claire stretched just enough to mouth the mark she had made on his shoulder, Shepherd growled in absolutely violent bliss.
Nails raking harshly down the male’s hard stomach, she made an impatient squeak, her voice thick with frustration, and the one thing he always craved from her, need.
“Shepherd.” Arching up so her mouth rested against his ear, Claire’s voice thick and filthy, animalistic and dark, growled in a maddeningly filthy lure, “Help me.”
With a roar, one huge hand roughly rolled her under him face down upon the concrete, and yanked her body until her saturated sex was flush with the massive erection confined painfully in his pants.
Breathing hard under a vibrating mountain of muscle, Claire could hardly register the feeling of her skirt being tugged up, or the sound of a zipper breaking before a punishingly hard thrust filled her to the brim. Shepherd snaked his arm under her torso, gripped her by the front of the throat, and understanding dawned. His Omega felt weak from her loss of the war. She needed him to prove he was stronger—strong enough for both of them. That was their way... a relic from the Undercroft he’d taught her.
“Scream all you want. Fight me.” Shepherd licked his lips and eyed her jerking body each time he forcefully fucked into her slippery pussy. “You won’t win.” A thumb swiped over her pulsing carotid artery. “You want to be conquered by your mate. Constrained submission calms you when you rage—when you feel lost and confused.”
Compressed as she was, slippery and scented, Shepherd shoved in hard when she snarled, relishing the ooze of more Omega fluid and the wet music he created over the sounds of her purging anger. He began to describe the tight feeling of her cunt, how it was his to satisfy, how he would fill her and she would relish every last drop of his come, even if she fought—because he knew what she needed, and as her mate, he would give it to her.