Chapter 4Corday looked over the newly freed Omegas, silently observing as they assembled a living space from piles of garbage. The mid-level Incineration Plant no longer created compost for the farm levels—not since citizens had taken to dumping their garbage in the streets. Now rotting mounds of muck protected an enclave of frightened women. Every breath stank of putrid food, mold, and things better left undescribed.
One thing it did not smell like was the young Omega still writhing through estrous, the girl moaning and begging for relief.
Corday was admittedly not an expert on Omega heat cycles, but whatever had been done to her, her sobbing response could not have been normal.
He kept his distance. The other Omegas also gave her a respectful berth, the group huddled together for warmth, gnawing on the rations he had provided.
An old woman, Nona, had come knocking on his door. It was Claire, she said, who'd directed her to find him. It was Claire who'd promised the resistance would feed and supply the freed Omegas.
It was the name Claire that made him come running.
He'd taken supplies without the permission of his commander. Brigadier Dane was going to kill him, and he was going to tell her straight to her face to go fuck herself. He was not going to let Claire down.
When he'd arrived the previous night, the Omegas had been… hostile. They were filthy, reeking just as badly as the garbage heap they'd chosen to shelter in.
Nona had warned him the women were dangerous, that they were armed and might shoot any male on sight. She had even warned him not to follow her back once she'd procured supplies.
Corday was having none of it. He needed to see Claire.
But Claire was not there. Even hours after the women had settled in, their liberator failed to show her face. The night dragged on, morning came, afternoon, Corday stiff from leaning against a slimy wall.
Had Claire been captured? Had the tyrant killed her?
Nona gently told him that Claire's plan required her to arrive from a different path; that the woman most likely was waiting for dark before she moved; that she had always been overly cautious when away from the safety of the group.
Corday scoffed. The Claire he knew was reckless. She was also badly hurt.
Over and over, Nona reminded him that if Claire had been taken, Shepherd's men would have already come for them.
Claire O'Donnell was out there.
And so he waited past the point of exhaustion, exasperation, and flat out fear. Evening fell. At first Corday thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. A two-headed hunchbacked beast staggered down the plant's dark garbage chute. Milky eyes stared right through him; they never blinked—just as the mouth beneath those dead eyes gaped in a fixed expression of hopelessness.
It was the face of a corpse.
Hidden beneath it sat a much dearer countenance, the struggling woman's eyes half-covered by a curtain of black tangles.
"Claire!"
Corday rushed towards the Omega and her burden, unraveling the frozen limbs of a cadaver unwilling to release its host.
Claire did not seem happy to see him. In fact, she didn't seem herself at all. "I found that boy alone in an alley, Corday… forgotten."
Once the dead child lay safely upon the ground, Corday pulled her against his chest. Warmth of his cheek against hers, stubble scratching, he breathed, "Nona came for me. I know what you did."
After the atrocities Claire had seen in the city, the attack on the Undercroft… facing Shepherd, seemed to have happened in another life. "The city's become a horrible place. I saw things… What's happening to us?"
Existential talk on the human condition could happen later. Tugging her towards the Omegas' fire, Corday urged, "You're freezing, Claire. Sit."
Nona ran over at first sight of her friend, the older woman throwing herself around her. "Your mother would be proud. You know that, my girl?"
Claire didn't want accolades, she just wanted to collapse.
There was no shyness, Corday ignored the watching women and tugged Claire down to rest between his thighs. Arms and legs wrapped around the girl's shivering frame, he put his chest to her back and purred.
The Omegas were openly confused by the state of their hero. Where was the confident deliverer who'd faced down an army? Why was she letting a Beta male hold her in an intimate embrace?
Why wasn't she speaking?
Nona smoothed the hair off Claire's forehead, watched her young friend close her eyes, and waited until Claire's breath became steady in sleep. Only then did she sniff.
Cautious not to wake her friend, Nona mouthed the words, "She smells pregnant."
Corday nodded and whispered, "She is."
It should not have been possible—not when Claire's last cycle had come the day she'd entered the Citadel.
Pressing her thin-lipped mouth in a frown, Nona's heart broke. "Shepherd has done this to Claire. This is…."