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At one point, he repositions me until my back presses against his chest, changing the angle of penetration to reach different places that draw gasps from lips raw with screaming. The sucker, impossibly flexible, curves around to find my oversensitized flesh again, attaching with familiar insistence that promises no escape from sensation.

This position leaves me facing outward, nothing but empty air and distant mountains before me. The vulnerability feels absolute—my body completely open to elements, to his claiming, to the vast emptiness of sky. I have no leverage, no control, nothing but his arm across my torso keeping me secure against him.

"Look," he commands, directing my gaze toward the horizon where dawn begins lightening the eastern sky. "This is my territory. My domain. And now, you are part of it."

The claiming continues as sunlight pierces clouds, turning the world golden. My heat-drunk body responds to each new position, each wing adjustment that changes angles and depth. Adrenaline merges with arousal to create responses I can't control, conscious mind eventually surrendering to pure sensation.

I'm dimly aware of time passing, of changing light, of his seed dripping down my thighs during brief moments he withdraws before claiming me again. My throat feels raw from cries I don't remember making, my body trembling from the constant shifts between crushing G-forces and weightless spirals that never let my heat find equilibrium.

By the time the sun has fully risen, I've lost count of the orgasms he's wrung from my unwilling flesh, of the times he's knotted me thousands of feet above earth, of the positions and aerial maneuvers in which he's claimed me against the backdrop of his domain. My mind fragments, seeking refuge in disconnection between peaks of forced pleasure.

When he finally returns us to the cave, my body bears the evidence of his claiming—the shallow bite at my neck that signals possession, the scent of his seed embedded in every pore, the lingering fullness from hours of being filled and refilled. I'm marked inside and out, though not as permanently as traditional claiming would demand.

My legs collapse when he sets me down. I slide against stone wall, body trembling with exhaustion and lingering aftershocks. The aerial claiming has accomplished what ground claiming could not—temporarily exhausted even my strongest defenses.

"Flight claiming creates deeper bonds than ground claiming," he observes, watching me with those inhuman eyes. "Your heat symptoms should remain quiet longer."

He's correct. The burning fever has subsided, replaced by unfamiliar sensation of completion rather than emptiness. My heat hasn't ended, but it's entered a different phase—initial desperate need replaced by something more insidious. My body now recognizes his specific scent, his unique claiming pattern, his particular anatomy as the solution to biological crisis that threatened to consume me.

As he carries me back through winding passages to his den, I catalog the changes with what clarity remains: elevated endorphin levels creating floating sensation distinct from normal recovery, altered pheromone production signaling successful flight bonding, temporary heat symptom reduction more complete than after ground claiming.

The shallow bite at my neck pulses with each heartbeat, a reminder of what's been taken, what I've surrendered to survive. But beneath the claiming, beneath biological surrender, beneath even the pleasure still rippling through exhausted flesh, something remains untouched.

I've survived the second phase. But survival and surrender aren't identical. My body may bear his shallow mark, mayrespond to his claiming, may even seek his touch during the heat that still grips me. But my mind remains mine—calculating, observing, waiting.

I am Amelia Miller. I am not just an omega. And I am not finished fighting.

Even if that fight must now be waged from within the claiming I couldn't escape.

CHAPTER 7

HEAT-BOUND

Amelia's POV

Time fractures into fragments defined by the rhythm of my treacherous biology rather than the passage of sun and shadow. Heat rises like fever. Claiming follows like thunder after lightning. Brief clarity emerges like survivor's guilt. Then the cycle begins again, an endless spiral of surrender and resistance played out in the cathedral of my own flesh.

I learn to read the subtle signs of approaching heat—the way sounds grow sharper, how my skin becomes hypersensitive to texture, the metallic taste that coats my tongue like blood. These early warnings give me perhaps twenty minutes of preparation before rational thought dissolves into pure need.

Vex claims me in configurations that redefine my understanding of what bodies can endure. Against the cave wall where cold stone bites into my shoulder blades while his furnace-hot body burns against my front, creating temperature contrasts that make every nerve ending scream. On the sleeping furs where softness beneath me emphasizes the unforgiving hardness of scales and muscle above. Sometimes he carries me to natural shelves of rock where the echo of our joining bouncesback from stone walls, amplifying every sound until I can't escape the evidence of my body's surrender.

Each location teaches me something new about helplessness. About adaptation. About the ways omega biology can be manipulated by environment and position.

The shallow bite at my throat has healed to a silvery mark that tingles whenever he draws near—not the deep claiming scar that would brand me permanently, but enough to trigger hormonal responses I can't control. Sometimes I catch myself touching it, fingers tracing the raised skin like a talisman against the chaos consuming my life.

What surprises me most are the intervals between heat waves—windows of clarity where my body allows my mind to function with something approaching normalcy. These moments feel dangerous precisely because they blur the lines I've tried to maintain. Conversations that could trick me into forgetting he's my captor. Exchanges of information that feel almost... collegial.

During one such respite, I sit across from him at a table carved from living rock, mechanically eating dried meat and fruit while my body recovers from the latest claiming. The taste of salt and sweetness feels foreign after hours of tasting only my own desperation. My legs still tremble from exertion, inner thighs sticky with evidence of what I've become.

Scientific curiosity wins over wounded pride. "How does it work?" I ask, nodding toward his anatomy. "The dual system. My medical training never covered anything like it."

Vex looks up from the blade he's been sharpening—a wicked curve of metal that could open arteries with surgical precision. Something shifts in his expression, predatory focus giving way to what might be called academic interest.

"Chimeric reproduction evolved for efficiency," he explains, setting the weapon aside. "Primary organ for breeding,secondary for pleasure enhancement. Natural selection favored the combination."

He demonstrates with a casual gesture that sends heat flooding my cheeks despite everything we've done together. The memory of that secondary organ's relentless attention during our aerial claiming burns too bright, too recent.

"Studies showed that omegas experiencing maximum pleasure during claiming produced stronger offspring," he continues, watching my reaction with those unsettling yellow eyes. "Evolution cares nothing for dignity—only results."