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The clinical way he discusses breeding makes my stomach clench, but my trained mind catalogs the information anyway. Understanding his biology might reveal weaknesses I can exploit later.

"And the flight claiming?" I press, gathering intelligence while clarity lasts. "Pure dominance display or something more?"

A sound rumbles through his chest—not quite laughter but close. "Chimeric innovation. Aerial vulnerability creates bonding impossible to achieve on the ground."

His wings shift restlessly against his back, scales catching phosphorescent light from the cave's natural formations. "Altitude, adrenaline, absolute dependency—all trigger deeper omega submission responses. The fear becomes part of the pleasure."

I file away his casual admission that fear enhances the experience. Knowledge like this might matter someday.

To my surprise, he retrieves something from a storage alcove—a map drawn on treated hide with startling detail. Territory boundaries marked in red ink, water sources noted with careful precision, seasonal migration routes traced in fading brown. The cartography speaks to intelligence I wasn't prepared to acknowledge.

"The Convergence Peaks," he says, spreading the hide across the table. One claw traces ridgelines I glimpsed during our flight. "My domain extends from the Sentinel Peaks north to the Frost Valley drainage south."

His methodical documentation of terrain, weather patterns, and resource locations creates uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. This isn't the mindless monster of resistance propaganda but a strategic thinker who understands his environment with scientific precision.

"Two hundred square miles," I observe, eyes automatically tracking potential escape routes. The southern boundary looks less defined, terrain more favorable for human movement.

"Territory claimed and held for eight years," he corrects. "The mountains don't care about paper boundaries—only strength and persistence."

This philosophical bent catches me off-guard. I lean closer to study symbols marking what might be water sources or shelter, memorizing details for later use.

"These markings here?—"

The question dies as heat rises through my system like flash flood through a dry canyon. No warning. No gradual build. One moment I'm thinking clearly, the next my skin blazes with renewed fever and moisture pools between my thighs with humiliating swiftness.

The scent change is immediate. Vex's pupils contract to blade-thin slits, nostrils flaring as he detects my renewed availability. The cartographer disappears, replaced by the predator who sees only one thing when omega heat fills the air.

"Vex," I gasp, fingers clawing at the table edge as cramps twist through my core. My body's betrayal feels fresh each time—the speed with which rational thought abandons me to biological imperative. "I need?—"

"I know what you need," he says, rising with fluid grace that speaks to coiled power barely contained. His skin already darkens with arousal, scales shifting color in response to my distress.

This claiming begins differently. Instead of immediate penetration, he maps my body with deliberate slowness, scaled hands learning which touches draw the strongest responses. He discovers that the hollow of my throat is exquisitely sensitive, that pressure at the base of my skull makes me arch against him, that tracing the curve of my hip bone creates tremors I can't suppress.

"Ask me," he commands when I'm writhing beneath his touch, when need has burned away everything except desperation for completion.

"Please," I whisper, the word scraped raw from my throat. "Fill me. I can't—I need?—"

When he enters me this time, the relief borders on religious experience. My body, now adapted to his impossible dimensions, welcomes him with eager contractions. The ridged surface of his cock creates friction against walls made hypersensitive by heat, each textured ring dragging across nerve clusters that send electricity through my core.

The sucker finds my clit with practiced precision, attaching with that alien suction that transforms resistance into surrender. Gentle at first, then increasingly insistent, matching the rhythm of his thrusts with mechanical precision that speaks to evolutionary perfection in omega manipulation.

I try to maintain some separation between mind and body, to observe rather than experience. But heat strips away such luxuries, leaving only sensation and the desperate relief of alpha presence during omega crisis.

His tempo builds with methodical intensity, each stroke reaching deeper, each ridge creating friction that fragmentsthought into pure feeling. When his knot begins to swell, the pressure stretches me beyond what seems possible, yet my body accepts it with programmed efficiency.

"Taking my knot so perfectly," he growls, voice rough with his own pleasure. "Made for this. Made for me."

The biological lock triggers something at cellular level—rhythmic pulses designed to draw his seed deeper, internal muscles working with humiliating efficiency to ensure breeding success. When his release floods me, the volume overwhelms, distending my abdomen as heat-receptive tissue accepts what feels like an impossible amount.

Locked together by biology, we wait. The intimacy of knotting creates vulnerability different from aerial claiming—less terrifying but somehow more complete. Bound by flesh and instinct, neither of us can escape until his anatomy allows withdrawal.

In these moments, the boundaries blur. Captive and captor become simply omega and alpha, need and fulfillment, emptiness made whole.

When awareness returns, I find myself curled against his chest, one wing draped over me like a living blanket. The position should feel like further confinement. Instead, warmth and weight provide comfort against the cave's persistent chill. My body, temporarily satisfied, allows rational thought to resurface from the biological tide.

Days pass this way—or what I assume are days. The cave's eternal twilight makes time meaningless except for the biological clock that drives my cycles. Heat builds. Claiming follows. Brief respite. Repeat.

But subtle changes accumulate like sediment. The frequency of heat waves begins to stabilize, my battered endocrine system slowly finding new equilibrium. The intensity remains overwhelming, but duration becomes more predictable—roughly six hours of mounting need, two hours of claiming, twelve hours of clarity before the cycle begins again.