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During one claiming against the eastern wall, where morning light filtering through cracks creates patterns across our joined bodies, I notice his hands have gentled. What once held me with impersonal efficiency now traces deliberate patterns across my skin. His voice, which spoke only to command, occasionally offers observations about territory features visible through cave openings.

"The southern ridge catches first light," he mentions during a pause between thrusts, following my gaze toward distant peaks. "Good hunting there at dawn."

These conversational moments during claiming unsettle me more than the physical domination. They suggest complexity I wasn't prepared to acknowledge—the possibility that whatever this has become transcends simple ownership.

When he carries me outside for brief flights, the claiming suspended in mountain air feels different too. Less about demonstrating power, more about... sharing something. The way he adjusts our position so I can see specific landmarks, his explanations of territorial boundaries, the pride in his voice when describing features of his domain.

"Do all Primes claim like Chimerics?" I ask during one interval of clarity, unable to suppress my clinical curiosity.

"Each species evolved different methods," he explains, reclining beside me on the sleeping platform. His wing extends behind me in what I've learned to recognize as a protective gesture. "Felines use barbed anatomy. Nagas have dual organs that move independently. Dragons breathe fire during climax."

This casual catalog of alien reproduction should revolt me. Instead, my medical mind files the information for potential future use. Understanding Prime biology might prove valuable if I ever see the world beyond these cave walls again.

"Are there others nearby?" I press, seeking intelligence about potential threats or allies.

"Chimeric Dominators maintain exclusive territories," he says, yellow eyes narrowing slightly. "But Gargoyles patrol the western peaks. Felines control the eastern approaches."

The information gathering ends as heat rises again without warning. My skin flushes, wetness pools between my thighs, need builds like pressure behind a failing dam. My hand reaches for him before conscious thought catches up, fingers tracing scale patterns across his chest.

"Vex," I whisper, his name itself a surrender I once swore to resist.

His pupils contract as he scents my renewed heat. "I've got you," he says, the same words he's used since that first night. "Let go. I'll catch you."

Despite everything—the captivity, the claiming, the biological betrayal of mind by matter—I recognize truth in those words. He will catch me. Not from compassion or affection, but from alpha instinct and territorial responsibility.

In this moment, with heat consuming rational thought and his body offering the only relief biology will accept, I surrender to the cycle that binds us. My fingers dig into his shoulders, finding purchase between scales as I position myself above him, claiming what control I can in the only way available.

"Mine," he growls, the possessive word vibrating through his chest.

I don't correct him. Don't point out that dependency runs both directions—that his responsiveness to my heat creates its own form of binding, that his territory now includes me as a resource requiring protection and maintenance.

These are thoughts for later, weapons for a time when biology no longer holds me hostage.

For now, I take what my body needs from his, the joining efficient in its desperation. When his knot swells, locking us together, I allow myself to fall into temporary oblivion of release.

I am heat-bound, claimed in flesh if not in spirit. But beneath biological surrender, beneath adaptation to captivity, beneath even moments of unwilling pleasure, something essential remains intact.

I am Amelia Miller. Nurse. Survivor. Strategist.

The heat will pass. My body will stabilize. And when clarity lasts longer than twelve-hour intervals, I'll be ready to reclaim more than just temporary control during claiming.

I'll be ready to escape.

CHAPTER 8

THE CLAIMING MARK

Amelia's POV

By the third day, my heat transforms into something that transcends biology and enters the realm of evolutionary imperative. This isn't the manageable fever of previous cycles—this is primal fire that consumes conscious thought with the ruthless efficiency of a wildfire devouring everything in its path. My skin doesn't just feel hot; it radiates visible waves that shimmer in the cave's dim light. Muscles cramp with emptiness so profound it approaches agony. Moisture flows constantly between my thighs, my body preparing for claiming regardless of what remains of my rational mind.

The very air around me seems to thicken with pheromones so potent they create a visible haze. I can taste them on my tongue—metallic, desperate, omega in extremis calling for salvation only alpha intervention can provide.

Vex's response is immediate and visceral. Those predatory eyes narrow to slashes of molten gold, pupils contracting until they're almost invisible. The scales across his massive chest and shoulders darken from black to something deeper—a color that seems to swallow light rather than reflect it. When he movestoward me, it's with the single-minded focus of an apex predator who's caught the scent of wounded prey.

"Your final peak," he rumbles, voice dropped to registers that vibrate through my bones. "The true bonding comes now."

Something in his tone penetrates the heat fog clouding my thoughts. This isn't just another claiming. There's ritual significance here, permanence beyond the temporary relief of rut and heat.