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My gaze shifts to the section of Shadowthorn where containment chamber three holds its unwilling occupant. Even from this distance, my enhanced senses detect the subtle change in scent profile emanating from that direction—omega heat fully manifesting despite suppressants, pheromones so potent they penetrate even specialized containment barriers.

The fortress walls wouldn't hold back dragon scouts if her scent reached its peak. Her distress was a beacon. But it was more than that. Some primitive part of me recognized her scent as something unique, something worth protecting—not just from dragons, but from any alpha who might claim her. The thought is troubling in its intensity.

Dragon forces testing boundaries. An omega with unusual settlement knowledge and dragon preference. Territorial reassignment creating potential for conflict.

The facility transfer authorization on my desk suddenly seems like the simplest of my problems. But first, Aria Copenhagen must survive her heat cycle—something that appears increasingly complicated as both her biology and external threats accelerate beyond expectation.

My tail lashes once, decision made. I will personally oversee the omega's security until her cycle completes and transfer proceeds. Not out of any particular interest in her fate, I tell myself, but because the potential connection to dragonincursions makes her a security priority beyond standard protocol.

At least, that's what I'll document in the official report. It sounds more acceptable than admitting her scent calls to something primal in me that I've spent decades suppressing. Or that her obvious disgust at my appearance has lodged like a thorn under my skin, irritating me more than it reasonably should.

Either way, I have three days of omega heat cycle to manage before the situation resolves itself through facility transfer. Three days to maintain control while biology and politics create a volatile combination that threatens everything from territorial stability to my own carefully constructed indifference.

Three days to prove to myself that one omega's opinion of me matters far less than I fear it might.

CHAPTER 5

BREAKING

Aria POV

Three days in hell.

That's what this heat-proof chamber has become—a personal inferno where time stretches like heated metal, bending and warping until minutes feel like hours and hours like days. The windowless stone walls press in around me, the temperature regulation system a cruel joke against the fire burning beneath my skin.

I writhe on the narrow sleeping pallet, another wave of heat crashing through me with such intensity that I arch off the bed, a keening sound escaping my throat that I barely recognize as my own. My body twists in desperate search for relief, for touch, for anything to quell the relentless throbbing emptiness between my thighs.

"Alpha," I whimper, the word torn from me against my will. "Please, alpha."

No one answers. No one has answered for three days.

The medical staff promised the suppressants would help. They lied. Or maybe they didn't understand what a first heat at twenty-three years old truly means—biology making up for losttime with merciless intensity, my omega system flooding with hormones at levels meant to ensure immediate submission to the nearest alpha. Meant to break me.

It's working.

The lightweight shift they provided is soaked through with sweat and slick, the fabric clinging to my fevered skin like a mocking caress. My nipples have been hard for so long they're painful, so sensitive that even the brush of fabric makes me sob. I've torn the bedding beneath me to shreds, my fingers clawing at it during particularly intense waves, soaking through layer after layer of absorbent material as slick gushes constantly from my empty, aching channel.

The scent of my need fills the chamber, sweet and thick enough to choke on. I can smell myself—the rich, honeyed smell of omega in heat, designed by evolution to drive alphas to claiming frenzy. In this sealed room, the scent has nowhere to go, creating a feedback loop that intensifies my symptoms with every breath.

"Please," I beg the empty air, knowing the audio monitoring will capture my desperation. "I need... I need..."

I can't even finish the sentence, shame warring with biological imperative. What I need is to be filled, stretched, claimed, knotted. The words feel foreign in my mind, concepts I understood academically but never expected to experience with such devastating intensity.

My thighs rub together, seeking friction against my swollen, aching center. Another gush of slick escapes me, the emptiness clenching so hard it brings tears to my eyes. I've tried everything—my fingers, the edge of furniture, rubbing against the bedding—nothing helps. Each attempt only intensifies the need, my body recognizing the substitute for what it is and punishing me with redoubled desperation.

I need an alpha's knot. Nothing else will satisfy the ravenous void that's consumed my identity, reducing me to a creature of pure need and biological drive.

A sob tears from my throat as I curl into a fetal position, only to straighten immediately as the position creates unbearable pressure on my sensitive breasts. I flip onto my stomach, then back again, unable to find comfort in any position. My hands move between my legs of their own accord, fingers sliding through obscene wetness to find my entrance, to try once more to fill the emptiness that's driving me to madness.

It's useless. Two fingers, then three, provide momentary relief before my body recognizes the deception. The clenching emptiness intensifies, my channel desperate for the stretch and fullness only an alpha can provide. For the knot that will lock inside me, sealing his seed deep where biology demands it go.

The thought no longer horrifies me as it should. Three days of heat have stripped away layers of pride and personhood, revealing the omega biology beneath—a creature designed to be claimed, to be bred, to be filled with alpha seed. The part of me that once dreamed specifically of dragon claiming has been subsumed by more primitive need. At this point, any alpha would do.

No. Not any alpha.

With the last scrap of my rational mind, I remember Commander Clawe's cold golden eyes, the predatory grace of his towering form, the way his scent had called to something primal inside me even as I recoiled from his monstrous appearance. My body reacts to the memory, another flood of slick soaking the already ruined bedding beneath me.

The raw need terrifies me. How can I crave someone I despise? Someone who represents everything I've spent years avoiding? But the omega biology doesn't care about politics or preference. It recognizes alpha power, alpha dominance, alphaseed—and Commander Clawe radiates all three with terrifying intensity.