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Commander first, alpha second. Always. Even as her taste lingers on my tongue, hours after our joined bodies separated.

CHAPTER 7

AFTERMATH

Aria POV

For three days,I've been reduced to nothing but biology and need.

Three days of Commander Clawe entering my heat chamber with cold efficiency, claiming me with mechanical precision, then leaving without a word once his knot subsides. Three days of my body reshaping itself to accommodate his inhuman anatomy while my mind maintains desperate, futile resistance.

I lie curled on my side, sweat-dampened sheets twisted around my legs as another wave of heat builds in my core. The intensity has lessened since those first desperate days, but the need remains—a constant, gnawing emptiness that nothing but alpha completion can satisfy.

What terrifies me isn't the lingering heat symptoms. It's how my body has begun responding to them. The barbs that initially felt like torture now create shameful pleasure with each drag against my inner walls. His impossible size that once seemed like it would tear me apart now stretches me to burning fullness that sends stars bursting behind my eyelids. The knot that I foughtagainst now triggers cascades of pleasure when it locks inside me.

My channel has reshaped itself to accommodate his specific dimensions, like my body is being rewritten to accept his claiming whether my mind consents or not.

Worse still are the new, unconscious behaviors I've begun developing—producing slick at his approach before he even touches me, arching instinctively into positions that give him deeper access, inner muscles clenching to draw him further inside. Yesterday, I caught myself spreading my thighs and tilting my neck in submissive display the moment I scented him outside the chamber door.

Between claimings, Commander Clawe maintains absolute detachment—providing water and nutrition but no conversation, no comfort, nothing to suggest connection beyond basic life support. The contrast between intimate physical joining and emotional isolation creates cognitive dissonance I have no framework to process.

The chamber door slides open with its now-familiar hydraulic hiss. I don't need to look to know who stands there—his scent reaches me first, musky and sharp with hints of leather and wilderness that my traitorous body has begun associating with relief rather than danger.

"Your heat should break today," Fritz observes, his deep voice sending unwanted shivers down my spine. "This'll be the last claiming you need."

Relief wars with strange disappointment at his pronouncement. I hate these claimings, hate how they've forced me to recognize depths of submission within myself I never wanted to acknowledge. Yet the thought of them ending brings complicated emotions I refuse to examine.

"And then to the breeding facility?" I ask, unable to keep bitterness from my voice as I turn to face him. "To be processed like livestock for your Confederacy's programs?"

Something flashes across his expression, too quickly to identify. "That was the initial plan."

My stomach drops at his phrasing. "Was?"

"The scout reports confirm dragon forces continue testing our borders," he explains, moving into the chamber with predatory grace that still makes my heart rate accelerate despite everything. "Three incursions in the past twenty-four hours, all following omega scent patterns."

I swallow hard, processing this information. "So... what happens to me?"

"Can't risk moving you through disputed territory," Fritz says, approaching the pallet with measured steps. "Too dangerous with dragons sniffing around."

"So I'm still your prisoner, just in a different cell," I conclude, wrapping arms around myself in futile attempt at dignity. "How convenient for you."

His tail lashes once behind him, the only indication my words affect him at all. "You'll stay at Shadowthorn as my claimed omega until things settle down," his tail lashes once behind him, the only indication my words affect him at all. "Until I can move you safely."

The pronouncement lands like physical blow. Not the clinical efficiency of breeding facility, but continued captivity under his direct control, wearing his scent, subjected to his will.

"And what exactly does 'claimed omega' entail?" I demand, anger providing temporary shield against mounting heat symptoms that pulse through me with increasing intensity. "Will I be confined to this cell forever? Brought out only when biology demands it?"

"You'll help with trading between the fortress and Blackridge," he replies, golden eyes studying me with unnerving intensity. "You'll have quarters near command level."

The unexpected offer of relative freedom catches me off guard. I'd prepared for continued imprisonment, for treatment as breeding stock rather than person.

"Why?" I ask suspiciously. "Why not just ship me off or keep me confined?"

"Your knowledge of local terrain and settlement politics represents tactical asset," Fritz answers, coming to stand at the foot of the pallet. "Wasting it would be inefficient."

Always tactical. Always about strategy and boundaries and military advantage. Never about connection or anything resembling normal human interaction. The clinical detachment should be reassuring—far better than forced intimacy or false affection. Instead, it creates hollow ache I refuse to acknowledge.

Another wave of heat ripples through me, stronger than the last. I curl forward, arms wrapped around my middle as the familiar cramping emptiness intensifies. I'd thought the worst had passed, but clearly one final surge awaits before my cycle completes.