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When temperatures drop in the mountain evenings, I catch myself drifting toward his higher body heat during outdoor strategy sessions. The warmth that radiates from him—severaldegrees above human normal—pulls me like a magnet, my body seeking comfort from the very source I once rejected.

Most alarming is my response to his scent. Where I once found the musky, predatory notes repulsive, my brain now categorizes them as safety. Security. Protection. When the wind shifts during border inspections, carrying his distinctive alpha smell, my tension visibly eases—a reaction I can't seem to control no matter how hard I try.

"The settlement's grain storage isn't good enough for winter," I point out during one such inspection, deliberately focusing on practical matters rather than my body's betrayal. "Another early frost like last year's would create food shortages by midwinter."

Fritz surveys the wooden structures clustered against the settlement's northern wall. "The fortress has stone storage chambers we haven't used since the territorial reassignment. Properly sealed, they would protect against temperature changes."

I turn to him in surprise. "You'd share fortress resources with the settlement? That's... unusual for Primes."

His tail lashes once—annoyed, though whether at the generalization or the implication that he's doing something special, I can't tell. "Practical leadership means sustainable resources. Starving settlements create unnecessary problems."

"Practical leadership," I repeat, comparing the concept against what I know of other territories. "Is that what they taught you at the Feline Military Academy?"

The question slips out more sarcastic than intended. To my surprise, Fritz doesn't bristle. Instead, his expression shifts to something almost resembling humor—a slight relaxation around his golden eyes, a subtle quirk of his mouth showing the tip of one long canine.

"They taught conquest without thinking about aftermath," he answers with unexpected honesty. "I learned sustainability through eighteen years of border conflicts and civilian management. The hard way."

The admission creates a strange weight in my chest. He's sharing experience, not just giving orders. The revelation of his learning process—the acknowledgment that he grew and adapted rather than just knowing everything instinctively—makes him seem more... real. The line between monster and man grows increasingly blurry.

Late evening wraps the map room in amber shadows, the flickering braziers casting dancing light across the walls. Fritz's presence fills the space, making the chamber feel smaller, more intimate with each passing hour. My skin prickles with awareness, the air between us charged with something I can't name but feel in every breath.

"If we reroute the northern deliveries through this valley," I murmur, leaning over the worn parchment. The map smells of age and smoke, its creases telling stories of countless strategy discussions before ours. My finger traces the proposed path, the ridge lines like veins beneath my touch. "We avoid the worst of the early snowfalls and the rockslide zones."

Fritz moves closer, his massive form radiating heat that washes over my skin. His shadow falls across me, not threatening as it once would have been, but somehow sheltering. My pulse quickens traitorously.

"The terrain is steeper." His voice rumbles from deep in his chest, the sound vibrating through the small space between us. I catch the faint scent of pine and leather that clings to his skin,mixed with that distinctive musk that's uniquelyhim. "Your human transporters would struggle with the grade."

"Not with the draft horses from the eastern settlement." I look up, finding his golden eyes much closer than expected. The vertical pupils widen slightly in the low light, focusing on me with an intensity that steals my breath. "They're bred for mountain work."

We both reach for the eastern settlement on the map at the same time. Our fingers collide—and gods help me—lightning races up my arm. His skin is fever-warm against mine, the brief contact sending waves of sensation through my body that pool low in my belly. A gasp escapes before I can stop it.

Fritz goes completely still. His tail, usually in constant subtle motion, freezes mid-sweep. In the sudden silence, I can hear the steady rhythm of his breathing change—quickening just enough to tell me I'm not alone in this reaction. His nostrils flare, drinking in the sudden change in my scent that I can feel burning through my veins but can't smell myself.

My claiming mark pulses at my throat, a phantom echo of his teeth against my skin. Not the biological drive of heat, but something wilder, more dangerous. Somethingchosen.

We pull back simultaneously, the space between us suddenly vast and not nearly enough all at once.

"The eastern settlement has suffered heavy dragon raids." Fritz's voice is carefully controlled, but I catch the slightest roughness around the edges, like velvet over stone. His claws extend and retract once—a tell I've learned means he's fighting for composure. "Their horse population may be depleted."

My mouth is dry, my heartbeat a frantic drumming in my ears. "Then we should send observers to check their available resources before finalizing the route." The words come out steadier than they have any right to be, given the chaos inside me.

The silence that follows feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, both of us teetering on the brink of something we dare not name.

"You'll lead the assessment team," he finally says, and though his words sound like pure military command, his eyes tell a different story. Something molten flickers in those golden depths—something hungry and fierce that has nothing to do with conquest and everything to do with desire.

"Commander." I incline my head, using his title as a shield against the vulnerability spreading through my chest like wildfire.

As I turn to leave, his scent surrounds me one last time—not just the alpha musk that once repelled me, but notes I now recognize: sandalwood from the soap he uses, leather from his armor, pine from the forest patrols, and beneath it all, something uniquely Fritz. A scent that my treacherous body now recognizes ashome.

I feel his gaze following me as I cross the chamber, heavy and heated on my skin like a physical touch. When I chance a final glance back, what I see steals the breath from my lungs—Fritz watching me with naked longing, stripped of commander's authority or alpha's dominance. Just a being whose connection to me has somehow grown beyond the claiming bite at my throat.

My fingers rise unconsciously to touch the mark, and his eyes track the movement. Something passes between us, unspoken but deafening in its intensity.

This thing growing between us terrifies me more than his fangs or claws ever did. I feared the monster, prepared myself to endure the beast. I never prepared for the way his mind challenges mine, the respect in his eyes when I offer solutions he hadn't considered, the careful way he says my name when no one else is listening.

I never prepared for wanting.

Each step down the winding fortress stairs takes me physically away from him, yet somehow pulls me closer to a truth I'm not ready to face. The claiming mark at my throat throbs in time with my racing heart, no longer a brand of ownership but a connection to the alpha whose complexity continues to unravel everything I thought I knew.