Page 14

ISLA'S POV

By the third day,my heat consumes me.

I wake drenched in sweat, my skin burning from within. The luminescent patterns beneath my skin pulse with blue fire, tracing every major vein and artery like a road map of my surrender. Between my thighs, slick pools on the recovery platform, my body producing it in quantities that seem impossible, preparing for a claiming my mind still fights.

My fingers dig into the platform as another wave of need crashes through me. This isn't like the building heat of the past two days—this is something primal and overwhelming, a biological imperative that drowns rational thought beneath its tide. My inner walls clench around emptiness with painful intensity, demanding fullness, completion, breeding.

"No," I whisper, pressing my thighs together as if that could contain the flood of arousal. "I am not this. I am Isla Morgan. I am the ghost smuggler. I am?—"

The door opens, and Neros' scent hits me like a physical blow. Salt and ocean depths and alpha pheromones so potent they make my vision blur. My body responds instantly,back arching, thighs spreading, presenting without conscious command. A whimper escapes my throat—a sound I've never made before, high and needy and desperate.

"The peak phase has begun," Neros says, his voice deeper than before, roughened by his own biological response to my condition. His skin has darkened to near-black, bioluminescent patterns pulsing with answering rhythm to my own. His golden eyes have gone almost completely vertical-pupiled, fixed on me with predatory intensity.

I try to speak, to protest, to maintain some shred of the defiance that has defined me for a decade. Instead, another whimper escapes, my hips lifting in unmistakable invitation.

"Please," I hear myself beg, the word tearing from somewhere primal and unknown. "Please, I can't—I need?—"

"Tell me what you need," Neros demands, moving closer but not touching me, forcing me to articulate my surrender.

Tears of humiliation burn behind my eyes. "You know what I need."

"Say it," he growls, his form shifting as more tentacles emerge, writhing with anticipation. "Claim what your body demands."

"I need..." The words stick in my throat, the last barrier between the smuggler I was and the omega I'm becoming. "I need you to fuck me. To fill me. To make it stop hurting."

His smile is triumphant but not cruel. "No restraints today. No claiming chamber. Show me you understand your purpose."

The demand is clear—active participation rather than passive acceptance. Some distant part of me, the part that commanded a smuggling vessel and defied the Oceanic Sovereignty for years, screams in protest. But that voice grows fainter with each wave of heat washing through my system.

I rise from the platform on trembling legs, slick running down my thighs in rivulets that glow faintly blue where hisprevious seed has mingled with my arousal. Three steps bring me to him, my body moving with purpose my mind still rejects.

"Good," he murmurs as I reach for him, my hands trailing across the muscled expanse of his chest, tracing the patterns that pulse beneath his skin in rhythm with my own. "Your body knows the truth your mind still denies."

His tentacles wrap around me, not restraining but supporting, caressing. They slide across my heated skin with cool deliberation, finding every sensitive spot with unerring accuracy. One circles my waist, another trails up my spine, while two more wrap gently around my thighs, spreading them wider.

"You're learning," he says as I arch into the touch rather than pulling away. "Accepting what you are."

"I'm not accepting anything," I manage, even as my head falls back, exposing my throat in unconscious submission. "My body is betraying me. This isn't me."

"Isn't it?" A tentacle slides between my breasts, the suction cups creating exquisite friction against my nipples. "If not you, then who responds so eagerly to my touch? Who produces such abundant slick at my scent? Who arches for deeper contact even now?"

To my horror, he's right. My hips roll against him seeking friction, my body performing a mating dance I never consciously learned. His tentacles explore me with methodical thoroughness, sliding across every inch of exposed skin. When one traces the seam of my ass, then slips lower to slide through the slick coating my sex, I cry out, my knees buckling.

His arms catch me, holding me upright as that tentacle continues its intimate exploration, circling my entrance without penetrating, gathering my arousal and spreading it further. Another tentacle finds my clit, applying precise pressure that sends electricity arcing through my nervous system.

"Oh god," I gasp, clutching at his shoulders for support as pleasure builds with terrifying intensity. "What are you doing to me?"

"Proving a point," Neros replies, his voice vibrating through the water surrounding us. "You believe this is merely your body's betrayal. I intend to demonstrate otherwise."

Two tentacles wrap around my breasts, the suction cups attaching to my nipples with gentle but insistent pressure. The sensation is overwhelming—not pain but intense pleasure that connects directly to my core. Meanwhile, the tentacle between my legs continues its maddening circles, never quite giving me what I need.

"Please," I whimper, my hips bucking against empty air. "Please, I can't?—"

"Can't what?" he asks, another tentacle sliding along my inner thigh, so close to where I need it but not quite there. "Can't resist? Can't fight your nature any longer? Can't pretend this isn't exactly what you were made for?"

The tentacle at my entrance finally pushes inside, just the tip, just enough to make me gasp at the intrusion. It's nothing compared to his cock, but in my heat-drunk state, any penetration feels like blessed relief. I bear down on it instinctively, trying to take it deeper.

"More," I hear myself beg, the word ripped from some primal part of me I barely recognize. "Please, more."