Page 10

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 lost time 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, alpha seed—and Commander Clawe radiates all three with terrifying intensity.

Time loses meaning as wave after wave of heat rolls through me.

The lighting in the chamber has dimmed, suggesting night has fallen, though such concepts seem irrelevant in my personal hell of need and emptiness.

I'm vaguely aware of crying, of begging the empty room for relief, of thrashing against the bed as another powerful contraction of emptiness leaves me gasping.

The chamber door opens with a soft hiss of hydraulics.

I struggle upright, sweat-drenched hair plastered to my face and neck, my vision blurring before focusing on the massive silhouette against the corridor lighting.

Commander Fritz Clawe's towering seven-foot frame fills the doorway completely, his golden eyes gleaming in the dimness like a predator's.

My reaction is immediate and humiliating.

My back arches without conscious thought, thighs spreading, neck tilting to expose my throat in instinctive submission.

Slick gushes between my legs in a hot rush, my nipples tightening to painful points beneath the soaked shift.

A sound escapes me—half whimper, half moan—a primal omega call to alpha that transcends language.

His nostrils flare as he catches my scent, pupils contracting to thin vertical slits against the amber background.

The striped fur along his visible forearms ripples, darkening from tawny gold to rich mahogany in seconds—a physical manifestation of alpha response I recognize from desperate study of feline biology.

"Alpha," I whisper, the word pulled from some primitive part of my hindbrain. "Please."

Fritz steps into the chamber, allowing the door to close behind him.

In the dimmed lighting, the predatory nature of his movement becomes even more pronounced—the fluid grace of a hunter approaching cornered prey.

His tail, which had hung motionless behind him, now begins a slow, rhythmic swaying that hypnotizes my fever-addled brain.

"Three days," he rumbles, his voice deeper than I remember, vibrating through my oversensitive skin like physical touch. "Three days fighting what your body needs."

The scent of him hits me like a physical blow—musky, sharp, with hints of leather and something wild that triggers a cascade of biological responses. My womb clenches so hard I cry out, another flood of slick escaping me, my body advertising its readiness in the most primitive way possible.

"The suppressants..." I try to form a coherent thought, but another wave crashes through me, doubling me over. My arms wrap around my middle as though I could somehow contain the inferno within. "They don't work. Nothing works. I need?—"

"You need alpha claiming," Fritz interrupts, stalking closer. The fur along his spine has risen visibly, his movements taking on a predatory intensity at odds with his usual controlled demeanor. "You need to be filled. Knotted. Bred."

Each word lands like a physical touch, my body responding with eager submission even as my mind makes one last attempt at resistance. "Not you," I sob, the denial weak even to my own ears. "I never wanted?—"

"Your body tells a different story." He's beside the pallet now, looming over me, his scent enveloping me completely. "Your heat calls to something primal in me, omega. Something I've controlled for years."

His gaze drags over my sweat-soaked form, lingering on the visible outlines of my hardened nipples, the soaked juncture of my thighs. Something in his expression shifts, control visibly cracking to reveal the predator beneath.

"Please," I beg, beyond pride, beyond thought, beyond anything but desperate need. "Make it stop. I can't bear this anymore. I'll do anything. Just make it stop."

Fritz's tail lashes once, sharply, the movement so fast it blurs in the dim light. "You begged for this," he growls, voice dropping to a register so deep it feels like thunder rolling through my bones. "Remember that."

His hands go to the fastenings of his uniform, movements no longer economical but almost violent in their intensity.

The jacket tears as he pulls it off, revealing his powerful torso covered with golden-brown fur in tiger-like patterns that ripple with each movement.

The fur bristles visibly as another wave of my heat-scent reaches him, his control slipping further.

I should be frightened. Some distant part of me knows I should be terrified of this massive predator showing clear signs of rut response. Instead, my body reacts with eager anticipation, another rush of slick preparation, my hips lifting unconsciously from the pallet in blatant invitation.