Page 38

MIDNIGHT CONFESSION

Fritz POV

Sleep won't come tonight. My body begs for rest, but my mind refuses to shut down. I pace my quarters, claws leaving thin scratches in the stone floor with each turn. The scents from the mission still fill my nose—dragon markers, territorial claims, the stink of their ambition.

Even worse is the imagined smell my brain keeps conjuring up—Aria's blood, her fear, her screams if the dragons had found her. If they'd arrived at that cave just hours earlier. My fangs extend without me willing it, a growl building in my chest that I barely manage to keep in.

But under these violent thoughts lies something else, something I've been avoiding for weeks. A subtle change in her scent, a shift in her body's chemistry that my enhanced senses picked up long before she could possibly know. The knowledge burns in my throat, unspoken.

Through the partially open connecting door, her scent drifts from the adjoining room—the familiar smell of her soap, her skin, her claimed status. But I don't hear the steady breathing of sleep. She's as restless as I am, though for different reasons.

Her claiming mark had stood out during the debriefing, the silvery scar catching the torchlight whenever she moved.

Something hot and primal had surged through me at the sight—satisfaction that my claim remains visible, unmistakable.

But that satisfaction mixes with guilt. The change in her body is my doing, my seed taking root. And I haven't told her.

The walls feel like they're closing in, suffocating despite how large my quarters are. I need air. Space. Perspective.

The observatory tower offers solitude, clear views of our territory, and enough distance from her scent that I might clear my head. But when I climb to the top of the spiral staircase, I find her already there.

Aria stands at the western parapet, her outline sharp against the midnight sky.

The mountain wind pulls at her blonde hair, now loose from its usual practical braid.

Moonlight turns her skin silver-pale and almost ghostly.

My breath catches, an embarrassingly teenage reaction for a commander with my experience.

She doesn't jump at my arrival—her senses have sharpened during her time here. She knew my scent before I even reached the top of the stairs.

"Commander," she says without turning, her voice carrying easily in the night air.

"You should be resting." The words come out as a low rumble, my control fraying under the competing instincts racing through my body. Protect. Possess. Claim. Tell her.

"I could say the same to you." She turns to face me finally, moonlight highlighting the claiming mark on her throat.

My eyes fix on it, tracing the permanent impression of my teeth against her skin.

Without meaning to, my gaze drops lower, searching for the changes my senses have detected but which her clothing still hides.

Her hand rises to her throat, fingers tracing the scar. "Does it still look the same to you?"

The question throws me off. "The mark?"

"Yes." Her fingers follow the indentation pattern. "Thorne said something during the mission... about your claiming being stronger than most he's seen. I wondered if it looks different to feline eyes."

My mouth goes dry. I move beside her at the parapet, keeping careful distance while deciding how much to tell her.

Her scent hits me full force now—pine and night air mixing with her omega notes.

Beneath it all lurks the subtle chemical markers of my claiming.

.. and something newer, something that stirs protective instincts I've spent decades pushing down.

"Not visibly different," I manage, fixing my gaze on the distant mountains rather than her face. "To feline senses, it carries... extra information."

"What kind of information?"

My claws extend without me meaning to, scraping against stone. "Intention. Connection. Compatibility." My tail lashes behind me, giving away the emotion my face doesn't show. "There are... instinctive recognitions that happen between compatible pairs."

Her scent shifts—curiosity, surprise, and something warmer blooming beneath her skin. "Even in forced claiming?"

"Even then." The honesty burns, but I owe her this much. "Though normally such recognition would prevent forced claiming altogether. A feline who senses true compatibility typically approaches with more... consideration."

"But you didn't have that luxury," she observes, no accusation in her voice. "Dragon proximity forced your hand."

"Yes."

Silence stretches between us, filled with all we're not saying. She turns her attention to the star-filled sky, seemingly content to let the moment pass. But the unspoken knowledge burns inside me, demanding to be acknowledged.

"Your scars," she says suddenly, breaking the silence. "How did you get them?"

My hand rises to my face, tracing the three parallel lines that run from temple to jaw. No one has asked directly about them since my assignment to this outpost. The question suggests curiosity beyond tactical assessment.

"Dragon commander," I answer, memory surfacing with physical clarity—the searing pain, the smell of my own blood, the roar that still sometimes haunts my dreams. "Territorial dispute in the southern mountains during early Confederation expansion."

"You fought a dragon commander directly? And survived?" Real surprise colors her voice.

A bitter laugh escapes me. "Barely. I was... younger then. More confident in my abilities than was smart."

"Were you always a commander?"

The memories flood back—blood and fire, the stench of battlefields, the weight of decisions that cost lives. "No. I started as border patrol, like most felines with combat skills. My tactical assessments caught the attention of regional command during the eastern campaigns."

"The ones against human resistance strongholds?" Her tone stays carefully neutral, though I catch the slight tension underneath.

"Yes." No point hiding this part of my history. "I led thirty-six successful operations against armed resistance cells. Eliminated seventeen rebel commanders between my third and seventh year of service."

She absorbs this without visible reaction, though her scent reveals complicated emotions churning beneath her composed exterior. "You killed humans."

"Many." I see no benefit in softening this truth. My claws extend further, scraping deeper grooves into the stone. "In direct combat, facing armed opponents. Not civilians. Never non-combatants. That distinction eventually ended my advancement within Confederation command."

"What happened?" She turns fully toward me now, moonlight illuminating genuine interest in her expression. Not judgment or disgust, but desire to understand.

For the first time in years, I find myself explaining the full circumstances of my "reassignment" to someone who has no reason to care beyond curiosity. Someone who, against all logic, seems to genuinely want to know.

"The Northern Purge." The words taste like ash. "Intelligence suggested resistance leaders were hiding among civilian settlements in the contested northern valleys. Standard protocol called for elimination of entire communities to ensure no targets escaped."

"Elimination," she repeats, understanding immediately. "Slaughter."

"Yes." My tail lashes once, sharp and controlled. "I refused the direct order. Suggested targeted extraction using intelligence assets instead. My... disagreement with command strategy was deemed insubordination."

"So they sent you here," she concludes. "To this backwater posting, away from where your principles might infect other officers."

The accuracy of her assessment burns like truth often does. "Officially, I was given important border responsibility fitting my experience."

"And unofficially?"

"Exiled to a forgotten outpost where my career would quietly end, far from any meaningful command decisions." The truth I rarely acknowledge even to myself comes out without bitterness. It simply is.

"I've killed in battle more times than I can count," I continue, meeting her gaze directly. "But I won't slaughter innocents to advance my standing. Not even when ordered."

Something shifts in her expression—recognition, perhaps, of the core principle that cost me everything I'd built within Confederation hierarchy. Her scent changes subtly, warmer notes emerging that suggest respect rather than the fear or disgust my appearance typically brings out in humans.

"That's why you extended defense to Blackridge," she realizes. "When most commanders would have secured only the fortress against dragon incursion."

"Strategic defense includes civilian stability," I respond, falling back on practical justification rather than admitting the deeper principle driving my decisions. "Conquest without protection is just destruction."

"Not exactly the Prime philosophy taught in settlement history," she says, a hint of something like amusement in her voice.

"Most Primes aren't particularly philosophical."

The unexpected observation draws a genuine laugh from her—the sound vibrating through me like physical touch. The claiming mark at her throat catches moonlight as her head tilts back, exposing the vulnerable line of her neck in a display of trust that stirs something primitive in my chest.

"We've come a long way," she observes after her laughter fades, "from that first claiming."

The reference to our initial joining—my cold efficiency, her reluctant submission—hangs between us, acknowledged directly for perhaps the first time without anger or resentment coloring the memory.

"Yes," I agree simply, uncertain what more to add.

She turns her gaze back to the distant mountains. "I used to watch the dragons flying over those peaks and imagine what it would be like to be claimed by one of them. How majestic and powerful they seemed from a distance."