Page 17 of Dragon's Captive

Something shifts in his golden gaze—satisfaction, perhaps, at having reduced me to begging so quickly. But he doesn't gloat as I expect. Instead, he moves with that impossible speed, suddenly looming over me, his massive form caging mine against the mattress without quite touching.

"It stops when you're claimed," he rumbles, his face inches from mine, his heated breath washing over my sensitive skin. "When you're knotted and filled with alpha seed. When your body receives what it evolved to need."

The crude words should disgust me. Instead, they send another flood of wetness between my thighs, my hips bucking upward of their own accord, seeking contact I still mentally reject.

"Your resistance ends now, little omega," he growls, scales darkening as his control slips further. "Your decade of denial is over."

The last coherent thought I have, before his mouth claims mine and rational thought becomes impossible, is a bitter recognition: he's right. My resistance, my careful construction of identity, my decade-long chemical suppression—all shattered in the face of biological imperative I can no longer fight.

The breaking point has arrived.

CHAPTER 8

CLAIMED BY FIRE

His mouth capturesmine with the precision of a hunter closing on prey, stealing what little breath remains in my heat-ravaged lungs. This isn't a kiss—it's conquest, a physical declaration of dominance. His lips radiate intense heat like sun-warmed stone, the pressure hovering just below bruising as he claims what Conquest law says belongs to him.

I should fight. I should bite his alien mouth, rake my nails across the scales I feel beneath his tunic, struggle against what's coming. Instead, my body yields beneath him, lips parting on a helpless gasp that his tongue immediately exploits. He tastes like cinnamon and something ancient—like the air before lightning strikes, like danger in its purest form. The flavor floods my senses with chemical responses I can't control—more wetness gathering between my thighs, an empty aching deep inside, a surrender my mind abhors but my body embraces.

Kairyx pulls back just enough to study my face, his golden eyes with their vertical pupils tracking the flush spreading across my skin with predatory satisfaction. "The resistance in your scent is fading," he observes, his voice a deep rumble that vibrates against my sensitized nerves like distant thunder. "Yourbody knows its purpose, little librarian, even if your mind still clings to its delusions."

"Go to hell," I manage, though the words lack conviction, undermined by my breathlessness and the way my hips shift restlessly beneath him, seeking friction I still mentally reject.

His laugh reverberates through his chest and into mine where our bodies press together. "Perhaps someday," he concedes, one scaled hand capturing both my wrists and pinning them above my head with insulting ease. "But today, I claim what is mine by right of conquest."

With his free hand, he grasps the silk robe clinging to my sweat-slicked skin. There's no gentleness, just efficient force. The delicate fabric surrenders with a soft ripping sound that echoes obscenely in the heated silence, leaving me completely exposed. The cool morning air hits my overheated skin, raising goosebumps that instantly transform to trails of fire as the next wave of heat surges through me.

Naked. Vulnerable beneath his assessing gaze. The power imbalance is absolute—his massive body still partially clothed, mine exposed and trembling with need I can't suppress. The ancient dynamic of predator and prey, alpha and omega, plays out between us with biological inevitability.

His golden gaze travels over my exposed form with possessive hunger. "Beautiful," he murmurs, the unexpected compliment catching me off guard. "A resilient vessel for such a strong spirit. More perfect than I anticipated."

Before I can process the contradictory statement, his free hand moves to my breast. His talons are carefully held away, but the pads of his scaled fingers create unexpected friction against my sensitive skin. He rolls my nipple between thumb and forefinger, the precise pressure sending lightning bolts of sensation straight to my core. A moan escapes me—high, needy,desperate—a sound I didn't know I could make, a sound I would have sworn I was incapable of producing.

"Your body sings its surrender," Kairyx observes, his touch growing bolder, mapping the contours of my fever-flushed skin with proprietary assurance. "Let go of the resistance, little librarian. Yield to the inevitable."

"Never," I gasp, the declaration weakened by the way my back arches into his touch, seeking more contact, more pressure, more of the heat radiating from his scaled hand.

His smile is pure predator, confident and ancient. "We shall see."

He shifts his massive weight, positioning himself between my thighs with deliberate intent. The head of one shaft presses against my entrance. The heat is shocking—not just warm buthot, like holding my hand too close to flame. Despite my heat, despite the shameful wetness meant to ease his way, terror spikes through me at the impossible size, the alien texture, the radiating heat of what's about to happen.

"Wait," I plead, a last desperate bid for control that's already slipping away. "You can't—I can't—it won't fit! It's too much!"

Kairyx pauses, his gaze sharpening. "It will fit," he states with absolute certainty. "Your body was designed for this—to adapt, to accommodate, to yield. You will not break; you will transform."

He begins the breach before I can protest further, the ridged head of one shaft pressing insistently against my entrance. The stretch is immediate, overwhelming, a burning friction beyond anything I could have imagined. I scream, the sound torn from my throat without conscious permission, my body instinctively trying to escape the invasion.

His hand releases my wrists only to grip my hips—both hands now, talons carefully retracted but his strength pinning me in place. There's no escape, no retreat, just the relentlesspressure of his shaft forcing its way inside me with implacable determination.

"Take it," he growls, voice roughened to something barely recognizable as language. "Take my first shaft."

The command vibrates through me, resonating with something primal in my omega hindbrain. Each inch stretches me wider than I thought possible, the burning friction both agony and a strange, terrifying ecstasy. My body fights itself—muscles clenching against intrusion while simultaneously producing more wetness, biology betraying conscious rejection with ruthless efficiency.

When I think I can't possibly take more, when the pain threatens to overwhelm even heat-induced need, something inside me shifts. My body, responding to biological imperatives deeper than conscious thought, begins toadapt. Inner muscles, impossibly elastic, yield around him with omega flexibility that defies ordinary human limitations.

The first shaft seats fully inside me, the stretch still intense but the burning easing slightly as my tissues accommodate his heat. I have one moment to drag in a ragged breath—then the second head presses alongside the first, seeking entrance where one already fills me completely.

"No," I gasp, genuine fear cutting through the heat-haze. "I can't—you'll tear me apart! It's too much!"

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