Page 5 of Naga's Mate

Another surge of heat cascades through me, this one powerful enough to make my legs threaten to buckle. I grasp the nearest workbench, fingers blanching against polished steel. The feverish warmth radiating through my body feels like betrayal incarnate. Five years of precise chemical manipulation of my own biology, unraveling because I selected the wrong evening for collection.

When the first telltale moisture forms between my thighs, nausea rises in my throat. My body turning traitor, preparing itself for something my mind has rejected since the dimensional rifts first appeared.

"Focus, Lyra," I command myself, forcing my scientist's rationality to override omega instincts. "Calculate. Adapt. Survive."

Abandoning my half-collected specimens feels like severing a lifeline—these rare botanical components represent my salvation, the critical elements for reconstructing my suppressants. But they become damning evidence if I'm discovered in advancing heat with them in my possession. Undeniable proof of my deception.

I need my emergency supplies. The concentrated compounds hidden in my private laboratory might temporarily mask these symptoms, allowing me to escape the facility before anyone detects my true designation.

My legs feel simultaneously leaden and insubstantial as I force myself toward the exit. Each movement sends uncomfortable awareness rippling through my increasingly responsive skin. The greenhouse's oppressive humidity—normally merely an environmental inconvenience—now seems like deliberate torture, every moisture droplet amplifying the pheromones my body suddenly yearns to broadcast.

What term had Dr. Chen used in her pre-Conquest research? Biochemical signature amplification. The omega body's evolutionary adaptation ensuring detection by compatible alphas. A survival mechanism from primitive times now perverted into the perfect capture system.

I'm halfway to the section doorway when the atmosphere shifts. Not a ventilation change or air current redistribution, but something more primal. The environmental equivalent of an apex predator entering a clearing.

The fine hairs at my nape stand rigid in primitive warning.

I freeze, my body recognizing danger before my conscious mind processes it. The greenhouse's nocturnal lighting bathes everything in ethereal blue-green radiance, bioluminescent specimens creating islands of unearthly glow amid darker vegetation. I strain to penetrate the dense foliage, suddenly desperate to identify what my instincts are screaming about.

That's when I notice it. The unnatural stillness. Plants exist in constant motion—subtle responses to air circulation, growth patterns, water distribution. But surrounding me, everything has gone impossibly, unnaturally motionless. As if the vegetation itself holds its collective breath.

Then the shadows consolidate, assuming form with nightmare inevitability.

Commander Nezzar.

He materializes from darkness like a fever dream made flesh, his imposing figure blocking the pathway completely. Under the spectral illumination of bioluminescent flora, his scales shimmer with mesmerizing iridescence—transitioning between deep emerald and midnight sapphire with each subtle movement. His upper torso might almost pass for human if not for the gleaming scales scattered across powerful shoulders and broad chest, the inhuman amber eyes with vertical pupils now fixed upon me with hunter's intensity. Below his waist, his form transforms into the massive serpentine body that defines his species—sinuous, powerful, and unmistakably lethal.

"The pollens revealed your truth," he states, his voice unexpectedly melodic, almost hypnotic, requiring a moment to register the dangerous undertone beneath its beauty. His forked tongue flickers outward, sampling the air between us. Samplingme. "You belong in a breeding center, not a laboratory."

I've rehearsed this scenario countless times—the nightmare of discovery—running endless mental simulations of my response, my escape strategy. None of that careful preparation survives actual confrontation. Pure instinct overwhelms reason, and before I can consider the futility, I spin and bolt.

The sound following me chills my blood—something between a hiss and a chuckle, the amused acknowledgment of prey attempting escape. I manage exactly three steps before his reaction proves my flight was doomed from conception.

His muscular length moves with impossible speed, unspooling and rewrapping around me with terrifying precision. One moment I'm running; the next I'm completely immobilized, powerful coils encircling my torso, arms, and legs. Not crushing—he modulates the pressure carefully—but utterly inescapable.

"Please," I gasp, mortified to hear the word emerge as something between objection and supplication. "You don't understand. I'm valuable to the research division. My work on hybrid plant adaptation has increased cultivation efficiency by thirty-seven percent. I can contribute more effectively unprocessed?—"

"Unprocessed?" he interrupts, amber eyes examining me with unsettling thoroughness. "Is that how you conceptualize proper omega claiming? As processing?"

Another wave of heat surges through my body, stronger than before. My skin feels feverish, hypersensitive where his scales contact me through the thin fabric of my clothing. To my absolute humiliation, more dampness gathers between my thighs, my body responding to his proximity with biological eagerness completely disconnected from my conscious terror.

"I'm a scientist," I attempt again, struggling to maintain vocal steadiness as his coils shift subtly around me, adjusting their grip with disturbing intimacy. "My value lies in my mind, not?—"

"Not this?" he inquires, scaled fingers hovering just above my throat where my scent gland pulses treacherously beneath the skin. He doesn't make contact, doesn't need to. The mere proximity of an alpha—especially one as dominant as him—triggers involuntary response. I feel the gland swelling, warming, beginning to release the pheromones I've chemically suppressed through five desperate years.

"Both aspects of your nature have value," he continues, his tongue sampling my intensifying scent. "Your deception, however, does not."

"It wasn't deception," I counter automatically, scientific precision asserting itself even through terror. "It was chemical suppression of biological imperatives that would have prevented me from contributing my cognitive abilities to post-Conquest botanical research."

A sound reverberates through his massive frame—something between amusement and appreciation. "Impressive articulation for an omega entering heat acceleration. Your intellect remains sharp even as your physiology surrenders."

"I'm surrendering nothing," I snap, renewing my struggle against his coils despite their immovable strength. The effort sends another pulse of heat through me, more moisture forming in humiliating response to the friction of his scales against my increasingly sensitized skin.

"Your conscious mind may resist," Nezzar observes, his melodious voice dropping to a deeper register that somehow resonates directly with the primitive portion of my brain. "But your biology speaks truth. You're entering heat acceleration. Within hours, you'll be pleading for alpha completion."

"Never," I hiss through clenched teeth, even as another surge of unwanted arousal makes mockery of my defiance.

His smile reveals teeth too pointed for comfort, tongue darting out to sample my intensifying pheromones. "The most fascinating aspect of omega heat is its elimination of dishonesty. The body cannot maintain deception when biological imperatives assert dominance."

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