Page 35 of Shadow's Claim

"I'm not who I was," I admit, the truth finally crystallizing in my mind. "But that doesn't make me a monster or a victim. It makes me something new."

Constantin shakes his head, looking at me like I'm already dead. "They've broken you completely."

"No." The shadow patterns pulse with my conviction, responding to both my emotions and the hybrid stirring within. "They didn't break me. They changed me. There's a difference."

I turn to leave, but Constantin's desperate voice stops me at the door.

"Nova! The cells were your design! The purification protocol was your contingency! You created it for situations exactly like this!"

The accusation hits like physical blow. He's right. Before my capture, I helped design protocols for "contaminated" omegas—theoretical situations we never thought we'd face. I never imagined being on the receiving end of my own contingency plans.

"I was wrong," I say simply, turning back one last time. "About so many things."

As we exit, Kael's massive form close behind me, Constantin's broken voice follows us through the closing door. "They'll come for you again! Not to save you—to eliminate what you've become!"

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The walk back to our chambers passes in tense silence, the shadow patterns beneath my skin pulsing with emotional aftermath. Kael moves with barely contained fury beside me, shadows whipping around his massive form with each step, the temperature dropping noticeably in his wake.

The moment our chamber door closes behind us, he erupts—all four arms slamming into the wall around me, caging me against the cold surface as shadows surge throughout the room, plunging us into near darkness save for his glowing violet eyes.

"You created protocols to eliminate hybrid pregnancies," he growls, his voice vibrating with lethal intent. "Your own contingency plans nearly killed what grows inside you."

I don't deny it. "Yes. Before I knew what it meant. Before I felt its consciousness."

His prehensile tongue emerges, tracing the claiming mark at my throat with enough pressure to make me whimper. "Did you love him?" The question rumbles through his chest against mine, his body pressing so close I can barely draw breath.

Truth feels like the only option when his eyes burn into mine with such intensity. "Yes. Once."

A roar tears from his throat, shadows lashing around us like living whips. "And now?"

"Now I barely recognize him," I admit, my voice wavering as the darkness thickens around us. "Or the woman he wants me to be."

One of his hands rips my tunic open with a single savage motion, exposing the shadow patterns that now cover most of my torso in intricate spirals. "These mark you as mine," he states, watching as they darken and pulse beneath his touch. "Every. Inch. Mine."

His possessiveness should anger me, should trigger resistance against his claim. Instead, it sends liquid heat pooling between my thighs, my omega biology responding with shameful eagerness to his alpha dominance.

"Show me," I challenge, my voice dropping to a whisper. "Make me forget I ever knew him."

The provocation snaps his last thread of restraint. All four hands tear the remaining clothing from my body, fabric ripping like paper beneath his strength before he lifts me effortlessly, carrying me to our bed with predatory intent.

His own clothing dissolves into shadows, revealing his alien anatomy in all its terrifying glory. His prehensile cock emerges already fully extended, moving with independent hunger that makes me simultaneously afraid and desperately wet.

"I will erase him from your memory," Kael snarls, darkness literally dripping from his midnight-black skin as his fury manifests physically. "Every touch, every moment, replaced with mine."

Shadows wrap around my wrists and ankles like living restraints, spreading my limbs and exposing me completely to his predatory gaze. His four hands grip my thighs, my waist, my breasts, claiming every part of me simultaneously as his prehensile tongue traces the shadow patterns across my chest.

"I see his memories in you," he growls, his mental presence suddenly pushing against mine with unstoppable force. "I see everywhere he touched you."

Before I can respond, his psychic invasion breaches my defenses, shadows flooding my mind as he sifts through memories I've tried to bury—Constantin and me against the wall of a resistance safe house after a successful mission; bent over a strategy table as he took me from behind; straddling him in the narrow bunk we sometimes shared.

"Each one," Kael promises darkly, "replaced with me."

His massive form flips me effortlessly, pressing me against the wall just as Constantin had in that first memory, but where Constantin had been merely human, Kael is overwhelming—four powerful arms pinning me in place as his prehensile cock fills me with one brutal thrust that tears a scream from my throat.

"Feel the difference," he commands, voice vibrating directly into my mind as shadows bridge our consciousness. "Feel how completely I claim what's mine."

Where Constantin had managed a few hasty minutes of passion, Kael's inhuman stamina keeps me pinned against the wall as his prehensile cock changes shape inside me, ridges forming along its length that stimulate every nerve ending with devastating precision. Two hands grip my wrists above my head while the others lift my thighs, spreading me wider than human anatomy should allow.

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