But she did. The preservation magic ensures every moment is captured in crystal clarity, unable to fade or soften with time. I could show her if she wants—project the memories into the air between us so she can watch herself surrender completely to what I was doing to her.
Her begging for more. Her eager acceptance of both my cocks. Her grateful sobs when my knots locked us together. Her willing offering of her neck for the claiming bite.
"You were exactly yourself," I tell her, though the words taste strange in my mouth. "Your truest self. The one you've been fighting since you arrived here."
"My truest self wouldn't beg to be fucked like an animal," she spits, but I can feel her uncertainty through the bond. Feel her struggling to reconcile the memories with her self-image.
"Your truest self is an omega. Omegas beg for their alphas' cocks. It's what you're designed for."
The clinical tone makes her flinch, but it's easier than admitting what I'm starting to understand. That her truest self might have been the spirited, defiant woman who threw crystal at my head—not the eager, grateful creature who thanked me for breaking her down.
She touches the claiming bite on her neck with shaking fingers, and her face crumples. "You marked me. I let you mark me. I asked you to mark me."
"You did," I confirm, though something twists in my chest at her devastation. "You offered your neck willingly."
"While I was out of my mind with heat!"
"While you were finally honest about what you wanted."
But was it honesty, or was it biology overriding everything that made her who she was? The question surfaces unbidden, and I push it away. It doesn't matter. She's mine now, transformed and bonded. The outcome is what I planned.
So why does her anguish feel like claws raking across my soul?
She stares at me with those transformed eyes—my eyes now, pale blue and cold as winter morning—and I can see the exact moment she realizes the truth. That every word I'm saying is accurate. That the memories are real, not fever dreams or hallucinations.
That she did beg, did thank me, did surrender completely to what I was doing to her.
The preservation magic ensures she remembers it all in perfect detail. Every shameful word, every desperate plea, every moment of absolute submission. Every climax that tore through her as I claimed her again and again. Every grateful sob when my knots filled her with my seed.
It was supposed to be a gift—making every pleasure more intense, every sensation last longer. Instead, it's become a curse that prevents merciful forgetting.
She'll never lose the memory of how much she wanted me. How perfectly right it felt to surrender everything to my control.
And watching her suffer with that knowledge makes me feel like a monster.
"I can feel you," she whispers, pressing a hand to her chest where the bond sits like a second heartbeat. "Inside my head. In my bones. This connection?—"
"Is permanent," I finish, my voice rougher than intended. "You're mine now, in every way that matters."
Through the bond, I feel her testing its boundaries, trying to find some part of herself that remains untouched. But theclaiming was complete. There are no walls left between us, no private thoughts she can keep hidden. Every emotion, every reaction, every desperate wish flows between us without barrier.
"I hate you." But even as she says it, I feel her fighting the bond's pull. Fighting the urge to crawl back into my arms where the connection tells her she'll feel safe and complete.
The contradiction is tearing her apart—her human consciousness rejecting what her omega nature craves. And I can feel every moment of that internal war through our link.
"You can hate me all you want," I tell her, though her hatred burns through the bond like acid. "It doesn't change what you are."
She tries to leave the bed, to put distance between us, but her legs won't support her. I claimed her six times over thirty-six hours—she's sore, thoroughly used, still leaking evidence of our mating. Her body bears the proof of what happened in ways she can't deny or wash away.
Every step sends aftershocks of sensation through her transformed anatomy. Every movement reminds her of how completely I filled her, how perfectly her body accepted both my cocks, how eagerly she welcomed my knots.
"I need a bath," she says finally, her voice small and broken.
"Of course." I make no move to help her, though every instinct screams at me to care for my mate. "Can you walk?"
She tries and fails, nearly collapsing as her legs give out. The thoroughness of her use is obvious in every pained movement, every sharp intake of breath. She looks like what she is—an omega who's been claimed within an inch of her life.
"I can carry you," I offer, hating how uncertain my voice sounds.
