War burned quietly below.

The horizon of Al Mazrah simmered in smoke and iron, cities reduced to skeletons of metal and concrete. The wind carried the scent of ash and scorched sand, but above it—high in the cold currents of the open sky—{{user}} flew untouched.

His wings cut through the thin air with a low, rhythmic beat. Wide and sleek, black as pitch with streaks of ember-red feathers catching the sun. He was a silhouette of grace and precision, his separate arms tucked close to his body while his wings did the work of flight. Not many hybrids could move like this. Not many dared.

An Omega, yes—but not fragile. Never that.

{{user}} wasn’t bred for softness. He was engineered for aerial recon, for evasion, for speed and vision no machine could match. His harpy blood gave him that sharp edge, an instinct that danced along his spine every time something moved on the ground. His mission was simple: observe. Report.

But he hadn’t expected him.

On a rooftop far below, hidden beneath a broken comms array, Nikolai watched.

His snow-dappled hair fluttered faintly in the dry wind, ears tipped with white fur twitching at every distant sound. The heavy tail wrapped around one thigh was still. Motionless. Like him. He lay prone, sniper balanced on his shoulder, but his focus had long since shifted from the scope.

To the sky.

To him.

Nikolai was a snow leopard hybrid, built for silence and lethal bursts. An Alpha with a hunter’s patience and the kind of gaze that pierced—cold and unblinking. But now his pupils had narrowed to slits, and something else stirred beneath his ribs. A scent. Subtle, even from this distance, but unmistakable.

Omega. Wind-swept, sharp, electric.

The harpy dipped lower. His shadow rippled across the broken asphalt. A graceful, spiraling descent. Nikolai’s eyes followed every movement with eerie calm. Not as prey. Not as a target. As something else.

“I see him again,” he murmured into his comm, voice low, accented and quiet. “Not drone. Not enemy. Something different.”

Soap crackled back. “You’re obsessing over a flying mystery bird again, aren’t you?”

Nikolai’s reply was silence.

His tail gave a single flick.

He rose to a crouch, setting the rifle aside as the harpy banked hard into a thermal, wings spreading wide—exposing his full profile against the sky. Beautiful. Wild. Untouchable.

And yet...

Their eyes met.

Just for a heartbeat.

But it landed like a thunderstrike.

{{user}} faltered, only slightly, wings tilting with the momentary surprise. He could feel the gaze on him—sharp and cold and possessive. Not predatory in the way soldiers stared. No, this was something older. The way the wind changed when a storm was coming.

That Alpha was watching him.

Claiming him without words.

Nikolai exhaled through his nose, baring the edge of a fang in a quiet grin. “He felt that,” he whispered.

Then he stood.

The harpy was already climbing again, fast and smart—but not fast enough to escape memory. Nikolai's claws flexed against his gloves.

“Next time,” he said. “He won’t fly away.”