Page 105 of Run Little Omega

I close my eyes against the memory, but it persists, sharper now after seven centuries of careful suppression. The first time I watched court executioners dispatch an omega deemed unsuitable—her eyes still haunt me, the confusion in them as she realized the breeding she'd endured would not save her life but end it.

"Necessary sacrifice for the greater good," my father had explained, his hand heavy on my shoulder. "Bloodline purity requires difficult decisions."

I had nodded, accepting his wisdom as absolute. The court's needs above individual lives. The continuation of our magic above personal morality. The lessons every Winter Prince absorbed with mother's milk and father's frost.

Another surge through the bond pulls me from memory—Briar's determination crystallizing into deadly intent. Through our connection, I catch glimpses of her battle through fractured images: ice forming at her command, blood freezing on russet hair, amber eyes widening in death.

She's killed one of the brothers. The realization hits me with strange finality. Not her first kill—she fought off alphas before I claimed her—but different. Purposeful. Powerful.

The remaining brother's grief crashes through our bond like a tidal wave, his rage at losing his other half colliding with Briar's determination to survive. I rise to my feet, unable to remain still as her pain spikes through our connection—her back torn open by claws, her breath strangling beneath his grip.

Then comes the explosion—a surge of Wild Magic so powerful it temporarily blinds my senses. When our bond clears, I feel her exhaustion, her shock, her resolution.

Both brothers dead. By her hand alone.

I lower myself back to the ground, unsure if my legs would support me regardless. The woman I claimed is becoming something the courts never anticipated, never prepared for.

So am I.

Through our stretched connection, I receive unexpected flashes of her memories—images bleeding through the bond as her depleted strength weakens her mental barriers. I see her mother, once vibrant and strong, wasting away from an illness no village healer could cure. The careful way Briar braided her hair when her mother's hands grew too weak to manage it. The shallow grave dug by a twelve-year-old girl whose tears froze on her cheeks in the winter air.

I see Fergus, the village blacksmith, discovering Briar's omega nature when she presented at thirteen. His gruff protection as he taught her to suppress her scent, to bind her developing body, to move like a beta rather than an omega. The burns on her hands as she learned his craft, each scar a testament to her determination to create a future different from the one her biology dictated.

I see Willow, gentle and resigned to her fate, choosing sacrifice over suffering as the wasting sickness claimed her bit by bit. The fierce love that drove Briar to steal her place, to enter the Hunt wearing another's face.

These memories wash over me like waves, eroding seven centuries of careful distance. For the first time, I truly comprehend what my signature on those execution orders meant. Not abstract protocols ensuring court survival, but specific, individual suffering. Real pain. Real deaths.

The guilt threatens to consume me, magic crackling across the forest floor in jagged, chaotic patterns that reflect my inner turmoil. I have lived seven centuries, overseen countless Hunts, authorized innumerable cullings.

How many mothers have I condemned to wasting deaths with my callous disposal protocols?

How many Willows have I sentenced to slow fading?

How many Briars have had their worlds shattered by my court's calculation that their lives were acceptable collateral?

The bond between us pulses with her continued survival, but the warmth that had been growing between us has cooled to wary distance. She lives, she fights, she transforms—but she does so alone now, rejecting the protection I would offer.

As she should.

"My Prince." The formal address breaks through my reverie. Three Winter Court messengers have approached without my notice—a testament to how deeply Briar's memories have affected me. They kneel at a respectful distance, eyes carefully averted from my transformed appearance.

"What?" My voice emerges as a growl, permanently altered by days of rutting sounds torn from my throat.

The lead messenger—Lady Frost, a distant cousin whose political ambitions I've long been aware of—speaks with careful deference. "The Council demands your immediate return. The courts have reached an unprecedented alliance against..." she hesitates, searching for diplomatic phrasing, "against the threat your actions represent."

"Threat." I taste the word, finding bitter amusement in it. "And what threat would that be, exactly?"

Lady Frost's composure cracks slightly, her scent betraying genuine fear beneath court politeness. "The revival of Wild Magic, my Prince. Your claiming bond with the copper-haired omega has awakened something the courts have spent centuries suppressing."

So they know. Of course they know. Court spies are everywhere, even in the deepest parts of the Bloodmoon Forest.

"The Council has convened an emergency session," she continues. "All four courts represented. They invoke the ancient protocols—your presence is not requested but required."

I laugh, the sound harsh even to my own ears. "Required? By whose authority?"

The messengers exchange nervous glances, clearly unprepared for direct challenge. For seven centuries, I have been the perfect Winter Prince—cold, controlled, unquestioningly loyal to court protocols. Until Briar. Until now.

"The combined authority of the seasonal courts, my Prince." Lady Frost's voice firms slightly. "They speak with one voice on this matter. The omega must be brought in for examination. The Wild Magic must be contained before it spreads."

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