Page 113 of Run Little Omega

"Fuck," I gasp, another wave of heat nearly blinding me with pain. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

I don't want to need him. Don't want to invite him into this sacred space after what he's done. But I'm dying, he's dying, and something larger than both of us hangs in the balance.

"Get in here!" I shout, the words tearing from my raw throat. No formal invitation, just desperate need. "Cadeyrn! Now!"

The effect is immediate. The blood-red flowers part like they've been sliced by an invisible blade, creating a path that aligns perfectly with the bond stretching between us. Cadeyrn feels it—his head snapping toward me, eyes locking with mine across the impossible distance.

He moves like nothing I've ever seen. Not running but flowing, his transformed body crossing the space between us with preternatural grace. The alphas realize too late, lunging after him only to crash against the grove's invisible barrier. Their magic flares uselessly against protections older than any court divisions.

And then he's there. Right in front of me. Blood and magic coating his transformed body, his midnight hair still threaded with spring flowers that bloom and die and bloom again. The autumn camouflage swirls across his skin, while summer's fire burns in patches across his chest. Only his eyes remain unchanged—winter-blue fire that burns straight through me.

"Briar," he says, my name emerging like it's being ripped from somewhere deep inside him.

Another wave of heat crashes through me, stronger than any before. My back arches involuntarily, a scream tearing from my throat as my body recognizes its alpha despite every rational thought screaming against it. The omega in me claws toward him, desperate for completion while my mind rebels.

"This changes nothing," I spit through gritted teeth, even as my thighs part without conscious command. "I still fucking hate what you?—"

"I know." He drops to his knees before the stone dais, close enough that I can smell him—winter pine and metal and alpha musk, now complicated by hints of spring flowers, autumn earth, summer heat. Through our bond, I feel his restraint—the rutting alpha held in check by something deeper. "But you're dying, and I can't?—"

"Just do it," I cut him off, already clawing at what remains of my tattered clothing. "Make it stop. Please make it stop."

He moves with surprising gentleness despite the obvious rut hardening his cock, the autumn camouflage swirling faster across his skin with each racing heartbeat. His hands help remove the barriers between us, and everywhere he touches feels like ice against my burning skin—painful relief that makes me gasp.

I grab his wrists when he tries to position himself, stopping him with unexpected strength. "No," I manage, surprised at my own demand. "Face to face. I need to see you. All of you. No more hiding."

Something passes through his eyes—relief, maybe, that I'm not asking for the clinical coupling of court protocol. I pull him down until our bodies align, chest to chest, his weight both burden and anchor as the heat threatens to consume me.

"I fucking hate you," I whisper, the words belied by the way my body arches toward his. "I hate what you did. What you let happen."

"I know," he answers, his forehead pressing against mine. "You should."

When he pushes inside me, the sensation is like being split open—not just physically but mentally, emotionally, magically. My body welcomes him instantly, slick heat gripping his thick cock with omega recognition, but something else happens simultaneously. The claiming bond tears wide open, mental barriers disintegrating as our minds connect with brutal, unforgiving intimacy.

I see everything.

Seven centuries of Winter Prince—cold, detached, signing death warrants without ever witnessing their execution. Court politics played with calculated precision, no thought given to the human lives affected by decisions made in ice palaces. The gradual hardening of a mind taught from birth that emotional distance was strength, that questioning was weakness.

But I also see the change—the moment in the Gathering Circle when he saw through my glamour, something in my copper hair and defiant stance triggering the first crack in centuries of certainty. The growing horror as connections formed between those elegant signatures and real suffering. The genuine shock upon realizing that the "mercy cullings" he authorized were exploitation, torture, slow deaths.

He sees me just as completely.

My childhood in Thornwick, always different, always hiding. My mother wasting away while I held her hand, twelve years old and powerless to help. The way her blood looked black against her pale skin when she finally died. Fergus finding me presented as omega, his gruff protection teaching me to bind my developing body, to move like a beta, to suppress the scent that would mark me for sacrifice. The forge work that gave me unusual strength, hands calloused where court omegas remained soft. My friendship with Willow, her acceptance of fate that I could never stomach, my decision to steal her place.

Our bodies move together on the ancient stone, but it's nothing like our previous claimings. This isn't rutting alpha and submitting omega. This is raw need, desperation, magic demanding completion while our hearts remain in pieces.

I bite his shoulder hard enough to draw blood that freezes instantly against my teeth. He doesn't pull away, doesn't restrain me, just accepts the pain as his due. My nails rake down his back, leaving trails of magic in their wake.

"I hate that I need this," I gasp against his throat, my hips rising to meet each thrust despite my words. "Hate that my body wants your cock even after what you did."

"Then hate me," he answers, his voice rough with emotion I've never heard from him before. "I deserve it. Just don't stop."

His thick length stretches me perfectly, hitting places inside that send electric shocks of pleasure through my pain-wracked body. Each thrust cools the burning heat for precious seconds before it builds again, a momentary relief that makes me sob with gratitude even as I hate myself for it.

"Why?" I demand, teeth finding his skin again, needing to hurt him even as my body sings with building pleasure. "Why did you never question? How could you sign those orders and never once look at what they meant?"

He doesn't defend himself, doesn't offer excuses. Just keeps moving inside me, each thrust deliberate and deep, cooling the fire that threatens to consume me from within.

"I was a coward," he says against my throat, his voice breaking. "Seven centuries of perfect Winter Prince, never questioning, never looking beneath the surface."

---