Page 55 of Run Little Omega

"Get out of my head," I snap, though there's little heat behind it. I'm too exhausted, too overwhelmed by everything that's happened.

His soft laugh surprises me. "I would if I could," he admits. "This wasn't... expected."

Another wave of his release pulses through the knot, filling me with liquid heat. My body responds with a shuddering aftershock, inner walls contracting around him, drawing a hiss from his lips.

"You're going to kill me, little blacksmith," he groans, fingers digging into my hips as pleasure courses through us both.

"That was my original plan," I manage, a ghost of my earlier defiance surfacing through the exhaustion.

"And now?" He shifts slightly, deliberately pressing his knot against that devastating spot inside me. Stars explode behind my eyes, my back arching involuntarily.

"Now I'll wait until after you've proven useful," I gasp, stubbornly refusing to give him the satisfaction of complete surrender.

His laugh is richer this time, almost genuine. His hand comes up to cup my face, turning it so he can look into my eyes. What I see there staggers me—the raw hunger remains, but alongside it is something like wonder.

"Do you have any idea what you've done to me?" he asks, thumb tracing my lower lip. "Seven centuries of perfect control, shattered by one copper-haired deceiver."

"Not sorry," I mutter, though the intensity of his gaze makes it hard to maintain my bravado.

"No, you wouldn't be." There's something almost like admiration in his voice. "The first omega to ever challenge me. The first to ever make me feel..."

He doesn't finish the thought, but through our connection, I catch impressions—heat and hunger, yes, but also a desperate, clawing need for something beyond physical satisfaction. Connection. Recognition. Understanding.

"I didn't ask for this," I say, needing to assert some boundary, some control over what's happening between us.

"Neither did I." His honesty is jarring. "But here we are."

Here we are indeed—joined physically, mentally, magically, surrounded by a forest transformed by our claiming, with wild magic awakened that neither of us fully understands.

Whatever happens next, whatever consequences arise from what we've awakened here, one thing is certain: I entered this forest as one person and will leave it as another. Not just claimed, but transformed like metal through fire, hammer, and quenching. And Cadeyrn, for all his power and immortality, appears equally changed.

The Hunt has only just begun.

CHAPTER21

POV: Briar

Dawn creeps across the clearing,stripping away the darkness of shadows to reveal the stark evidence of what happened between us.

I blink against early morning light, surprised to find myself still alive, still whole—and still fundamentally changed.

The ground around the blackthorn tree has transformed overnight. Where frost-killed grass once lay, a perfect circle of wildflowers now blooms—violet and crimson and gold, their vibrant colors an impossible riot of colors so deep beneath the forest's shade.

I'm still entwined with Cadeyrn, his massive body curled around mine in an embrace that feels both possessive and strangely tender. His skin radiates warmth that contradicts everything I've heard about Winter Court fae, as if the rut has permanently altered his body in ways I don't quite understand.

My heat has calmed down significantly, and for the first time in days I can actuallythink.. I mentally catalog sensations across my body: the ache between my thighs, the constellation of bite marks across my shoulders and neck, the lingering fullness from hours joined with his knot. Beneath all the physical is something deeper—a presence in my mind that wasn't there before, like a silver thread connecting us even now.

Through it, I sense something that startles me, coming from him. Not just the possessiveness I would expect from an alpha, but curiosity, fascination, and a strange sort of wonder, as if he's just as surprised by our connection as I am.

It scares me more than anything I've seen so far in the Bloodmoon Forest.

I shift carefully, trying to disentangle myself without waking him up. An impossible feat.

His eyes snap open immediately, pupils black moons in a sea of ice.Fuck.They track my movements with a predatory focus that makes me freeze.

"Going somewhere?" His voice is gravel and smoke, penetrating straight to my omega hindbrain.

"I need to stretch," I reply, which isn't a lie. Every muscle in my body carries sweet, punishing testament to last night's claiming. "Let me the fuck go."

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