Page 6 of Run Little Omega

I wait until the last lamp in Fergus's room goes dark before moving silently through the workshop. His door is never locked; trust is implicit between master and apprentice. Still, my heart pounds as I ease it open, slipping inside like the thief I'm about to become.

The floorboards beneath his bed creak slightly as I kneel, feeling for the loose plank I saw years ago when helping him move a heavy chest. My fingers find the slight indentation, lifting carefully to reveal a hidden compartment carved into the supporting beam.

Inside lies a small leather pouch and several rolled parchments, secured with faded ribbon. I remove them with trembling hands, unwrapping the first scroll to reveal meticulous ink drawings—maps of the Bloodmoon Forest, more detailed than any I've seen before. Paths and landmarks are carefully noted, along with symbols whose meanings I can only guess at.

The leather pouch yields a half-dozen iron tokens, each no bigger than a thumbnail and carved with runes that seem to shift in the dim light. Contraband, certainly. Iron in any form is strictly regulated in the borderlands, its natural resistance to fae glamour making it valuable and dangerous.

I pocket everything, replacing the floorboard with care. Fergus will know who took them, of course. But by then, it will be too late to stop me.

My path is set now, as unchangeable as metal cooled after forging. If the fae want an omega from Thornwick, they'll have one—but it won't be Willow. It will be me, with my blacksmith's strength and my carefully hoarded knowledge of the forest.

I may not survive, but I'll make damn sure I'm not easy prey. And if I'm going to die in those woods, I'll take as many fae alphas with me as I can.

For Willow. For Fergus's daughter. For every omega sacrificed to maintain a bargain none of us agreed to.

The crimson moon will rise in three weeks. Until then, I have preparations to make and a deception to plan that will either save my best friend or destroy us both.

One thing is certain: I'm done with mercy.

CHAPTER3

POV Briar

Desperation has drivenme to new depths. Tonight, I’m going to become a thief—and a would-be hedge witch.

Thornwick's pre-crimson moon festival spills through its narrow streets. The whole thing is too bright, too loud, too desperate for my taste. Lanterns hanging between thatched roofs cast golden light across faces drunk on ale and relief.

Their daughters are safe. For seven more years, their homes won’t be visited by the horrifying grief of the Hunt.

I pull my hood lower, sticking to the shadows as I navigate the edges of the festival. My copper hair is too distinctive in a village where most people are brunettes of some sort, so I keep it concealed. The last thing I want tonight is to be notice.

"Come dance, smith-girl!" A man's voice, slurred with drink, carries above the fiddle music. The tanner's son, probably. I ignore him, slipping between two houses where the lantern light doesn't reach.

Festival nights have rhythms to them. By now, the village elders will be gathering at the central square for the blessing ritual. Willow will stand beneath the ancient oak, draped in ceremonial white while Maeve burns sacred herbs and paints protection symbols on her forehead—useless gestures against what waits for her in the forest.

It's this certainty that guides my steps toward the eastern edge of Thornwick, where the hedge witch's cottage squats like an unwanted bug on an animal’s hide. There are no lanterns here, no celebrations. Even on normal days, villagers approach Maeve's house only out desperation—a child's persistent fever, a cow's unexplained barrenness, a husband's wandering eye.

Tonight, with Maeve occupied at the blessing ritual, her cottage stands eerily silent, windows dark as a moonless night. The garden surrounding it seems to writhe in the evening breeze, plants twisting away from my footsteps as though they’re aware of what I’m up to. I know better than to touch them. Hedge witches don't waste space on ornamentals; everything that grows here serves a purpose, usually a dark one.

The front door will be warded, of course. Maeve may be tolerated here, but she's no fool. I circle to the back, where a small window sits slightly ajar—not coincidence but design. The witch keeps it open for her familiars, strange creatures that come and go in the night hours. Big enough for a raven or fox. Big enough, perhaps, for a slender blacksmith.

I test the frame with my fingers. No telltale prickle of protective magic, just old wood swollen with damp. Hoisting myself up, I slip through the opening with more grace than my muscled frame suggests, landing silently on the packed earth floor.

The cottage's interior smells of dried herbs, animal musk, and something acrid that burns the back of my throat. My eyes adjust bit by bit to the darkness, shapes emerging slowly—hanging bundles of plants, shelves crowded with bottles, tables covered in implements with unknown purposes. A chicken's foot dangles above the doorway. A collection of small bones—not all animal—forms a pattern on one workbench.

I don't have much time. The blessing ritual lasts less than an hour, and I need to be gone before Maeve returns. I sweep the room with my gaze, searching for one thing only: the grimoire, the witch's personal collection of spells and knowledge, passed down through generations of her line.

The iron tokens in my pocket feel suddenly heavier, as though responding to the magic saturating this place. I take one out, running my thumb across its surface. It’s primitive, sure, but I'll take any advantage available. It seems to lead more towards the darkest, thinkest magic in the room.

There—on a stone pedestal in the far corner, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight streaming through a hole in the thatched roof. “Gotcha.”

The grimoire is closed, its binding the color of dried blood, with strange markings etched across its surface. From this distance, it looks like tooled leather.

I know better. Village gossip says the book is bound in human skin, harvested from Maeve's predecessors when they die. A morbid tradition ensuring each generation's knowledge remains literally contained within the family.

Approaching cautiously, I reach my hand toward the book, hovering my palm just above its surface. No obvious traps, no shimmer of protective spells. Still, my heart pounds as my fingertips make contact.

The grimoire feels... warm. Alive, almost, with a pulse that matches my own.

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