Page 109 of Run Little Omega

The forest floor erupts with sudden, violent life. Roots thick as a man's arm burst from the earth beneath the alphas' feet, wrapping around legs, waists, throats with surprising speed. The oak behind me groans, its branches bending downward as if to shield me from view.

Wild Magic—not mine, not consciously summoned, but answering some deeper need. The forest itself intervenes, ancient awareness responding to the threat against what it recognizes as kin.

Chaos erupts as the alphas fight the sentient roots. Flame and thorn and petal magic flares against the wooden bonds, but for each root severed, three more emerge from the churning earth. Even Klairs struggles, his reanimated strength meeting equal force in the ancient oak's defense.

"Run," a voice whispers through rustling leaves above me. Not human, not fae, but something older than both. "We will hold them, but not for long."

I don't question this miracle. With strength born of desperate need, I stagger from my shelter, each step sending fresh waves of agony across my wounded back. Blood leaves a clear trail behind me, but I can't worry about that now. The forest continues its unlikely assault, giving me precious moments to put distance between myself and the court alphas.

I crash through undergrowth, following no path but instinct and the subtle guidance of branches that seem to bend away from my approach, clearing an escape route no alpha could track. Behind me, shouts and the crack of breaking wood suggest the forest's defense is faltering, the combined might of nine court alphas overwhelming even ancient magic.

My vision blurs as blood loss and exhaustion take their toll. The silver threads in my hair catch the filtered sunlight, creating strange patterns across my path that seem to form and reform into guiding arrows. Or perhaps that's just my fading consciousness creating patterns from chaos.

I don't know how long I run, how far I travel before my legs finally give out. I collapse at the edge of a clearing unlike any I've seen before in the Bloodmoon Forest. Perfectly circular, filled with flowers that shouldn't bloom in this season, surrounded by white-barked trees that form a natural boundary between this sacred space and the darker woods beyond.

Some primal instinct whispers that I've found safety—temporarily at least. That no alpha, not even Cadeyrn with his Winter Court power, could enter this grove without invitation. My blood seeps into the earth beneath me, and the flowers nearest my fallen form turn toward me like sentinels acknowledging a returning queen.

The claiming bond pulses once, strongly, as if Cadeyrn senses my momentary safety despite our distance. Through it, I catch the barest impression of his thoughts—concern, yes, but also a strange resolve, as if he's reached some decision that reshapes his understanding of everything.

"Rest now, Wild One," that same not-quite-voice whispers through rustling leaves. "They cannot follow where you now lie."

I want to ask questions—about this grove, about the forest's intervention, about what I'm becoming that courts would unite to control through breeding. But consciousness slips from me like water through cupped hands, darkness claiming my senses as my body surrenders to healing sleep.

My last coherent thought is a strange certainty that I'm being watched—not by pursuing alphas but by something ancient and patient, something that has waited centuries for Wild Magic to reawaken in human veins.

Something that recognizes what I'm becoming even when I don't understand it myself.

The darkness takes me completely then, but it doesn't feel like surrender.

It feels like preparation.

CHAPTER39

POV: Briar

I waketo a world drowning in crimson.

The moon hangs bloated and impossible above the sacred grove, its light no longer the silver-white of ordinary nights but a deep, pulsing red that penetrates to the marrow of my bones. Every white flower surrounding me has transformed into a blood-red sentinel, standing silent watch as my body burns from the inside out.

My skin feels too tight, as if something beneath it struggles for release. The wounds across my back no longer burn with ordinary pain but pulse in rhythm with the crimson moonlight, each throb sending waves of heat and awareness through my transforming body.

The claiming bond stretches between Cadeyrn and me, vibrating like an overtightened string about to snap. Through it, I sense his distant awareness, his growing alarm as he feels my condition deteriorating. Part of me—the part that remembers the documents bearing his elegant signature, the graves filled with murdered omegas and their unborn children—wants to sever this connection completely. But my body knows better, recognizes on some primal level that separation during a crimson moon is its own kind of torture.

"Awake at last," a familiar voice observes from the edge of my vision. "For a while, I wondered if you'd sleep through the entire blood moon."

I turn my head slowly, muscles protesting even this small movement. The Hound kneels just outside the sacred grove's boundary, his unusual eyes reflecting the crimson light with that animal-like quality that marks his mixed heritage. Since our brief meeting days ago when he provided that birthing charm and compass, he looks more weathered, as if the forest itself has left its mark on him.

"The Hound." My voice emerges as a rasp, throat parched from unconsciousness. "How did you find me?"

"I follow paths others can't see," he replies, the same answer he gave when we first met. "Though in your case, tracking was hardly necessary. Your magic leaves... impressions."

He gestures to the clearing around us, and I realize what he means. The white flowers—now blood-red in the crimson light—form a perfect circle around my prone form. Beyond them, intricate patterns identical to those covering my skin glisten on the surrounding trees, as if my unconscious body has been marking territory in Cadeyrn's absence.

"You've been busy while I slept," I observe, nodding toward a small fire burning beyond the grove's edge and what appears to be a makeshift poultice drying on stones nearby.

"Healing salve," he explains, following my gaze. "For your back. As I mentioned before, Autumn Court magic lingers in those wounds."

With effort, I push myself to a sitting position, the world spinning momentarily before settling into blood-tinted focus. "Why help me? Last time you warned about the courts uniting against us. Now you're treating my wounds?"

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