Page 154 of Run Little Omega

The corridors shift subtly as we walk, widening to accommodate my pregnant form, the walls themselves seeming to exhale warmth rather than the perpetual winter chill that once defined this place. The palace has become an extension of our magic, responsive to our presence in ways that unnerve the traditional court nobility.

"You feel it too?" Cadeyrn asks quietly, noticing my gaze tracking the living patterns flowing across the ceiling.

"It's... breathing," I reply, finding no better word for how the entire structure seems to pulse with awareness around us. "Becoming something more than stone and ice."

"The Wild Magic flows through everything connected to us now," he says, cillae shifting thoughtfully across his cheekbones. "The throne room was just the beginning."

The memory of our claiming—of ancient ice shattering with color beneath our joined bodies, of walls breathing and ceilings opening to the crimson moon—sends a shiver of heat through me despite the momentary urgency. There will be time for that later. Now we have visitors to assess, potential allies to welcome—or threats to neutralize.

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The reception hall buzzes with nervous energy when we arrive. Court guards stand at rigid attention, cillae pulsing with subtle alarm. Nobles cluster in hushed conversation, stealing glances at three figures huddled near the enormous hearth—the only source of actual warmth in the traditionally frigid Winter Court.

Three omegas. Three survivors of the Wild Hunt.

My steps falter as recognition hits me like a hammer blow. Three faces I never expected to see again, all omegas I encountered during those desperate weeks in the Bloodmoon Forest. Each bears the unmistakable marks of court claiming—bite scars at throat and wrists, bodies swollen with pregnancies that have drained the vitality from their frames. But they're alive, against all odds, standing in the heart of the Winter Court with expressions ranging from terror to desperate hope.

"Holy shit," I breathe, forgetting court protocol entirely. "You made it."

The youngest rushes forward first, her movements impulsive yet determined. Mira—barely seventeen, taken in this year's Hunt with wildflowers still woven in her hair by siblings who didn't understand the sacrifice they decorated. Her brown curls are matted now, her frame thin yet swollen with pregnancy, but her hazel eyes light with recognition.

"Briar," she gasps, stopping just short of touching me. "It's really you. You're... different."

I laugh, the sound sharp as breaking glass. "That's one way of putting it." I gesture to my transformed appearance—the silver-streaked hair, the pointed ears, the cillae visible at my throat. "How did you survive? The last time I saw you..."

I don't finish the sentence, but the memory hangs between us—her crouched behind that fallen log as The Huntsman passed mere feet away, me helping her into the hollow log and promising to create a false trail. The terror in her eyes when she'd gripped my hand and begged me not to leave her.

"The Hound claimed me," she says, ducking her head slightly. "He was... gentler than most would have been. Gave me the choice to refuse his claim."

My eyebrows raise at this. Choice is a concept foreign to the Hunt—the entire ritual designed to strip consent from its participants. "He offered you a choice?"

"After you led that Spring Court alpha away," she explains, hands fluttering nervously. "The Hound found me near the waterfall clearing. Said he could smell your scent on me, knew you'd tried to help." Her throat works, swallowing back emotion. "He said I could accept his claim and have his protection, or continue running and hope for a haven."

"And you chose him."

She nods. "It hurt, but nothing like what happened to the others I saw claimed. And after that, the other alphas were less interested in me. Apparently his seed is hard to displace."

Flora steps forward next, her movements graceful despite obvious exhaustion. Specially bred for court preferences, her appearance remains ethereally beautiful even after everything she's endured—platinum hair and uncommonly pale skin, violet eyes that mark generations of selective breeding like prized livestock.

"You saved me from that Summer Court alpha," she says, her voice softer than I remember. "The one who said I was too... perfect. Too engineered. He wanted to see what I looked like when I broke."

The bile rises in my throat at the memory—that horrific clearing where I'd found her beneath the golden-skinned alpha who took pleasure in her pain, biting her repeatedly not for claiming but for torment. How I'd watched from the shadows, frozen in horror, until he'd sensed my presence. How seconds later, an ice formation had erupted from the ground beneath him—Cadeyrn's distant intervention marking his territory through brutal display.

"And yet here you are, claimed and survived anyway," I observe, taking in the dozens of bite scars at her throat—evidence of multiple claimings she endured even after escaping that first alpha.

"Willing submission has its advantages," she replies with a hint of her old practicality. "When I realized I carried the Raveling Brothers' seed, I found a Spring Court alpha to claim me instead. He was... not gentle, but efficient, and easy to position during knotting." Her hand rests on her swollen belly, a gesture both protective and resigned. "Now I carry his seed instead of theirs, and his magic has begun to flow through me."

Her clinical assessment strikes me anew—the product of generations bred to view their bodies as vessels, to calculate optimal positioning for successful breeding. To survive by any means necessary. I remember her careful instructions about claiming during our last night of freedom, explaining the mechanics of the Hunt with detached precision that contrasted sharply with the horror she later endured.

I turn to the third omega, who hangs back, her posture defensive, watchful. Nessa—the farm girl selected through "random" drawing, whose straightforward terror and confusion provided stark contrast to my strategic resistance during the Hunt. The last time I saw her, she was experiencing early heat symptoms by that rock outcropping, and I'd directed her toward the stream, told her to walk against the current to mask her scent. I'd created a false trail that crossed hers and doubled back, hoping any alpha catching their mixed scents would follow mine instead of hers.

"You survived," I say, genuine amazement in my voice. Nessa was always the embodiment of the standard omega experience—no specialized skills or knowledge to protect her, just an ordinary village girl thrown to the wolves of court breeding programs.

"Barely," she answers, her tone carefully neutral. Her dirty blonde hair is bound in the same practical braid she wore during the Hunt, her blue eyes now carrying a wariness that borders on suspicion as they dart between me and Cadeyrn. "A minor Autumn Court alpha claimed me first. I survived a second claiming by a Summer Court alpha when he decided he wanted me instead. His heir... didn't survive the birthing."

Something flickers behind her eyes that makes my hackles rise. I don't press—survival in the courts demands whatever lies are necessary. If she birthed the Collector's infant before arriving here, she's truly lucky to be alive, as I can only imagine what he does to his failed breeding stock.

The three of them stand before me like ghosts from another life—women who faced the same Hunt, the same brutal claimings, yet somehow survived to reach this moment. And now they've found their way to the Winter Court, to me, as if drawn by some force beyond coincidence.

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