Page 65 of Run Little Omega

The forest watches with ancient patience as I sit alone on the altar stone, my body still humming with echoes of pleasure and the knowledge that tomorrow will bring more of the same. I should fight harder, resist more fiercely, but the truth sits heavy within me—I want the chase as much as the claiming. I crave the ritual we're creating between us.

What terrifies me most isn't what he's doing to my body, but what he's awakening in my soul.

CHAPTER24

POV: Cadeyrn

Her essence saturates my skin—copperand heat andmine. Blood thunders through my veins like war drums as I stride through the dense undergrowth, every sense heightened. The forest yields before me—branches lifting, roots flattening—acknowledging what I've become.

What she's awakened in me.

Seven centuries of perfect restraint, shattered in mere days.

I halt at the boundary of my territory, testing the air currents. Two Winter Court alphas have crossed my markers. Their presumption would be amusing if it weren't so infuriating. Have they misunderstood the meaning of the nine corpses arranged with such deliberate precision? The ice sculptures of rivals who dared encroach on what belongs to me?

No alpha touches what is mine.

I climb up to a vantage point in the gnarled branches of an ancient blackthorn, its bark weeping red sap. Below, Lord Frostbaine confers with Lord Glacius, a minor Winter Court noble I would barely have acknowledged before the Hunt began. They speak in hushed tones, oblivious to my presence above them.

"His behavior defies explanation," Frostbaine says, his voice carrying clearly to my enhanced hearing. "The territorial displays, the systematic killings—he's abandoned all Hunt conventions."

Glacius nods, his slender frame dwarfed by Frostbaine's enforcer physique. "The Winter Court has always valued control above all. This deviation is... worrisome."

"Worrisome?" Frostbaine's lip curls in disgust. "It's catastrophic. Seven centuries of meticulous breeding, of preserving bloodline purity, and our prince loses himself over some common village omega?"

My fingers pierce the bark as anger courses through me.Some omega?Briar?The defiant blacksmith who infiltrated the Hunt wearing another's face? Who defies her nature with a ferocity no court-bred omega has ever displayed? Who stirs dormant magic in my blood that court physicians claimed didn't exist?

They comprehend nothing.

"She's not ordinary," Glacius acknowledges, voice thoughtful. "Her scent profile is different. Uncommonly strong.”

"Nevertheless," Frostbaine continues, "we presented perfectly appropriate winter-compatible omegas. His fixation on this particular female threatens everything we've built."

A harsh laugh nearly escapes me. What they defend as "everything" is a prison of diminishing returns—each generation producing offspring with weaker connections to magicr. They've mistaken rigid control for strength. The Winter Court withers, has been decaying for centuries, yet none admit it.

But I see it now, with rutting clarity that burns through generations of court deception like the midday sun through winter ice.

"Her glamour technique was clever," Glacius observes. "Using deception to appear more appealing—unusually sophisticated for a village omega."

They fail to understand her. She wasn't attempting to seem more desirable. She sacrificed herself for another—a concept their calculating minds cannot imagine.

“The diplomatic complications of his actions multiply daily," Frostbaine mutters, lowering his voice further. “The Summer Court demands explanations for their dead alphas. The Autumn Court threatens trade sanctions. The Spring Court is dispatching representatives."

"Will he attend the council meeting?" Glacius asks, anxiety threading through his words. "He hasn't abandoned his hunting grounds in days."

Frostbaine's expression hardens. "He must. The Hunt has protocols. Our entire breeding program depends on multiple alphas accessing the omega pool. His claim of exclusivity undermines centuries of careful planning."

The branch beneath my grip shatters as I freeze it from the inside. They speak of her as breeding stock, as if any alpha should claim equal right to mount and seed her. The thought ignites fresh waves of possessive fury inside me.

"His physical changes are… unexpected," Glacius notes, gesturing vaguely at nothing. "Court physicians always maintained that rutting would deteriorate him, drain his magical reserves, as it has every other male in his bloodline. Yet..."

"Yet his power grows," Frostbaine completes, obviously uncomfortable. "The ice sculptures alone show an exceptional control with his magic despite his degeneration into such a primal state."

They discuss my transformation as a disease, a weakness, when every fiber of my being resonates with newfound vitality. The physicians deceived us—or perhaps remained ignorant themselves. Rutting hasn't diminished me; it has stripped away artificial constraints, reconnected me to ancient power that flows in Winter Court bloodlines but has been methodically suppressed for generations.

And it responds to her. To Briar. To something in her blood that calls to mine across our claiming bond, between one heartbeat and the next.

"We should inform the Council," Frostbaine concludes. "If the prince persists in this behavior, we may have to alter the line of succession to remove him.”

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