Page 98 of Run Little Omega

Something shifts in his expression—a crack in the princely mask he's worn for centuries. "I don't know," he admits. "Perhaps I never truly saw you at all. Not until..."

"Until what?" The ice around us stills, waiting with me for his answer.

"Until you." His voice holds no manipulation, no calculated seduction. "Until I claimed you and felt what no court protocol prepared me for—a mind connecting with mine, emotions flowing both ways across a bond that shouldn't be possible."

I shake my head, refusing the easy comfort his words offer. "That's not good enough. Realizing one omega is a person doesn't erase centuries of treating the rest as disposable."

"No, it doesn't." He takes another step toward me, cillae brightening as our proximity strengthens the connection between us despite my anger. "Nothing erases the past. Nothing justifies what I've authorized. I can only tell you that claiming you has awakened something I thought long dead—the capacity to question, to feel, to see beyond court doctrine."

"How convenient for you." My bitterness tastes like metal shavings on my tongue. "One good claiming and suddenly you develop a conscience."

The cillae across his skin dim at my words. Through our bond, I feel his genuine hurt—and beneath it, fear. Not of my anger or the ice forming around us, but of losing something he's only just discovered he needs.

"I don't expect forgiveness," he says quietly. "Only understanding that the man who signed those orders is not the same man standing before you now."

"Isn't he?" I place my hand on one of the execution orders, frost spreading from my fingertips across his elegant signature. "The Winter Prince, Seventh of His Line, Keeper of the Frost Throne—that's still who you are. Still the man who would return to court and continue signing these orders once this Hunt concludes."

His silence is answer enough.

Something breaks inside me—not my heart, which has somehow protected itself despite our growing connection, but something deeper. The trust I'd reluctantly extended, the hope that whatever grew between us might transcend the brutal circumstances of our meeting.

The cillae across my skin pulse chaotically as magic responds to my emotional state. Ice spreads from my feet, not in controlled formations but in wild, jagged spears that advance toward Cadeyrn like physical manifestations of my rage.

"Briar." He doesn't retreat from the approaching ice. "I know you're angry?—"

"Angry?" The laugh that escapes me sounds nothing like my normal voice. "Angry doesn't begin to describe what I'm feeling."

The magic builds within me, a pressure seeking release—raw, primal power responding to emotions too complex to name. Nothing like the controlled frost abilities Cadeyrn demonstrated during our journey.

"I killed my heart to serve my court," he says, his voice barely audible above the crackling ice. "For centuries, I did what duty demanded without questioning the cost. Until you."

"And now?" The ice surges higher around us, forming a crystalline barrier between where I stand and where he remains perfectly still. "Now that you've remembered how to feel, what will you do with all those inconvenient emotions?"

Through our bond, I sense his struggle—genuine remorse battling with seven centuries of ingrained duty, newfound empathy crashing against the weight of court responsibilities.

"I don't know," he admits, and the simple honesty of it almost breaks through my rage. Almost.

The ice responds to my fury, jagged spears launching toward him without conscious direction from me. He makes no move to defend himself, accepting the attack as his due. Ice tears through his hunting leathers, drawing blood that freezes instantly against his marble-white skin.

Physical pain jars through our bond, his agony reflecting back to me in waves that should bring satisfaction but only deepen my confusion. I feel his blood freezing, feel the ice penetrating flesh, feel his acceptance of this punishment as deserved.

"Fight back!" I scream, unable to bear this passive acceptance. "Defend yourself!"

"Against what?" Blood trickles from a cut across his cheek, crystallizing before it can fall. "Against the justice you have every right to demand?"

His surrender only fuels my rage. More ice forms, sharper and deadlier, drawn from the Wild Magic now flowing unchecked through my veins. It slices through his remaining defenses, drawing blood that steams in the frigid air surrounding us.

Through our bond, I feel no resistance, only sad acceptance and beneath it—impossibly—a growing concern for me rather than himself. His worry centers not on the damage I'm inflicting but on what channeling such raw, untrained magic might do to my human body.

Even now, bleeding and wounded by my attack, he worries for my safety.

The realization doesn't diminish my rage but transforms it into something more complex, with layers I don't have the capacity to untangle. The ice responds to my confusion, its attacks becoming erratic, unfocused.

I clutch the pendant the Survivor gave me, using its solid weight to anchor myself against the magic threatening to consume me whole. "I have to go," I manage, my voice raw with tangled emotions. "I can't—I can't be near you right now."

Cadeyrn makes no move to stop me, though the cillae connecting us dim visibly at my words. Blood seeps from multiple wounds, freezing before reaching the ground. "I understand," he says simply.

"Do you?" The question emerges as a bitter challenge. "Do you understand that every time I look at you now, I'll see the man who authorized my mother's murder? Who created the poison killing my best friend? Who buried children alive for centuries because court protocol demanded it?"

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