Page 19

CHAPTER 19

POV: Briar

Heat takes me like a forge fire—not the sudden flare of kindling catching, but the methodical, relentless build that turns solid metal molten.

The morning after my encounter with Cadeyrn dawns in waves of crimson and gold, the forest painted in hues that echo the rising temperature beneath my skin. I wake curled against the base of an ancient blackthorn, my clothes damp with sweat despite the cool morning air. Every inch of my body feels wrong—as if someone's taken a hammer to me, pounding all my nerve endings to the surface.

This isn't the gradual warming I've experienced until now. This is full heat—the biological imperative I've denied for eleven years finally unleashed, collecting its due with ruthless interest.

"Get up," I tell myself, voice sandpaper-rough from a night of restless dreams filled with ice-blue eyes and frost-touched skin. "Move. Now."

My body rebels instantly. As I try to stand, my legs buckle and shake, refusing to support my weight. A viscous warmth gathers uncomfortably between my thighs, making the fabric of my leggings cling in ways that announce my condition to any passing alpha. The hollow sensation deep in my core that began as mere discomfort has transformed into a vacuum that demands to be filled.

I grit my teeth and force myself upright, using the tree for support. The bark beneath my palm scrapes against me—each ridge and furrow distinct. When I finally manage to stand, the world tilts drunkenly around me, colors bleeding at the edges, scents so potent they're nearly visible.

The forest has transformed overnight—or perhaps it's my senses that have changed, heightened beyond human limitation. Silver leaves overhead gleam with the metallic luster of polished blades. The earth exhales aromas with each step—decay and growth and old magic twisting together. Even the air tastes different—richer, heavier, charged with information my mind struggles to process.

I catch my reflection in a dew-covered leaf and confirm my worst fear. The glamour spell flickers like a dying candle, my true copper hair breaking through Willow's platinum illusion before the magic struggles to reassert itself. My eyes flash between borrowed green and natural amber-gold, the spell’s deterioration visible even though the Hunt is only a little over halfway through.

"Just a little longer," I whisper to the failing spell. Iron doesn't beg, but here I am, pleading with magic as if it might listen.

Unbidden, memory surfaces—myself at twelve, curled into a tight ball beneath Fergus's workbench, terrified of the strange heat coursing through my blood. My first heat struck without warning, just days after my mother fell ill with the wasting sickness that would claim her within the week.

I had no idea what was happening to me. Mother had begun explaining omega biology—her gentle voice outlining changes that might someday come—but illness took her before she could properly prepare me. I only knew that something profound and frightening was transforming me from the inside.

Fergus found me there, his broad smith's face creased with concern.

"Ah, girl," he'd said, crouching to meet my eyes. "So that's how it is."

The kindness in his voice cracked something inside me. "What's happening?" I'd asked through confused tears. "I'm burning up."

"You're presenting as omega," he explained with smith's directness. "Your body's preparing itself for..." He'd hesitated, his discomfort evident. "For claiming. For bearing."

"The Hunt," I'd whispered, the word itself a curse in our border village.

His weathered hand had covered mine, surprisingly gentle. "There are ways to hide what you are," he'd said. "Iron dust in your soap will mask your scent. Shadowroot tea can suppress the heat cycles. It won't be easy, but—" His voice had grown fierce with sudden conviction. "I won't let them take you like they took my daughter."

That day began eleven years of deception, of existing between castes, of becoming the blacksmith's apprentice whose strength and skill made her invisible, an assumed beta in every way.

All those years of careful control, undone so simply in the Bloodmoon Forest.

I swallow the last of the herbs the Survivor gave me, knowing they’ll do nothing against the tide now rising. They might take the edge off my symptoms, but full heat has a momentum that nothing can stop. My body calls to any alpha within miles, sending out a signal that’s impossible to resist.

Still, I force myself to move. Each step is a little resistance against the current threatening to sweep me under. The forest floor shifts beneath my boots, branches stirring overhead as I pass. The ancient awareness I've sensed throughout my journey seems especially attentive now, trees turning to track my movements as if I've become something significant in their centuries-long existence.

I notice something odd about my path. Every time I try to head east, toward the haven Sera described, obstacles appear—fallen trees, sudden thickets of thorns, ground that turns unstable beneath my feet. Yet when I move northwest, the forest parts before me, paths clearing, branches lifting away from my face, roots flattening to ease my steps.

The forest is herding me. Again.

"Stop it," I mutter, fighting against the manipulation. "I choose my own way."

I deliberately turn east again, only to find my path blocked by a sudden swarm of hornets appearing from nowhere, their aggressive buzzing forcing me back to the northwestern trail. It's the same direction Cadeyrn disappeared in last night, I realize with growing unease. The forest is guiding me toward him—or toward something it wants us both to find.

The sun climbs higher, its heat compounding the fever inside me. By midday, my control has unraveled to threads. Every breeze feels like fingers trailing across my skin, drawing out sounds I can’t fully suppress. My vision blurs periodically as awareness ebbs and flows, leaving me dizzy and grasping at tree trunks that seem to curve slightly, offering better support where I clutch them.

The glamour fails more frequently now, flickering like metal cooling and reheating. Each time it falters, I catch glimpses of my true self in the corner of my eyes—copper hair darkened with sweat, falling forward into my face. My body fights to reveal itself, to announce its readiness to any alpha who might pass.

I reach a small stream and collapse beside it, plunging my hands and face into the cool water. The relief I feel is blessed, and far too fucking brief—because my heat is so strong now that even the water on my skin warms in seconds. When I look down, water dripping from my chin, I see my reflection—fully myself now, the glamour having collapsed completely the face of the magic of heat and Hunt. The illusion has failed, and I’m not enough of a spellcaster to know if it’ll return.

Another memory rises—Fergus teaching me to forge my first blade, his gruff voice instructing me to respect the metal's nature while shaping it to purpose.

"You can't force it to be something it's not," he'd explained. "The metal has its own truth. Work with that truth, not against it."

The irony cuts deep. For eleven years, I've denied my own nature, forced myself to be something other than what I am. Now the Bloodmoon Forest has stripped it all away, revealing the omega I've always been beneath suppressants and charms.

I try to stand, but another wave of heat crashes through me, driving me back to my hands and knees. The emptiness within has become an all-consuming thing, and even trying to eat is difficult when my insides are so consumed with my heat. Even damned movement is uncomfortable, my shift sticking to my thighs no matter how I try to air it out.

"Keep going," I tell myself fiercely. "One foot in front of the other. Don't stop."

But my body has other plans. I'm a beacon for every alpha within miles, moving too slowly to evade capture, too compromised to defend myself. The silver bracelet pulses against my wrist, cillae glowing with blue-white light that seems to respond to my accelerating heart rate.

A distant howl carries through the trees—an alpha on the hunt, though which one, I can't tell. My body responds instantly, internal muscles tensing with anticipation. The omega in me recognizes that sound as a promise rather than a threat, no matter what the rest of me might think or feel.

The most terrifying part isn't the approaching danger—it's how much I suddenly want to be found. It seems impossible, now, to believe that any omega has escaped being claimed during the Hunt, when it’s all my thrice-cursed body wants.

I stumble through the forest, barely able to navigate as heat intensifies. Colors blur and sharpen, scents overwhelm me, sounds are either too loud or oddly distant. The world pulses in rhythm with my racing heart.

The trees continue their silent guidance, branches blocking certain paths while clearing others. I find myself following the route of least resistance, too overwhelmed to fight the forest's manipulation any longer. Some deeper instinct tells me that resistance is futile anyway—that what's coming has been inevitable since the moment I entered the Gathering Circle wearing Willow's face.

The forest opens suddenly into a clearing I've never seen before, though it feels oddly familiar. At its center stands a massive blackthorn tree, its trunk wider than any I've ever seen, bark black as coal except for veins of red sap that seep from the cracks. The ground beneath is carpeted with silver leaves that whisper at the slightest breeze.

This place feels ancient, sacred in a way that predates human or fae history. The air is heavy with concentrated magic, raising the fine hairs on my arms. I step forward as if pulled by a force outside my control, my feet carrying me toward the ancient tree.

When I touch the blackthorn's trunk, visions flash through my mind. I see alphas and omegas engaged in elaborate ceremonial chases that end not in forced claiming but mutual coming together. These images contradict everything I've heard about the Hunt, suggesting the current practice is distorted reflection of something that was once sacred, just as the Survivor said.

The visions fade, leaving me gasping against the tree, my forehead pressed to rough bark. The contact grounds me for a moment. But the relief is brief—another wave of heat roars through me, stronger than any before. My knees buckle, and I slide down the trunk. I find myself kneeling in silver leaves that curl toward me.

I'm drowning in sensation. My entire fucking body is rebelling against my will. The emptiness inside me has become an unbearable, all-consuming need that overwhelms every other thought. My clothes feel like torture devices against hypersensitive skin. The insistent pulsing between my thighs demands attention I refuse to give it, though my hips shift unconsciously, seeking contact, seeking relief, seeking anything to ease the burning.

"Please," I whisper, though to whom or for what, I'm not entirely sure. To the forest? To the Hunt? To the Winter Prince whose ice-blue eyes haunt my fevered dreams? "Please."

The silver leaves stir around me. The blackthorn's branches shift overhead, red sap flowing more freely from its bark. The clearing itself seems to exhale, as if the forest holds its breath in anticipation of what comes next.

I struggle to maintain some fragment of rational thought, some piece of the blacksmith's apprentice who valued independence above all else. But that self seems increasingly distant, separated from me by a gulf of raw sensation. The omega I've denied for eleven years rises to the surface, responding to the Hunt's ancient magic with instincts older than civilization.

"No," I growl, pressing my palms flat against the ground, focusing on the texture of earth and leaves beneath my fingers. "I am not just omega. I am Briar Ellis. I am strength and fire and iron will."

But my words ring hollow even to my own ears. My body trembles with need, sweat soaking my shift despite the cool shadows beneath the blackthorn. Desperation fills my mouth with a metallic taste, all my carefully laid plans dissolving in the crucible of heat.

The forest whispers around me, silver leaves rustling with secrets just beyond human understanding. I sense movement at the clearing's edge—whether it’s real or a heat-induced hallucination, I can’t even tell. My vision blurs with unshed tears of frustration, the world swimming in and out of focus as I fight to maintain control of a body determined to surrender.

The iron token in my pocket presses against my thigh, its protective magic offering minimal comfort against the biological storm raging through me. I clutch it like a lifeline, a reminder of why I came to this forest—to save Willow, to defy tradition, to prove that omegas are more than just vessels for alphas.

But even as I cling to these ideas, another truth emerges from the depths of my being. Part of me—a growing, insistent part—wants to be found. Wants strong hands and sharp teeth and the relief of surrender. The thought terrifies me more than any alpha's pursuit.

"I won't break," I tell myself, the words a desperate mantra. "I won't surrender. I won't become what they want me to be."

But even as the declaration leaves my lips, I know I’m fighting a losing battle.

The crimson moon will rise again tonight, full and bloated in the darkening sky. And with it, my heat will reach its peak, stripping away the last scraps of control. Whatever happens in this forest will happen to me soon—tonight, perhaps, when moon and magic align to create perfect conditions for the claiming I've fought so hard to avoid.

I gather what strength remains, forcing myself to stand despite legs that tremble like new-forged metal cooling too quickly. The clearing spins around me as I rise, my vision narrowing to pinpoints before expanding again. Every sensation amplifies—the whisper of leaves beneath my boots sounds like a hammer on an anvil, the scent of blackthorn sap fills my lungs like forge smoke, the brush of fabric against my chest sends sparks cascading down my spine.

Still, I place one foot before the other, stubborn determination driving me forward. The forest watches my struggle with ancient patience, tree branches shifting to clear an unambiguous path before me. Northwest still, always northwest, toward whatever destiny the Bloodmoon Forest has decided for me.

"I choose my own fate," I mutter, even as I follow the path laid out. "Even if I follow where you lead, the choice to surrender remains mine."

The forest offers no contradiction, silver leaves rustling in what almost sounds like amusement. It knows what I refuse to acknowledge—that choice becomes increasingly theoretical with each wave of heat that crashes through me. That biology and magic together form a tide too powerful for mere human will to resist indefinitely.

As I leave the ancient clearing behind, the blackthorn's red sap drips faster from its bark, staining the silver leaves beneath with drops that look unsettlingly like blood. A sacrifice made or a sacrifice to come—I can't be sure. All I know is that something primal and irreversible has been set in motion, a ritual older than courts or kingdoms or the artificial divisions that separate omega from alpha, human from fae.

The Hunt continues. I run, though each step costs more than the last. And somewhere in this endless forest, the Winter Prince follows, drawn by instincts as powerful and unwanted as my own.

Tonight, when the crimson moon reaches its zenith, our paths will cross again. And what happens then will be written in frost and fire, in blood and bone, in the ancient magic that remembers what our kinds have forgotten.