Page 40
Story: Run Little Omega
CHAPTER 40
POV: Briar
I'm dying.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. Actually fucking dying.
My insides feel like they're being ripped apart by invisible claws. Heat pulses through me in merciless waves, each one worse than the last, turning my blood to liquid fire. I writhe on the ancient stone dais, skin slick with sweat that evaporates almost instantly in the oppressive crimson light.
This isn't normal heat. This is something else—a transformation stalled midway, Wild Magic awakened but incomplete, tearing me apart from the inside out.
I bite down on my knuckles to stifle another scream as a fresh surge hits me. The taste of copper floods my mouth. Great. Now I'm bleeding. Just perfect.
The Sacred Grove's flowers pulse in sick synchronicity with my convulsing body, their blood-red petals drinking in my agony like it's some kind of fucked-up fertilizer. The crimson moon hangs bloated and obscene above me, its light drilling into my marrow, rewriting something fundamental that was never meant to be unfinished.
"They're coming," The Hound calls from the edge of the grove, his voice tight with urgency. "Court hunting parties. At least two dozen alphas."
I want to respond with something cutting. Something brave. All that comes out is a keening wail that doesn't sound remotely human.
My fingernails have lengthened to curved points, magic gathering around them even as my core burns. The silver threading through my copper hair has taken over completely now, each strand catching the crimson light like metal wire.
Half-transformed. Caught in between. Dying by fucking inches.
The forest erupts with violence—trees shattering, underbrush cracking, animals scattering in terror. The hunting parties have arrived, their coordinated magic breaking through the ancient woodland's barriers.
Then—a cold so intense it cuts through even my fever.
Winter descends at the forest's edge, not natural winter but something older, primal. Trees explode as sap flash-freezes within their trunks. The ground hardens with an audible crack, arcane patterns identical to those covering my skin spreading in all directions. The very air crystallizes, moisture particles suspended like diamond dust in the eerie stillness.
Cadeyrn.
I push myself up on trembling arms, desperate for a glimpse of him through the grove's protective barrier. What I see steals what little breath I have left.
It's him, but not him. Still Cadeyrn's face, still his midnight-black hair—but everything else has changed. Tiny spring flowers bloom along his hairline, appearing and dying and reappearing in endless cycles. His marble-white skin now bears patches of autumn camouflage that shift and swirl like fallen leaves in wind. The summer court's golden tan spreads across his chest in patterns that pulse with internal fire.
Wild Magic. Not just winter anymore, but all courts. All seasons. The barriers between them dissolving as he fights.
And fight he does. Nine alphas surround him, more approaching through the trees. Representatives from all courts move with unnatural coordination, millennia of rivalry set aside to eliminate the threat we apparently represent.
His power has grown exponentially since our separation. Ice erupts from his fingertips with surgical precision, freezing a Summer Court alpha solid mid-leap. His movements blur with impossible speed as he evades Spring Court vines that whip toward his legs. When an Autumn Court alpha gets too close, decay magic eating at the edges of his shield, Cadeyrn responds with a roar that shakes the very ground, ice spears erupting from the frozen earth to impale his attacker.
But he's outnumbered. Badly. As I watch, a Spring Court alpha manages to entangle his leg with thorned vines. A Summer Court alpha circles behind, hands blazing with killing fire.
"Fuck," I gasp, another wave of heat nearly blinding me with pain. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I don't want to need him. Don't want to invite him into this sacred space after what he's done. But I'm dying, he's dying, and something larger than both of us hangs in the balance.
"Get in here!" I shout, the words tearing from my raw throat. No formal invitation, just desperate need. "Cadeyrn! Now!"
The effect is immediate. The blood-red flowers part like they've been sliced by an invisible blade, creating a path that aligns perfectly with the bond stretching between us. Cadeyrn feels it—his head snapping toward me, eyes locking with mine across the impossible distance.
He moves like nothing I've ever seen. Not running but flowing, his transformed body crossing the space between us with preternatural grace. The alphas realize too late, lunging after him only to crash against the grove's invisible barrier. Their magic flares uselessly against protections older than any court divisions.
And then he's there. Right in front of me. Blood and magic coating his transformed body, his midnight hair still threaded with spring flowers that bloom and die and bloom again. The autumn camouflage swirls across his skin, while summer's fire burns in patches across his chest. Only his eyes remain unchanged—winter-blue fire that burns straight through me.
"Briar," he says, my name emerging like it's being ripped from somewhere deep inside him.
Another wave of heat crashes through me, stronger than any before. My back arches involuntarily, a scream tearing from my throat as my body recognizes its alpha despite every rational thought screaming against it. The omega in me claws toward him, desperate for completion while my mind rebels.
"This changes nothing," I spit through gritted teeth, even as my thighs part without conscious command. "I still fucking hate what you?—"
"I know." He drops to his knees before the stone dais, close enough that I can smell him—winter pine and metal and alpha musk, now complicated by hints of spring flowers, autumn earth, summer heat. Through our bond, I feel his restraint—the rutting alpha held in check by something deeper. "But you're dying, and I can't?—"
"Just do it," I cut him off, already clawing at what remains of my tattered clothing. "Make it stop. Please make it stop."
He moves with surprising gentleness despite the obvious rut hardening his cock, the autumn camouflage swirling faster across his skin with each racing heartbeat. His hands help remove the barriers between us, and everywhere he touches feels like ice against my burning skin—painful relief that makes me gasp.
I grab his wrists when he tries to position himself, stopping him with unexpected strength. "No," I manage, surprised at my own demand. "Face to face. I need to see you. All of you. No more hiding."
Something passes through his eyes—relief, maybe, that I'm not asking for the clinical coupling of court protocol. I pull him down until our bodies align, chest to chest, his weight both burden and anchor as the heat threatens to consume me.
"I fucking hate you," I whisper, the words belied by the way my body arches toward his. "I hate what you did. What you let happen."
"I know," he answers, his forehead pressing against mine. "You should."
When he pushes inside me, the sensation is like being split open—not just physically but mentally, emotionally, magically. My body welcomes him instantly, slick heat gripping his thick cock with omega recognition, but something else happens simultaneously. The claiming bond tears wide open, mental barriers disintegrating as our minds connect with brutal, unforgiving intimacy.
I see everything.
Seven centuries of Winter Prince—cold, detached, signing death warrants without ever witnessing their execution. Court politics played with calculated precision, no thought given to the human lives affected by decisions made in ice palaces. The gradual hardening of a mind taught from birth that emotional distance was strength, that questioning was weakness.
But I also see the change—the moment in the Gathering Circle when he saw through my glamour, something in my copper hair and defiant stance triggering the first crack in centuries of certainty. The growing horror as connections formed between those elegant signatures and real suffering. The genuine shock upon realizing that the "mercy cullings" he authorized were exploitation, torture, slow deaths.
He sees me just as completely.
My childhood in Thornwick, always different, always hiding. My mother wasting away while I held her hand, twelve years old and powerless to help. The way her blood looked black against her pale skin when she finally died. Fergus finding me presented as omega, his gruff protection teaching me to bind my developing body, to move like a beta, to suppress the scent that would mark me for sacrifice. The forge work that gave me unusual strength, hands calloused where court omegas remained soft. My friendship with Willow, her acceptance of fate that I could never stomach, my decision to steal her place.
Our bodies move together on the ancient stone, but it's nothing like our previous claimings. This isn't rutting alpha and submitting omega. This is raw need, desperation, magic demanding completion while our hearts remain in pieces.
I bite his shoulder hard enough to draw blood that freezes instantly against my teeth. He doesn't pull away, doesn't restrain me, just accepts the pain as his due. My nails rake down his back, leaving trails of magic in their wake.
"I hate that I need this," I gasp against his throat, my hips rising to meet each thrust despite my words. "Hate that my body wants your cock even after what you did."
"Then hate me," he answers, his voice rough with emotion I've never heard from him before. "I deserve it. Just don't stop."
His thick length stretches me perfectly, hitting places inside that send electric shocks of pleasure through my pain-wracked body. Each thrust cools the burning heat for precious seconds before it builds again, a momentary relief that makes me sob with gratitude even as I hate myself for it.
"Why?" I demand, teeth finding his skin again, needing to hurt him even as my body sings with building pleasure. "Why did you never question? How could you sign those orders and never once look at what they meant?"
He doesn't defend himself, doesn't offer excuses. Just keeps moving inside me, each thrust deliberate and deep, cooling the fire that threatens to consume me from within.
"I was a coward," he says against my throat, his voice breaking. "Seven centuries of perfect Winter Prince, never questioning, never looking beneath the surface."
The admission breaks something in me—not forgiveness, not yet, but something close to understanding. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him deeper as my inner walls clench around him. His knot begins to swell, catching at my entrance with each thrust, the pressure both pain and exquisite relief.
"I went there," he continues, movements growing more erratic as his control slips. "To the Vale. After you left. Saw it all. The graves. The flowers feeding on dying magic." His voice cracks completely. "The water flowing toward your village. Your mother."
His words shouldn't turn the key to my release, but they do—not because of what he did but because he finally saw, finally understood. My body convulses around him as pleasure crashes through me, so intense it borders on pain. The Wild Magic erupts between us, energy spiraling from where our bodies join, patterns matching perfectly as the transformation accelerates.
His knot locks inside me as his release follows, hot jets of cum that should burn but somehow cool the fire raging through my veins. Magic explodes around us, every flower in the Sacred Grove blooming simultaneously despite the season. Through our bond, I feel his completion not just physically but emotionally—centuries of calculated distance crumbling as he experiences pleasure without control, connection without walls.
As his seed fills me in pulsing waves, the claiming magic changes, shifts, becomes something neither Winter Court ice nor human resilience but a third thing altogether—Wild Magic responding to balance rather than dominance. The crimson moonlight bathes us in blood-red illumination, sealing whatever transformation has begun.
And then, still locked together by his knot, I shatter completely.
Sobs rip from my chest, ugly and raw and uncontrolled. I pound against his chest with closed fists, each impact drawing blood that freezes instantly against his skin. The horror of everything crashes through me—the unmarked graves, the dying infants, my mother's poisoned death—with renewed force now that the heat no longer consumes all thought.
"How could you?" I scream, even as his knot pulses inside me, his seed still filling my womb in steady waves. "All those omegas! All those babies! My fucking mother!"
He doesn't try to restrain me, doesn't defend himself. Just holds me through the storm, accepting each blow as his due. Through our bond, I feel his self-loathing, his genuine horror at centuries of complicity.
"I have no defense," he says when my sobs finally quiet to hiccupping gasps, his voice raw with emotion. "I never questioned. Never looked. Never connected the elegant signatures to real people dying in agony." His fingers brush tears from my cheeks with surprising tenderness. "Until you."
His knot keeps us joined, alpha biology ensuring his seed remains inside me while our bodies recover. In the crimson light, I truly see the extent of his transformation—not just the obvious physical changes but something in his eyes. The cold, calculating Winter Prince is gone, replaced by someone I don't fully recognize. Someone still becoming.
"I stood there," he continues, the words clearly costing him. "At the Vale. Saw where they buried pregnant omegas alive. Watched those fucking flowers feeding on dying children's magic." His voice breaks. "Followed the stream to where it joined the river flowing to Thornwick. To where your mother died because of what I authorized."
I want to hate him. Part of me still does. But through our bond, I feel the genuine devastation of his realization, centuries of comfortable certainty shattered by unavoidable truth.
"It's not enough," I tell him, the words coming out flat and tired. "Understanding doesn't fix anything."
"No," he agrees, making no attempt to minimize or defend. "Nothing does. I can only promise it ends. All of it. Whatever it costs me."
Around us, the hunting parties continue to gather, more alphas arriving to surround the Sacred Grove. Their magic tests the ancient boundaries—Summer flames, Autumn decay, Spring growth, Winter ice—seeking weaknesses in protection older than court divisions.
"You need to move," The Hound calls from the grove's edge, his urgent tone breaking through our private aftermath. "The blood moon's zenith is passing. When its light fades, the grove's protection weakens."
Cadeyrn's knot finally recedes, our bodies separating with a slick sound that makes me wince. As we dress in what's left of our tattered clothing, I assess him with new eyes. Not the Winter Prince who terrified me at the Gathering Circle. Not the rutting alpha who claimed me beneath the blackthorn. Something different—a being in transformation, caught between what he was and what he's becoming.
"I can't forgive you," I say, the words coming out matter-of-fact rather than heated. "Not yet. Maybe not ever."
"I don't expect it," he replies, his focus already shifting to the threat gathering outside as the tiny spring flowers continue their cycle of birth and death along his hairline. "Just let me help end what I helped create."
It's not friendship. It's not reconciliation. It's barely even an alliance. But as another wave of court alphas arrives at the grove's edge, I recognize the practical truth.
"We fight together," I decide, magic gathering around my fingertips as I move to stand beside him. "Whatever comes after... we'll figure it out if we survive."
The Hound approaches carefully, eyes flicking between us. "There's a way beneath the Sacred Grove," he explains, nodding toward the stone dais where we claimed each other. "Ancient tunnels that connect to places the courts have forgotten. If you can hold them off long enough for me to open the passage..."
Cadeyrn and I exchange a glance, something like understanding passing between us despite everything still unresolved. Without discussion, we move into position—back to back at the grove's center, magic forming around our hands in identical patterns.
"Ready?" he asks.
"No," I answer honestly, "but do we have a choice?"
Our magic responds in perfect synchronization despite my words, energy spreading from our feet in spiraling patterns across the grove floor. Wild Magic answers our combined call, responding not to dominance or submission but to something new forged in crimson moonlight and shared pain.
Together, we face the gathering storm.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40 (Reading here)
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62