Page 49

Story: Run Little Omega

CHAPTER 49

POV: Briar

Court formality can kiss my ass.

I shift uncomfortably on the small throne they've provided beside Cadeyrn's massive one, trying to find a position that doesn't make my back scream or the little ones protest. The formal Winter Court attire they've forced me into—layers of frost-blue silk that supposedly honor my "elevated status"—feels like a costume, something designed to make me forget I was forging iron just weeks ago.

"Stop fidgeting," Cadeyrn murmurs, his voice pitched low enough that only I can hear. "It undermines your authority."

"My authority?" I snort quietly. "These people would happily dissect me for parts if you weren't sitting right there."

His hand slides over mine where it rests on the armrest, cillae briefly flaring where our skin connects. "Not all of them."

He's right, frustratingly. The court has split into clear factions since our return from the blackthorn forest. The younger nobles—those who grew up hearing whispers about Wild Magic and fading bloodlines—gather around Lady Lysandra, their cillae subtly altered to echo my own. The older aristocracy clusters around Lord Frostbaine, all rigid tradition and thinly veiled disgust whenever they look my way.

The throne room itself seems to be choosing sides. Cracks have appeared in the ancient ice walls, thin fissures that pulse with blue-white light when I walk past. The ceiling, once a perfect dome of translucent crystal, now displays shifting patterns that remind me of stars rearranging themselves into new constellations.

"The court recognizes Lord Frostbaine," announces the chamberlain, his voice echoing through the vast space.

Speak of the devil.

Lord Frostbaine rises from his seat among the elder nobles, his white-blonde hair arranged in elaborate braids that broadcast his military rank and bloodline. Everything about him screams traditional Winter Court values—from his perfectly symmetrical features to the frost runes etched into his formal armor.

"My Prince," he begins, voice carrying the perfect mix of deference and challenge, "many among us have concerns about recent... developments within the Winter Court."

Cadeyrn's posture doesn't change, but I feel the subtle shift in his energy—the predator beneath the prince, alert and assessing. "Speak plainly, Lord Frostbaine. This court has no time for delicate insinuations."

A whisper ripples through the assembled nobles. The Winter Prince of old would have engaged in the expected dance of political implication. This direct challenge to court procedure is yet another sign of Cadeyrn's transformation.

Frostbaine recovers quickly, his pale eyes narrowing. "Very well. We question your fitness to lead the Winter Court given your compromised state."

"Compromised?" Cadeyrn repeats, voice deceptively soft.

"You have succumbed to rut," Frostbaine states bluntly, gesturing toward the physical changes evident in Cadeyrn's transformed body. "Court physicians have warned for generations that rutting ages fae royalty, drains power, and clouds judgment. Yet you not only entered rut but have maintained it for an unprecedented duration."

I feel Cadeyrn's knuckles tighten where our fingers remain intertwined, the only outward sign of his tension.

"An interesting interpretation," he responds, ice lacing each word. "Especially given that I've never felt stronger. Never wielded more magic. Never seen the court's problems more clearly."

"A dangerous illusion," Frostbaine counters. "The rut-madness convinces you of increased power while actually diminishing your control. This is well-documented in court medical texts."

"Those same texts that claim omegas exist solely as vessels for ancient bloodlines?" I interject before I can stop myself. "The ones that recommend disposing of 'unsuitable' omegas and their unborn children like trash?"

The chamber temperature plummets as Frostbaine's gaze shifts to me, cold fury etched across his perfect features. "The human omega speaks out of turn. This violates all court protocol."

"The human omega," Cadeyrn says, voice like shattered ice, "is your princess consort and will be afforded every respect due that position."

Frostbaine's lip curls slightly. "A temporary position, surely. Once she delivers the vessels of power, proper arrangements can be made for their court rearing. The omega herself is irrelevant beyond her function."

The casual cruelty of it hits me like a physical blow. Not just the suggestion that I'll be discarded after birth—I expected that—but the implication that my children will be taken from me, raised by the same court that authorized atrocities for centuries.

Something snaps inside me, a dam breaking to release magic I've barely begun to understand. Frost explodes from my fingertips, spreading across the throne room floor in jagged crystalline patterns that race directly toward Frostbaine. The temperature drops so rapidly that moisture in the air solidifies, creating a momentary snowfall inside the chamber.

"You will never touch my children," I snarl, rising to my feet despite the weight of my belly. The little ones respond to my surge of protective fury, their movements inside me growing more vigorous as if preparing for battle themselves. "You will never come near them."

Frostbaine's eyes widen as he watches the frost approach his feet, blue-white tendrils reaching for him with obvious intent. Then his expression hardens into something calculating.

"You see?" he addresses the court at large, carefully stepping aside from my magical assault. "The omega displays uncontrolled power—Wild Magic that threatens our court's very foundations. These abominations she carries must be properly contained, studied, and harnessed when they emerge."

"Abominations?" I echo, the word striking deeper than any physical blow could. The cillae across my skin pulse with matching fury, blue-white light illuminating the chamber in violent bursts. "You ignorant, narrow-minded?—"

Cadeyrn's hand on my arm stops me. Not restraining, just steadying. I glance at him, expecting to see caution, a reminder of court protocol. Instead, his eyes burn with a rage that makes mine look like a candle beside a forest fire.

"Choose your next words with extreme care, Lord Frostbaine," Cadeyrn says, his voice carrying the crack of breaking ice. "You walk a dangerous path."

Instead of heeding the warning, Frostbaine makes a fatal miscalculation. He moves toward me, one hand extended as if to demonstrate to the court how dangerous I am. "The omega clearly cannot control?—"

He never finishes the sentence.

Cadeyrn moves faster than should be physically possible, covering the distance between the throne and Frostbaine in a blur of motion that leaves frost trails in the air behind him. One moment the lord stands before the court, the next Cadeyrn's hand—transformed before everyone's eyes into something with elongated fingers and crystalline claws—pierces his chest cavity with a wet, sickening crunch.

The chamber falls deathly silent as everyone processes what they're witnessing. Frostbaine looks down in shock at the arm buried wrist-deep in his chest cavity, then up at Cadeyrn's face—cold, remote, utterly without mercy.

"I warned you," Cadeyrn says, his voice carrying clearly in the stunned silence. "No one threatens my mate or my children."

But he doesn't simply withdraw his hand. Instead, frost explodes outward from the point of impact, encasing Frostbaine's internal organs in a dense layer of Winter Court ice. Then, in a display of magic that shouldn't be possible for a Winter fae, flames erupt from Cadeyrn's other hand—Summer Court fire, golden and unnaturally hot, the heat so intense it makes the air waver around his fingers.

With terrifying precision, he plunges his flame-wreathed hand into Frostbaine's abdomen, creating a second gaping wound. The conflicting magics—ice and fire—battle within the lord's body, causing his flesh to crack and blister simultaneously. Frostbaine's scream echoes through the chamber, his perfect features contorted in agony.

Still not finished, Cadeyrn withdraws both hands only to press them together, creating a swirling vortex of magic that incorporates not just Winter and Summer, but ribbons of Spring Court growth and Autumn Court decay. The Wild Magic spirals around his hands, cillae pulsing across his skin in violent rhythm.

"For your threat against my children," Cadeyrn declares, "I ensure you will never return."

He thrusts both hands back into Frostbaine's chest, releasing the combined seasonal magics directly into his heart. The effect is instantaneous and horrific. Frostbaine's body begins to transform from within—ice bursting through skin, flowers blooming from the cracks only to wither immediately into dust, flesh simultaneously burning and freezing in a grotesque display of magical destruction.

His eyes—those perfect Winter Court blue eyes—dissolve into liquid that runs down his cheeks like mercury tears. His immaculate white-blonde hair ignites, burning with unnatural blue flame. His chest cavity, already brutally violated by Cadeyrn's initial attack, begins to collapse inward as Wild Magic consumes him from within.

Frostbaine's mouth opens in a silent scream, his vocal cords already destroyed by the magical onslaught. His body convulses once, twice, then begins to disintegrate—not falling apart, but actively unmaking itself as the combined seasonal magics erase his very existence.

When Cadeyrn finally steps back, what remains isn't a body but a horrific tableau—a partially collapsed skeleton encased in frost that crumbles to ash where fire touched it, blooming with grotesque flowers that wither to dust in the same moment they form. The remains collapse to the floor with the sound of glass shattering, spreading outward in a pattern that resembles a shattered mirror more than a fallen body.

Cadeyrn turns to the assembled court, his hands still wreathed in swirling elemental magic, his eyes burning with power no single-court fae should possess.

"Let this stand as precedent," he announces, his voice resonating with multiple harmonic tones that send visible shockwaves through the air. "Any threat to my mate or the heirs of ancient magic will be met with complete erasure. There will be no remains to resurrect, no essence to reclaim, no second chances."

The Wild Magic surrounding his hands pulses once more before sinking beneath his skin, leaving behind cillae that now incorporate elements of all four seasonal courts—spring flowers blooming and dying along the blue-white lines, summer gold flickering at the edges, autumn decay creating beautiful fractal patterns within the frost.

No one moves. No one speaks. The only sound is the soft tinkling of Frostbaine's remains continuing to disintegrate, particles of frost and ash drifting through the air like macabre snow.

Then—a crack splits the silence, so loud it sounds like the world itself breaking apart. A massive fissure appears in the perfect ice wall behind the throne, racing from floor to ceiling in a jagged lightning pattern that pulses with blue-white light edged in summer gold and spring green. Another follows, then another, spreading outward like a constellation being drawn across the ancient structure.

The palace itself is responding to the Wild Magic flooding the chamber, to the violent display of combined seasonal powers just unleashed at its heart. Unlike the court nobles, the ancient building isn't resisting the change—it's embracing it, participating in it, accelerating it.

I sink back onto my throne, suddenly lightheaded as the protective rage recedes. The little ones seem to tumble inside me, their movements almost jubilant, as if celebrating the destruction of a threat to their existence. Through our bond, I feel Cadeyrn's continued vigilance, his attention sweeping the chamber for any sign of another challenger.

"This formal session is concluded," he announces, his tone vibrating with magical harmonics that make the new fissures in the walls pulse brighter. "Court business will resume tomorrow."

The nobles file out in shocked silence, giving what remains of Frostbaine a wide berth. None look directly at us as they exit—some from abject terror, others from carefully concealed approval. The factions that were ideological before have now become literal matters of life and death.

Only when the massive doors swing shut, leaving us alone with the shimmering remains of what was once Lord Frostbaine, does Cadeyrn turn to me.

"Are you alright?" he asks, cillae dimming slightly as he kneels before my throne, his transformed hands—still glowing with residual magic from all four courts—carefully kept away from my clothing.

"I should be asking you that," I reply, reaching out to trace the changed frost spirals along his jawline. The patterns now incorporate tiny flower buds that bloom and die in endless cycles, and flickers of autumn gold that create fractal patterns within the familiar frost. "You just... I don't even know what to call what you just did."

"Erasure," he says simply, the word carrying weight beyond its syllables. "I didn't just kill him—I unmade him. No part remains intact enough for resurrection magic to take hold."

"He threatened what's mine." His voice remains cold, but his eyes—those ice-blue depths now threaded with gold and green, subtly altered by the Wild Magic he unleashed—burn with emotions I'm still learning to read. "I would do it again. I will do worse to anyone who threatens you or our children."

Another crack appears in the wall behind us, larger and more violent than the ones before. The floor beneath us shifts, actual chunks of marble and ice rearranging themselves into new patterns that pulse with synchronized magic.

"This changes everything," I say, feeling the understatement in my bones. "There's no pretending you're just the Winter Prince anymore. Not after what you just did."

"I haven't been just the Winter Prince since I claimed you in the forest." Cadeyrn rises, moving to the window that overlooks the Winter Court grounds. "Perhaps I never was. Perhaps this is what I was always meant to become."

I join him, my gaze following his to where court nobles gather in small clusters, already processing what they witnessed, already choosing sides in whatever comes next. Beyond them, at the palace gates, I spot servants passing messages to civilian messengers—the news will spread beyond court circles within hours.

"The other courts will hear of this," I observe, resting my hand on my belly where our children grow. "They'll see it as proof of everything they fear. That you can wield all forms of seasonal magic. That you've become something no court protocol can contain."

"Good." Cadeyrn's hand covers mine, his transformed cillae synchronizing with mine where our skin connects. "Let them fear. It might prevent them from doing anything suicidal."

I snort, unable to help myself despite the gravity of our situation. "When has fear ever prevented stupidity?"

His mouth quirks in that almost-smile I've come to treasure. "Fair point." He turns to face me fully, his expression sobering. "I won't apologize for what I did to him. He would have become an existential threat to you and the children."

"I'm not asking for an apology," I say, meeting his gaze directly. Even as I say it, I realize it's true. The vicious display of magical destruction should horrify me, but all I feel is fierce satisfaction that a threat to my children has been eliminated so thoroughly. "I'm just wondering what comes next."

"War, certainly." He says it with such matter-of-fact calm that I almost laugh, except I know he's not joking. "The other courts were already gathering forces at our borders. This will confirm their worst fears about what's awakening in us, in our children."

Another series of cracks splinters across the ceiling, drawing our attention upward. The perfect ice dome has begun reshaping itself, crystalline patterns forming constellations that seem to tell a story I can't quite read.

"The palace is changing," I note, watching as frost spirals across the floor in patterns that echo those on my skin.

"It was built with Wild Magic," Cadeyrn explains, his gaze tracking the transformation with fascination rather than alarm. "Before the courts divided power into seasonal territories. The foundations remember what came before."

I think of the ancient archives, of illustrations showing the original Hunt as a sacred ritual of balance rather than a brutal breeding program. Of texts describing Wild Magic as something that flowed naturally between realms, between alpha and omega, before court hierarchy imposed rigid control.

"Like we're remembering," I murmur, thinking of how naturally the frost magic now comes to me, how it responds to emotion rather than formal training.

Cadeyrn nods, his expression thoughtful. "The little ones are part of this. Their magic..." he places his hand more firmly against my belly, "...it's not just Winter Court. Not just any court. It's something older."

A guard knocks at the chamber door, interrupting our moment of quiet contemplation. "My Prince," he calls, "Lady Lysandra requests immediate audience regarding the birth chambers."

Cadeyrn sighs, the sound surprisingly human from someone who just executed a man with his bare hand. "Tell her we'll meet her in our quarters. This conversation requires privacy."

The guard acknowledges the order and retreats. I turn back to the window, watching as court staff drag Frostbaine's frozen remains away, leaving a trail of crystallized blood across the pristine courtyard.

"He won't be the last, will he?" I ask, though I already know the answer.

"No." Cadeyrn doesn't soften the truth. "The courts fear what they cannot control. What we represent. What our children will become."

"And what exactly is that?" I place both hands on my belly, feeling the little ones respond to my touch with synchronized movement.

Cadeyrn considers this, his gaze dropping to where our children grow. "The end of their world," he says finally. "And perhaps the beginning of something better."

Another crack splits the air, this one running directly beneath our feet, frost spiraling outward in patterns that match those covering our skin. The shock of it nearly throws us off balance, pushing us against each other.

Something breaks between us in that moment of contact—some final thread of restraint rendered meaningless after the brutal display of power and protection we just witnessed. Cadeyrn's eyes lock with mine, the ice-blue now threaded with gold and green, pupils expanding rapidly to swallow the color entirely.

"Mine," he growls, the word more vibration than sound.

My response isn't verbal. I grab him by his frost-patterned collar and crash my mouth against his. There's nothing gentle in this kiss—it's all teeth and tongue and primal claim. His fangs, still elongated from the magical display, slice my lower lip, the coppery tang of blood mixing with the taste of winter and wild magic on his tongue.

I bite him back just as hard, my own teeth sharper than they once were, drawing silver-blue blood that freezes as it hits my tongue. The taste is intoxicating—metal and ice and raw power—fueling something feral in me that matches his savagery kiss for kiss.

His hands—those same hands that just unmade Lord Frostbaine in the most horrific display of magical violence I've ever witnessed—tangle in my hair, pulling hard enough to send sparks of pain-pleasure shooting down my spine. My body responds instantly, heat flooding my core despite my pregnancy, despite the court setting, despite everything but this moment of visceral connection.

Frost explodes from where our mouths join, spreading outward in violent bursts that coat the walls, the floor, the ceiling in crystalline patterns that pulse with our shared heartbeat. The little ones respond with synchronized movement inside me, their magic resonating with the Wild Magic swirling between us.

When we finally break apart, panting and bloodied, the throne room has transformed completely. The perfect ice architecture of Winter Court formality has given way to something ancient and primal—walls curved rather than angular, cillae forming constellations rather than geometric designs, the very foundation humming with power that responds to emotion rather than protocol.

I take Cadeyrn's hand—still faintly glowing with the residual magic of all four courts, still deadly with power that defies court limitations—and lace my fingers through his. Whatever comes next, we face it together. Not as Winter Prince and claimed omega, but as something fierce and new.

Something wild.