The Lycan Prince's Forbidden Omega

POV: Ash I had always thought I knew how I would die. I would either be beaten to death by Marcus and his goons, or given to some sick Alpha who would torture me until my body gave out. That was what omegas like me were useful for anyway. At least, that was what I'd been told. But now, as I ran from the only place I had ever called home, I wondered why I was even bothering. Wouldn't it be better if they caught me? If they punished me for what I'd done to their precious future Alpha? The permanent would I left that would never heal. The howls behind me grew closer. My wolf was fading. I could feel it—the way my legs moved slower, the way each breath came harder than the last. But I wouldn't give in. The moment I did, he would drag me back. Drag me back to finish what he'd started. So no. I wouldn't allow it. The beatings I could take. The curses didn't matter anymore. They were true, weren't they? I was an abomination. A jinx who had murdered his own parents just by being born. Today had started so well. Kate had baked me a cake for my eighteenth birthday, and for a few stolen moments in the quiet kitchen, everything had been better. No one had hit me. Just the casual remarks about how my too-big eyes and soft features weren't normal. The usual. No one had ever celebrated my birthday before. Not once, most years, nobody even remembered it existed and on the ones they did remember, it was only to remind me that another year had passed without the Goddess taking back her mistake or how close I was to fulfilling the only good thing people were like were made for. Satisfying alphas and being breed until we popped out pups. Then more breeding. So I had stopped expecting them to do anything for me, but Kate was different and she had remembered. She always remembered. She had spent weeks saving sugar for that ridiculous lopsided cake which she had almost burned the whole kitchen trying to bake. Then she'd sat across from me, smiling like turning eighteen was something actually worth celebrating. "A wolf's eighteenth birthday matters," she'd said when I tried to tell her not to waste the effort. "It's important." Important. As if. Nothing about me had ever been important before, and then she'd given me the bracelet. My chest tightened at the memory. It hadn't been some trinket picked up at a market stall. It had belonged to her grandmother—the woman who had raised her after her mother died. Kate treasured that bracelet more than anything she owned. And she'd given it to me. Me. She'd laughed when I tried to refuse it. "You need something to remember me by when I leave," she'd said. Leave. Soon she would be sent to another pack as part of an alliance. She'd known it was coming. We'd both known. The bracelet was supposed to be a promise that no matter where she ended up, I wouldn't be alone. A bitter laugh rose in my throat. Some promise that turned out to be. Then the heat had followed. The burning ache that my wolf was fighting so hard to ignore while we ran for our life. It had come without warning—that warmth spreading through my limbs, the slick gathering between my thighs, the terrible emptiness that made me want to crawl out of my own skin. And Damien had decided that very moment to be in my room. I hadn't meant to fight back. I had begged him not to do this. But he hadn't listened. He never listened. Every punch and kick I could take, but today he wanted something I couldn't give. He had been surprised too when I fought back—shock flickering across his bloody face. He had awoken a no I didn't know I had. I'd run away before the day was even over. And now she was back there. Alone. Facing the aftermath of what I'd done. If Damien was angry enough to hunt me, what would he do to the person who helped me escape? The thought dug deeper than any of these wounds I was surely inflicting on myself. For eighteen years, Kate had been the only person who looked at me and saw something worth saving. And I had repaid her by leaving her behind. And for a second, a thought surfaced before I could stop it. Maybe death wouldn't be so bad. Nobody beat a dead person. Nobody was waiting to sell a dead person the moment their first heat came. Dead people didn't feel. The thought should have terrified me. Instead, I was just getting tired. The familiar scent of home was fading. Ahead lay nothing but wilderness—the untamed forest, the borderlands, the unknown. Behind me, the howls still wouldn't stop. I passed trees in a blur. Stones dug into my paws. Blood matted across my grey wolf coat, hot and wet, trailing behind me in the undergrowth. I kept running. The moon was full, lighting my path though I had no destination in mind. I ran until I felt the danger ahead before I saw it. Lycan territory. Every wolf knew what they did to trespassers. To wolves like me. Little wolves. Worthless wolves. Some part of my brain—the part that was still rational, still clinging to survival—thought maybe I should be afraid. Maybe I should turn around. Stop. Surrender. But I didn't. I should have been afraid. But all I felt was tired. My wolf finally gave out. I collapsed at the borderlands, the scent of unfamiliar territory flooding my senses, my body crumpling into the damp earth. My wolf whimpered as I waited for the end. Maybe it was cowardly. Pathetic, even. But for the first time in years, I didn't have the strength to keep fighting for a life I wasn't sure I wanted. So why had I fought Damien at all? I should have let him have his way. It would have been simpler. Easier. The thought settled somewhere deep and hollow in my chest. Strong arms lifted me from the ground. I didn't struggle. I didn't try to run. If this was death, then maybe it would finally be kinder than living ever was. A deep growl tore through the silence. Then came a voice so deep that, had I not been delirious, I could have sworn the ground shook beneath it. "Mine." The word was spoken with a certainty that would put the name to shame. My whole body finally gave out. The last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me whole were eyes so red they glowed.