The Omega's Desperate Escape

Chapter One

The Moon Mother's blessing burned through my bones like acid, reshaping me into the very thing I'd spent all night praying against. Sweet jasmine and vanilla unfurled from my skin—omega scent, thick as funeral incense, marking me as prey in a house full of predators.

"Magnificent." Alpha Brennan's voice rumbled through the ritual chamber, where morning light filtered through stained glass depicting the First Hunt. Ancient wolves tearing down ancient prey, painted in shades of blood and benediction. "The Moon Mother has blessed you with rare beauty, child. Look how she's crafted you."

The white ceremonial dress clung to curves that hadn't existed yesterday. My body had betrayed me in the night, reshaping itself to omega specifications—soft where warriors were hard, yielding where alphas conquered. Black curls tumbled past my shoulders, still damp from the cleansing pools. In the polished stone walls, a stranger stared back with my mother's brown eyes.

Beauty was a blade that cut both ways when you were omega. Beauty was a death warrant when you'd spent the night sharpening kitchen knives and hiding them in places only desperate girls thought to look.

"Marcus has spoken for you." The words fell like executioner's axes. "The Moon Mother smiles upon such unions. Strong alphas claiming what they've earned through service."

The enforcer emerged from shadow like something scraped from the bottom of nightmares. Forty-three winters had carved cruelty into his features. His scent—old leather and older blood—made my new omega instincts scream warnings my body was too weak to heed.

"Alpha, please—"

"You presume to question the Moon Mother's design?" Ice crystallized in his voice. "Your aunt filled your head with dangerous ideas. Modern notions. But she's gone, and you are what you were born to be. Marcus has served faithfully. The ancient laws are clear."

Marcus stepped forward. Possession burned in his eyes like fever.

"After the celebration." Brennan's decree rang through stone halls. "Let the pack witness the claiming. Let them see the Moon Mother's will made flesh."

The enforcer's hand closed around my arm. Fingers pressed bruises into soft skin, marking territory before the ritual even began. Other wolves passed us in the corridors—warriors averting their eyes, betas studying the floor, omegas scurrying past like frightened mice. The fundamentalists had taught them well: interference with an alpha's claim was heresy against lunar law.

His chambers reeked of decades of violence. Weapons lined the walls between moon phase charts and ancient texts about omega subjugation. He locked the door with deliberate ceremony.

"Present yourself."

"The celebration requires—"

His fist cracked across my cheekbone. Stars exploded behind my eyes as I hit stone floor. "The Moon Mother gave you one purpose. One function. Fighting it is blasphemy."

Blood filled my mouth. I stayed down, cheek throbbing, as he prowled closer. His hands worked at his belt when salvation came disguised as interruption.

"Sir?" An omega's voice, paper-thin but persistent. "The Alpha demands your immediate presence. The Calgary pack arrived early."

Marcus snarled—but even he wouldn't defy a direct summons. Not with visiting alphas to impress. "We'll finish your education later, little jinx. The Moon Mother has patience for wayward omegas."

The door slammed like a coffin lid.

Esther materialized from servant shadows, her weathered face tight with urgency. Fifty years in this packhouse had taught her which silences held screams.

"Up, child. Now."

She pulled me to my feet with hands that had tended too many broken omegas. In her palm—a key. In her eyes—revolution disguised as resignation.

"The kitchen delivery door. When the moon wine flows heaviest." Her voice cracked like old leather. "The omegas on duty worship older gods than these fundamentalist fools realize. They'll see nothing."

"Esther—"

"Your aunt stood between my daughter and an alpha who thought the Moon Mother entitled him to any omega flesh he craved." Ancient forests lived in her gaze. "Catherine died before I could repay that debt. But you're still breathing."

Three hours until the celebration. Three hours to vanish from a world that had already decided my purpose.

The packhouse transformed into a temple of indulgence. Five hundred wolves howling praises to the Moon Mother between swallows of blood wine. Their voices shook dust from rafters as they celebrated ancient ways, alpha supremacy, the natural order that made omegas grateful for claiming.

I slipped through servant passages in stolen darkness—black clothes pilfered from laundry, knives tucked against ribs where desperate girls learned to hide sharp things. The kitchen churned with controlled chaos. Steam and shouting. Omegas rushing platters to alphas who saw them as walking wombs blessed by lunar light.

The delivery door opened onto moonlight and blasphemy.

Then I ran like the Moon Mother herself was chasing me.

Because she was. In every wolf that would follow. In every howl that would split the night when they found Marcus's chambers empty and their sacrificial omega gone.

Forest swallowed me in gulps. Branches clawed. Roots caught. Behind me, the packhouse glowed with righteous fury—a fallen star full of wolves who'd been promised their divine right to omega flesh.

I pushed harder than omega bodies were meant to push. Lungs burning. Muscles screaming. Fifty miles of pack territory stretched in every direction. Fifty miles of fundamentalists who'd drag me back to face lunar justice for the sin of refusing my sacred purpose.

The first howl split the air before midnight.

She runs! The hunting song rose like prayer. The omega denies the Moon Mother's gift!

Terror gave me wings that biology denied. I crashed through undergrowth, leaving skin on thorns, blood on bark. Every shadow could hide a tracker. Every sound might herald capture.

Behind me, the forest came alive with pursuit. Not just howls now—the crack of branches under massive paws, the rustle of fur through ferns. They were shifting, abandoning human form for the shapes the Moon Mother intended. Four legs moved faster than two. Fangs caught prey better than hands.

I heard Marcus's wolf before I saw it—a bass rumble that vibrated through tree roots and up into my bones. He was close. Close enough that I could taste his fury on the wind, feel his anticipation like electricity before lightning strikes.

A flash of silver between the pines. Then another. They were spreading out, flanking me, driving me toward some predetermined point where the trap would spring shut. Classic pack hunting. The fundamentalists trained their wolves in ancient patterns, movements choreographed by centuries of tradition.

My foot caught on a root. I went down hard, palms shredding on stone, but rolled and kept moving. Behind me, someone laughed—a sound that started human and ended in a wolf's amused yip.

"Run, little omega!" Marcus's voice carried through darkness, still partially human, caught between forms. "The Moon Mother loves a good hunt before a claiming!"

They were toying with me. Could have caught me already but wanted me exhausted, broken, ready to submit by the time they closed the noose. Fundamentalist wolves believed the chase purified wayward omegas, burned the rebellion out of them until only acceptance remained.

The ground dropped away without warning. I tumbled down an embankment, rocks tearing through stolen clothes, adding my blood to the scent trail I was leaving like a beacon. At the bottom—water. The stream ran fast and deep with snowmelt, promising hypothermia or drowning or both.

I didn't hesitate.

Plunged in and let the current take me. Cold hit like a full-body slap from winter itself. Water filled my mouth, my nose, tried to crawl into my lungs. I fought to keep my head up as the stream swept me away from the circling wolves.

Their howls turned frustrated, then furious. I caught glimpses of shapes racing along the banks, trying to match the water's speed. But the stream moved like it had somewhere urgent to be, carrying me through rapids that left new bruises on top of the old ones.

Miles downstream, when my limbs had gone numb and my thoughts moved like frozen honey, I finally dragged myself onto a muddy bank. Collapsed. Shook like a dying thing. But I was beyond their immediate reach, my scent trail broken by running water.

Dawn brought the full hunting party's song. Their howls wove through trees like the Moon Mother's own condemnation. I caught Marcus's voice in the chorus—promising things that made my stolen knives feel like comfort.

The deer carcass appeared like an answered prayer to older, darker gods. Three days dead. Maggots writhing. The stench hit like a physical blow.

I didn't hesitate.

Handful after handful, I painted myself in death. Rotting flesh. Putrid fluids. Until even I couldn't smell the omega underneath. Until I became something the Moon Mother had never intended—an abomination that chose defilement over divinity.

The second night, they passed within yards of my hiding spot. Marcus's voice carried through darkness: "When I find her, she'll beg for the claiming. Beg to fulfill her purpose."

I pressed myself deeper into mud and rot, fingers wrapped around knife handles, ready to paint more blasphemy if they found me.

They didn't. The Moon Mother's perfect hunters couldn't smell past their own certainty.

But the rogues could.

Three of them, eyes reflecting hellfire instead of moonlight. Packless wolves were what happened when you refused the Moon Mother's order—madness given fur and fang.

They came from three directions at once, having learned my position while I'd focused on hiding from pack wolves. No warning. No words. Just sudden violence erupting from shadow.

The first hit me like a freight train of fur and fury. We went down together, rolling through undergrowth, his claws raking channels through my stolen clothes and into flesh beneath. His breath reeked of old meat and madness. Teeth snapped inches from my throat.

My knife found him by instinct more than skill—ramming up under his jaw where the fur was thinnest. Hot blood geysered across my face as he convulsed. But dying wolves don't die quiet. His howl brought the others running.

"Pretty omega playing in filth." The largest circled while I struggled to free my knife from the first one's corpse. His words came out slurred, humanity fighting through the wolf's muzzle. Rogues lost themselves piece by piece, until even speech became a half-remembered dream. "Trying to hide what the Moon Mother made you. We don't care about your stink, little blasphemer."

The second came low and fast. I saw him coming but couldn't move quick enough—still tangled with the dead wolf, knife stuck in bone. His claws found my shoulder, punching through muscle like it was paper. The pain whited out my vision. I screamed, and it came out part howl.

My thumbs found his eyes by desperate accident. Soft things that burst like grapes when I pushed with every ounce of terror-fueled strength. He reeled back, howling, pawing at the ruins of his face. Gave me enough space to finally wrench my knife free.

But the third was already moving.

He was smarter than the others. More rogue, less wolf. He feinted left, then came from the right when I tried to track the false movement. His weight bore me down into the mud and filth I'd used as camouflage. Teeth flashed in moonlight.

No knife this time. No clever escape. Just my own teeth meeting his throat in a parody of the claiming bite Marcus had promised. I tore and worried like the animal they'd made me. His blood filled my mouth—copper and corruption, the taste of a wolf who'd forgotten what it meant to be human.

When his blood stopped pumping across my face, when my laughter finally faded to hiccups, I understood what I'd become. Not omega. Not alpha. Something the Moon Mother had never dreamed—a survivor who'd paint herself in any blasphemy necessary.

The infection set in by the fourth day. The rogue's claws had gifted me poison to match my heresy. Fever cooked my brain until trees became ancient judges and shadows turned to Marcus reaching for what the Moon Mother promised him.

The town materialized like a mirage. Buildings warped into mountains. Streets flowed like rivers of black water. The warehouse—broken door yawning wide—promised darkness free from lunar judgment.

I crawled inside on hands and knees, past machinery rusted like old dreams, until I found a corner where shadows gathered thick enough to hide in. My body surrendered before my mind accepted defeat. Infection and exhaustion collecting payment for every blasphemy.

Concrete kissed my burning cheek with winter's mercy. Somewhere beyond the warehouse, dogs howled—or wolves. The distinction had stopped mattering miles ago.

Let me die free, I prayed to whatever listened to heretic omegas. Let me die with their god's purpose unfulfilled.

Darkness rose like black water, and I let it take me. My last thought was my aunt's face in that black-ribboned frame—the woman who'd died believing omegas could be more than warm bodies for alpha pleasure.

I'm sorry I couldn't be their good little offering. Sorry I couldn't let them break me on the Moon Mother's altar.

But I'm not sorry I ran.

The warehouse swallowed the omega whole. Whatever woke would be something else—something born from blasphemy and forged in desperate violence. Something that chose rot over righteousness, murder over submission.

The fever dreams came in waves. Marcus finding me. The Moon Mother's face twisted in rage. My aunt whispering that omegas were more than walking wombs, more than alpha prizes, more than what fundamentalist wolves had made them.

Between the dreams, I felt my body changing again. Not the soft surrender of omega presentation, but something harder. Something that had looked god in the face and spit blood at her feet.