Omega's Revenge on False Mate

I didn't plan my escape. Planning required thought, and thought required a mind not shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

I moved through my small room in the Omega quarters like a ghost, my hands selecting items without conscious decision. My mother's warrior medallion—the only thing of hers I'd kept. A worn jacket. The emergency supply pouch she'd made me promise to always keep packed. I didn't look at the photos on the wall, the ones of Luca and me smiling at pack gatherings, his arm around my waist in a pantomime of devotion. If I looked, I might stop moving. If I stopped, I might never start again.

The pack house was alive with celebration when I slipped out the back entrance. Luca's Alpha ceremony had concluded, and now the revelry would last until dawn. No one noticed the wolfless Omega—the expired trial mate—disappearing into the night. Why would they?

The forest swallowed me whole.

I ran until my lungs burned and my legs screamed, until the sounds of the celebration faded into memory. When I finally collapsed against an ancient oak at the edge of Black Moon territory, my mother's medallion pressed cold against my chest, a lifeline to a woman who'd believed I could be strong.

She'd taught me many things before she died. How to move silently through the woods. How to read the stars. And one thing she'd made me swear to keep secret—an old emergency communication spell, forbidden magic from before the packs formalized their laws.

"Only use this if you have no other choice," she'd whispered on her deathbed. "And only contact someone you trust with your life."

I had no other choice. And there was only one person left who might answer, despite everything between us.

My fingers trembled as I carved the symbols into the soft earth, whispering words in the old tongue my mother had drilled into my memory. The spell required blood—always blood—and I drew my knife across my palm without hesitation. Seven years left to live. What was a little blood?

The symbols flared silver in the darkness, and I sent my consciousness out across the territory lines, searching for the familiar presence I'd felt only once, years ago, before he'd torn it away.

*Cohen.*

The connection snapped into place like a physical blow. I felt his shock, his immediate alertness, the way his mind reached back instinctively before he could stop himself.

*Riley?* His mental voice carried disbelief and something else—guilt, perhaps, or old grief. *How are you—*

*I need your help.* I cut him off before I lost my nerve. Pride was a luxury I couldn't afford. *Please. I have nowhere else to go.*

Silence stretched between us, heavy with our history. Five years ago, when my wolf had failed to emerge at sixteen, Cohen had rejected our newly discovered mate bond with cold efficiency. "I can't mate with someone wolfless," he'd said, his voice carefully empty. "It would weaken the pack." Then he'd severed the bond before it could fully form, leaving me bleeding from a wound that never showed on my skin.

Now I was begging him for salvation he'd once denied me.

*Where are you?* His response came swift, carrying an urgency that surprised me.

*Black Moon border. Near the old standing stones.*

*Stay there. I'm coming.*

The spell dissolved, leaving me alone in the darkness with nothing but the weight of my choices and the distant howl of Luca's pack celebrating their new Alpha. I pressed my bleeding palm against the medallion, mixing my blood with my mother's memory.

"I'm trying to be strong," I whispered to her ghost. "Like you wanted."

The forest gave no answer, but somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of powerful paws hitting earth. Cohen was coming. Whether that meant salvation or another betrayal, I would know soon enough.

I had seven years left to live. Tonight, I would start learning how to survive them.