All Chapters of Omega:Claimed by the Alpha: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Hazel’s POV The old temple was sealed for a reason. I felt it before I saw it. The air got colder. Heavier. Like the mountain itself was holding its breath. We’d left at dawn. Alaric, Dominic, three guards, and me. No one spoke. Alaric hadn’t looked at me since we left the pack house. Not since I’d walked out in leathers Dominic found for me, a dagger strapped to my thigh. “You’re not trained,” he’d said, voice flat. “Neither were you at two,” I’d shot back. He hadn’t argued after that. Just handed me the dagger. Now we stood at the base of the mountain, staring at a wall of solid rock. No door. No markings. Just vines and time. “This is it?” I whispered. Alaric didn’t answer. He stepped forward, pressed his palm to the stone. And the mountain moved. Stone grated against stone. Dust rained down. A seam appeared, then widened into a doorway tall enough for Alaric to walk through without ducking. It smelled like death. Like blood and damp and things that had been left to ro

Hazel’s POV Blood. That was the first thing I smelled when we stopped running. Not pine, not dirt, not the river we’d been following for an hour. Blood. His blood. Alaric leaned against a boulder, jaw clenched so tight I heard his teeth grind. His left leg was at the wrong angle. His shirt was gone, shredded when he shifted, and his chest was a map of bruises and cuts. The worst one ran from his ribs to his hip. Still bleeding. “Let me see,” I said. He didn’t look at me. “It’s fine.” “It’s not fine. You’re bleeding.” “I’ve had worse.” “You keep saying that.” I dropped to my knees in front of him. My hands shook. I balled them into fists to stop it. “And you keep lying.” That made him look at me. Gray eyes, usually cold, were bright with pain and something else. Something that made my stomach flip. “Hazel.” Dominic’s voice. He’d laid Vincent down on a bed of pine needles twenty feet away. The old male was unconscious again, but breathing. Steady. “We need to move

Hazel’s POV We didn’t stop running until the pack house gates slammed shut behind us. Three days. Three days of Vincent’s men hunting us through the Widow’s Peak ravines. Three days of carrying my father between us, his chains gone but his legs still weak from twenty years in Vincent’s dungeon. “We made it,” I gasped, dropping to my knees in the courtyard. Dirt, blood, and pine sap caked my hands. My satchel was still strapped to my back, empty now, except for the knife and the last of the fever root. My father collapsed beside me. “Hazel…” His voice was still sandpaper. Twenty years without speaking does that. “Your mother… Lina…” “I know,” I said. “She sent me to find you. And I did.” “Alpha!” A guard shouted from the steps. “Alpha’s down! He fell from the east ridge!” No. No, no, no. I was on my feet before the words finished. My father grabbed my wrist. “Hazel, wait…” “He’s my mate,” I said. “I’m not waiting.” The pack house stank of panic. Healers everywhere. Blood

Hazel’s POVHis claws come out. And Ella screams.The sound tears through the Beta quarters. High. Shattering. But Alaric doesn’t strike. Not yet. He holds Vincent by the throat, claws an inch from jugular, eyes pure Alpha blue and burning with fever and fury. His broken leg shouldn’t support him. The blackroot should have him on the floor. But he’s standing. Because his mate is in danger. Because his mate’s father is alive. Because twenty-three years of lies are choking the air. “Wait,” Elder Malric says. His voice shakes. “Alpha, wait. If you kill him now, we lose the truth.”“We have the truth,” I say. I kick the shards of the blackroot vial. “This is blackroot. Contact poison. Labeled in Vincent’s handwriting. Hidden in the Beta quarters he hasn’t had access to since you removed him.”“I was framed!” Vincent chokes out. Alaric’s claws prick skin, drawing blood. “Cleric did this! He planted…”“I was in your dungeon,” Cleric says. He steps forward. Twenty years of captivity h

Hazel’s POVThe pack house is quiet for the first time in three days.No screams. No guards at the door. No Ella hissing poison. No Vincent’s shadow. Just me. Alaric. And the bond humming between us, gold and insistent and hungry.We’re in the Alpha suite. His rooms. Our rooms, now. The sheets were changed while we were at Lina’s grave. Clean linen. Moonvine in a vase on the nightstand , Cleric’s doing. Healer’s touch. Alaric sits on the edge of the bed. Splint on his leg, shirtless, bandages clean and white over the blackroot wound. It’s healing. Pink, not black. My work. He’s watching me. “You’re staring,” I say. My voice is steadier than my hands. “You’re my Luna,” he says. Simple. Like it explains everything. “I’m allowed.”Heat crawls up my neck. “You should be resting. The poison”“Is gone,” he finishes. “Because of you.” He pats the space beside him. “Sit. Please.”I sit. The mattress dips. His warmth bleeds into me. The mate bond purrs. For a minute, we just breathe. “I