All Chapters of Omega:Claimed by the Alpha: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Hazel’s POVWe left at dawn. Seven days after Vincent died. Seven days after Alaric’s fever broke. Seven days after the bond was sealed.His leg still needs the staff. But he walks. No limp if he’s careful. My work. Cleric rides at our right. Beta leathers finally fit him again. He’s cut his hair. Shaved. The gray is still there, but his eyes are alive. Twenty years of Vincent’s dungeon didn’t kill the Beta in him. Behind us: six warriors. The ones who helped me escape the ravines. The ones who chose me over Ella. And in my satchel: Vincent’s first ledger. Page one. Miri. Age 6. Sold to Red River. 10,000 credits.“You’re sure about this?” Alaric asks. He rides close, thigh brushing mine. The bond hums. Content. Claimed. “Red River Alpha isn’t…”“He’s not Vincent,” Cleric cuts in. “Kael of Red River was my friend. Before. If he knew Vincent was selling pups, he’d have gutted him himself.”“If,” I say. “That’s the problem. Everyone ‘didn’t know.’ Everyone ‘was lied to.’”Cleric glan

Hazel’s POVBlack Fang Pack doesn’t have gates. It has walls. Spiked. Black. Bone hung from every post. “Charming,” Kael mutters beside me. “Raze likes messages,” Borin said before we left. He didn’t come with us, Winter Tooth needed its Alpha. But he sent six warriors. “His favorite message is ‘come closer and die.’”“Good,” Alaric says. He’s off his horse already, staff in hand but weight mostly on his good leg. Seven days of my mixtures and he moves like an Alpha again. “I’m in the mood to deliver one back.”Cleric dismounts next. His eyes are hard. Beta hard. “Eda’s in there,” he says. “Galen’s sister. Seven when she was sold. Thirteen now, if she’s alive.”If. The word sits like ice in my gut. “No scouting,” I say. “No parley. Vincent wrote the rules for twenty years. We burn them.”Alaric looks at me. Smiles, sharp. “My Luna.”The bond flares. Gold. Hot. We don’t knock. Cleric hits the wall first. Not the gate , the wall. Twenty years of rage in his shoulder. Stone cracks

Hazel’s POVThe Beta quarters don’t smell like Vincent anymore. They smell like smoke, lye soap, and moonvine. We burned his bed. Scrubbed his walls. Ripped down the black curtains he used to hide the sun. “Line up,” I tell Rook and Miri. “Tallest to shortest.”Rook is twelve. Miri is sixteen. Eda stands behind them, Galen’s hand on her shoulder. The rest ; Pike, Kira, Jax, the twins from Silver Creek, the sisters from High Pine all watch. “Today,” I say, “you stop being what Vincent made you.”I set three bowls on the table. Willow bark. Moonvine. Honey. “First rule of healing,” I say. “You save before you swing. Mom taught me that. Beta Cleric taught her.”Cleric steps up beside me. He’s got flour on his leathers from helping in the kitchens. Beta, healer, father. All three at once. “Your mom,” he says to the room, “Lina. She could set a bone with one hand and knock an Alpha flat with the other. But she always chose the bone first.”“Like mother, like daughter,” Rook whispers.

Hazel’s POVThere’s no cheering when we ride back into Stone Jaw. The forty three kids don’t make noise. Not yet. They’re watching. Waiting to see if the cage door slams again. “Thirty six,” Cleric says under his breath as we pass the gate. “We came back with thirty six.”“Thirty three from Black Fang. Tala from High Pine. The two girls from Tormund’s rooms,” I say. “Thirty six.”“Seven were already here,” Alaric says. “Rook. Miri. Eda. Galen. Pike. The twins we got from River Bend last month.”Forty three. Ledger closed. Vincent’s last page is blank. Nina is waiting in the infirmary. Syra wouldn’t let her ride. “You’re two weeks from delivery,” she’d said. “You walk, you risk the baby. You risk you.”Nina stands anyway when we walk in. Hand on her belly. Face pale but eyes clear. “You did it,” she says. “Tormund. The law. All of it.”“We did it,” I correct her. “You’re part of we now.”She touches the space where her collar used to be. The skin is still pink. “What happens to him

Hazel’s POVWe bury them at dawn. Five graves. Three from Winter Tooth. Two from Silver Creek. Borin can’t stand. His Beta, Harrick, speaks for him. “They died for the Pact,” Harrick says. “Not for a pack. For an idea. That kids aren’t property.”“They’ll be remembered,” Syra says. Her voice breaks on the last word. The two Silver Creek dead were her cousins. “In Lina’s School. In every pup who grows up free.”The forty three are quiet. Watching. Learning what death looks like when it’s not in a cell. Rook holds Tala’s hand. Miri holds Eda’s. Pike holds Kip’s. Finn, who is five, holds mine. “Are they with the Moon now?” Finn whispers. “Yes,” I say. “She watches all of us.”We don’t plant moonvine. Not yet. We plant steel. Sword hilts, driven into the earth at each head. “So Fen knows,” Alaric says. “This is what it costs.”Nina’s water breaks at noon. She’s in the infirmary. Syra was checking her bandages from where Fen’s knife cut her arm. Shallow, but deep enough to need stitc