Page 73 of Run Wild Omega

“So what do we do?” I ask. “What’s the play, Miles? You didn’t lay all this out just to watch me spiral.”

Miles looks at Wyatt. Then at Dylan. Then back at me.

“We make you unavailable,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we change the narrative. Right now, you’re a tragedy—an unbonded Omega alone in the world, making bad decisions, needing to be saved. That narrative invites every predator and pundit to project their agenda onto you. But if the world believes you’re claimed—if they believe you belong to a pack—the narrative shifts.”

I frown. “Shifts how?”

“A claimed Omega isn’t a tragedy. She’s a love story. The public loves a love story. ’Omega rescued from avalanche by the pack who loves her’ is a very different headline than ’Reckless Omega almost dies.’ It changes the conversation from ’What’s wrong with her?’ to ’How did they find each other?’ It makes you sympathetic instead of controversial. And—most importantly—it makes you legally and socially off-limits.”

“Legally off-limits.”

“A bonded Omega can’t be ’managed’ by an outside pack. She can’t be targeted by Omega welfare agencies. She has legal protections that an unbonded Omega doesn’t. The Ashfords and the Voss Collective can’t touch a claimed woman without committing a very public, very illegal act of pack interference.”

I look at Wyatt. He hasn’t moved from the door. His face is unreadable, but his eyes—his eyes are burning.

“You’re talking about a fake bond,” I say.

“Yes,” Miles says.

“A public claim that isn’t real.”

“Yes.”

“You want me to let the world believe that I’m bonded to the three of you so that the media leaves me alone and the predatory packs back off.”

“In essence, yes.”

I look at Dylan. He’s watching me with an openness that’s almost painful, no walls, no deflection.

“And you’re all on board with this?”

“Yes,” Dylan says simply.

“Why?” The word comes out more vulnerable than I intended. “Why would you do this? It’s a lie. It’s a huge, public lie that could blow up in your faces. You could lose your jobs, your reputations⁠—”

“Why do you think?” Wyatt says from the door.

I look at him. His voice was quiet, but there was something underneath it—something raw and exposed that I’ve never heard from him before.

“We’ve already lied,” he says. “We told the hospital we were your pack. If this comes out now—if anyone discovers that we falsely claimed a bond to get medical access—that’s fraud. That’s a criminal charge. All three of us.”

My stomach drops. “Wyatt⁠—”

“We’re already in this,” he says, pushing off the door and walking toward the bed. “The lie exists. It’s in Dr. Evans’s notes, in the hospital records. We can’t un-tell it. The only way to protect all of us—especially you—is to make it true enough that no one questions it.”

I stare at him. “You’re saying this isn’t just about protecting me. You’re saying you need this too.”

“I’m saying the lines are already blurred,” he says, stopping at the foot of the bed. “I’m saying I’ve spent three days sitting in a chair outside your room, and the only thing that kept me from losing my mind was knowing you were on the other side of that wall. I’m saying that when Dr. Evans told us your leg might be dying, I would have cut it off myself if it meant you’d wake up. I’m saying—” His voice cracks. He stops. Swallows. “I’m saying it doesn’t feel like a lie to me. It hasn’t felt like a lie since the mountain.”

The room is so quiet I can hear the monitor beeping, the hum of the IV pump, the distant noise of the hospital beyond the walls.

Dylan speaks next. “I carried you down that mountain, Tess. For two hours, in a blizzard, with your blood on my hands. I’ve carried people before. It’s part of the job. But when I was carrying you, it was different. I didn’t feel like a rescuer. I felt like I was bringing someone home.”

His hand finds mine on the bed. His fingers are warm, rough with calluses, and they wrap around mine like they belong there.