I woke with the lingering memory of lightening ruining my sleep. Only the soft touches of orange touched the horizon but I couldn't stay in the net of blankets. I traced the art along the walls very softly, afraid that my finger-tips would ruin it.

The house was silent as I walked downstairs, dressed in just a pair of shorts, a tank-top and a thin floral dressing gown that trailed behind me like a cape. It was warm and I basked in the house's silent and echoing space. Muffin appeared from nowhere, slinking around my legs with a deep purr.

I heard them when I reached the kitchen. The low murmur of voices that would have been too low for a human to hear. Up so early? I changed direction, curious. I moved like I was in the Mad-Maze, achingly soft and silent. Even Muffin seemed to sense that I was sneaking and hung back, ears perked towards the door. I took the hallway beside the stairs, down a darker hall. At the end, a dark wood door was open just a crack.

I stopped to listen.

"Damned Ravi," I recognised Blav's voice. "They had enough time to burn most of the files, but not their management files. They really tortured this poor bastard didn't they?"

"To the point of insanity." Easton's voice was low. Rough with sleep. "But are we sure they didn't take the Omega with them when they fled the facility? Someone whose undergone all of that couldn't just slip back into society without a hitch."

I glanced down at my toes. Maybe I could paint them? Yellow, like the summer sun.

"We've the metal to contain it." There was a shuffling of papers as Blav explained, "Something strong enough to keep it down if we do manage to find this Omega. Enough juice to stop it's heart too if it fights too hard."

I inched closer, a whisper of a shadow.

Easton sighed. "The Omega was once someone."

"And is now an engineered monster," Blav reminded him. "We made a promise, you and I. To destroy the Ravi. Every brick. Every experiment. Gone."

"I know what promise I made," Easton's voice was curt. "I made a promise to do a lot of things and they've taken time, but I'm doing them. The Ravi must go, but how do we know when their victims are no longer victims, but monsters too?"

"You know there is someone you can ask?" Blav's voice dipped, so low now that even I struggled to hear it. "She might know something."

"No." Easton snarled. "No. Never."

"She was a Ravi prisoner, East. She might know something about what happened in that facility."

"Darren tested her blood." There was leashed aggression in Easton's voice. His shadow passed the door and I tensed, but he did not notice me lingering in the middle of the hall. "There are anomalies, but not enough to make her something else. Darren ran an extensive test, and her blood suggests she had been tampered with but Darren is convinced she was a dud and was dumped in the Mad-Maze like all the others."

"We should be thankful for that," Blav said lowly. "Darren and Sunny say she is the only reason they survived in there."

"And both of them still can't really talk about their time there, however fleeting it was. I can't imagine years locked in that hell-hole." Easton released a breath.

That couldn't be. I was a patchwork quilt of different species. 'Darren lied,' I realized. He must have. But why? Only then did I begin easing back on the slick floors, holding my breath as if they could possibly sense me.

"You have to ask her what happened to those soldiers, Easton. The ones we found in the alleyway. They were torn apart. Brutalized even. If Nova's human, then what did that? Do you think she knows the Omega and is hiding them? She has secrets."

"They're her secrets." Easton defended. "And I want her to see this place as her home. Not some place that she will be cornered or questioned."

A sigh. "I know. I just – I can't stand the Ravi. For what they've stolen and destroyed."

Just like my silent arrival, my departure from the hall was just as quiet. Muffin returned to me in the kitchen, impatient for food. I made coffee in the silence of the morning, thinking.

They would kill me if they knew what I was. Maybe Easton would feel guilty about it, but if there was a choice between his Lycans and me, I didn't know if he would pick me. I didn't know if I wanted him to. A victim or a monster? Had I morphed into the latter?

The creatures in the Mad-Maze would think so. Even with the golden sunlight streaming in through the window, I could see the dark halls stretched out in front of me. Even with the dark coffee in the mug clamped between my hands, I could smell their fear. The rancid set of old flesh. The blood. My jaw tightened, a feral hunger rising.

Omega. They had whispered my name in reverent terror. I had hated it and loved it all at the same time. A monster; to them I was a monster.

"Nova."

I jolted at the soft call of my name and then, warm hands were closing over mine. I jolted violently, a rush of adrenaline sending me sprawling backwards against the counter. Hot coffee splashed over my hands, but I didn't feel the pain right away.

My eyes flashed up to the Alpha Supreme, who had frozen, hands raised so that I could see him. "I was calling your name."

The ceramic of the mug was covered in a lace-work of cracks. As if I had been crushing it between my hands as I remembered. Shakily, I put it down. "I was somewhere else."

"I understand." He flicked on the tap, letting the water run for a moment. I caught what he meant as he gestured to the water.

"Do you?"

"Understand where people go mentally?" Easton watched as I slotted my hands under the water before turning his attention to mopping up the coffee spilled on the floor. "It's very easy to get lost there. No sight, or smell or hearing to guide you back only grit and practice."

"You sound like you've experienced it a lot."

His lips tightened. "I'm not talking about myself."

I closed the tap, drying my hands on some kitchen paper. I levelled him with a look. "Well, I am. I'm suspicious of you, Easton Young. Of you and your rise to power. Of you and your grand house with painted walls and cute gardens."

Muffin bathed in a sun-spot, ignoring our conversation.

The Alpha-Supreme titled his head, watching me closely. I noted his old-worn t-shirt and pyjamas bottoms decorated with little cartoon wolves. "You want to know more about my rise to power?"

"Yes."

"It's not pretty," He swallowed. The words were almost said aloud. Somehow, I didn't need to hear them to know they were there. I eyed the line of his scars – so bold and uncaring. Refusing to fade over time. "It's not how I want you to see me."

"You want me to see you," I began making another coffee, drawing my eyes away from him. It was too strange too look at him for too long. Every time I did, I noticed something new about his face. If I lived here too long, I would eventually run out of things to notice on him. "You want me to see you, but only in a way that you feel comfortable with. You want me to see the music-room and the cute garden. The lovely town and your smiling friends. I don't want to see all of that. I want to see the blood on your hands. The flesh in your teeth and the bones under your feet. You climbed to the top. I want to see how."

Because I had climbed too. In a darker place.

He waited until I made my coffee. "I did it because I had to. Know that before I show you what happened."

"Why did you?"

I made a second mug, dumping cream and sugar into it generously. I slid it across from him and stepped back. Slowly, he took it. "I – I couldn't live with myself if there was another Nova."

"Another me?"

His hands were too big for the mug. It looked comical, enclosed in his grip like fragile glass. "It was normal to see human mates bloody and upset. To see their neck's torn open. I had always hated the sight, but it was better than the alternative. Better than the flogging. When I was just a teenager, I stood in that same park I was in yesterday and watched them drag a girl out in front of everyone. A human girl. No older than twenty and her mate was there. He wouldn't mark her. He wouldn't defile her like that, and they had found out. They hunted her down, brought her to the town because he had lived here. They flogged her with a cane because he broke the Law."

"They punished her because he wouldn't mark her." I knew of that Law, but had never seen it enacted. I had thought of it as just an excuse for brutality.

"He could have dealt with it," Easton explained gently. "And he would have done it gladly, but not her. Her pain, her scars and crying would be seared into him. A bite's pain lasts for a few minutes. The Arcelia's used the Law as a way to keep humans in check. In fear of Lycans. They didn't have a choice – a mate had to be marked within minutes of meeting."

"You could have explained that to me." I told him frankly. "I don't know if I would have listened though."

"I've thought about how I could have done things differently. Anything would have been better than what happened." He told me and as he shifted his stance, the sunlight streaming in through the window, hit his eyes. Burning, liquid gold. "I am sorry, Nova."

I believed that. "I think, if I could have done that moment differently, I wouldn't have run."

"No?"

"You're just one beast. I don't know you well enough to decide yet, but I don't think your half as monstrous as the Ravi." As me. "Maybe I could have been different."

"Different?" He queried.

I was finished with the conversation. Uncomfortable, I just watched Muffin and the Alpha Supreme caught on quickly. I changed tact. "I heard you this morning."

His dark brows sloped down, but I had unsettled him. Shaken him. I needed to see if his 'concern' for me would over-ride his investigation. Would my presence uproot him?

"What did you hear?"

I had spent eight years lying. It was as easy as breathing. As easy as blinking. "Blav wanted you to ask if I knew that creature."

His golden eyes tracked my expression. "The Omega."

Omega. Again, the dark halls. Coldness. "The Omega is a beast. A monster."

"A Ravi's creation." Easton eased a step closer to me, a wall of warmth. I was tall, but I had to tip my head back to keep my eyes on his. Neither of us wavered. "A creature that has alluded us. Do you know him, or her?"

"Surely you know what it is?" I asked. "You're the one who broke open that facility like an egg."

"The Ravi began burning their files."

"But you came to kill the Omega." I worried my lip, thinking. I could create this narrative; I had taken it by the horns. "I only knew him in passing. Just enough to try and avoid him. Avoiding the Omega meant survival in the Mad-Maze and he killed the rip people apart. He enjoyed it."

"And the soldiers who came after you and Lux?" He tried to keep the questioning tone from his tone, but there was a gravel to his voice that made everything sound too rough. "They were brutalized."

I stared at him, my breathing even. My heart-beat level. "I don't know. They shot at me and I managed to escape. I- I thought I heard them screaming but I was just trying to run."

He hesitated. "I am sorry that happened to you too."

"So am I." Absently, I stretched out my leg. There was an echo of stiffness in it – whatever the Ravi had put in those bullets had been designed to keep me down but I was healing. "I don't think I will ever get used to the feeling of being shot."

His head tilted and his hands tightened on the mug. Tension rolled down his long body, eyes flashing. "You've been shot before?"

Quick Lycan. I took a sip of my coffee again. The Lycan waited for my response, but I just began rifling through the fridge. Upstairs, Lux's door popped open and she stumbled down the stairs, yawning loudly. I pulled out cuts of ham and began nibbling on one.

Muffin's head raised and she stared at me silently. Fight me cat.

Easton eased back, setting down his heart-attack coffee. "I'll get some things to you in the afternoon."

About his rise to power. "How do I know you won't just select whatever makes you look good?"

He rasped out a laugh, low and amused. "None of it will make me look good. But, I guess you'll just have to trust me on that."

I didn't give a reply to that and when Lux bounded into the kitchen, bright-eyed and excited for the day, the conversation was dropped.

There were newspaper clippings. Videos caught on shaky cameras. A news reporter standing in a street with fire blooming behind her, trying to get the best angle on the madness behind her.

Change.

Lux had joined me and we sat in the grand sitting room, waddled in heavy blankets as evening darkened the skies outside. I watched, entranced at the madness playing out on the screen. Soldier Easton Young challenges Lycan traditional.

Before the scars. Before the title.

He had looked so young in the newspaper clippings, but on the videos people had caught of him, he just looked angry. He was narrower than he was now – he was like how I remembered him all those years in that alleyway. The story spilled out to us over a bowl of popcorn and large mugs of hot chocolate.

An upstart soldier with a relatively small command over an inconsequential squadron of Lycan challenged the monarchy. People scoffed and dismissed him. Said upstart garnered support, pulling at the heart-strings of more modern Lycans. He spoke of human-rights and the equality of their soul-mates bound to them by the moon.

More people started listening.

The old traditionalists spat at his feet, even as Easton gained power. They had every right to hobble their mates to them. It was their right.

He was stripped of his command, but the ball had been thrown from the top of a very steep hill. Easton's change was brought about with blood and strong words. The monarchy had been forced to listen and I watched the news-reports of his fights. One. Two. Three.

Each one brought another roping scar and whispers that perhaps, he could rise all the way to the top.

"This doesn't seem real..." Lux whispered, squeamish at the un-regulated blood-show.

I hated the half-second I missed when I blinked. "It looks impossible."

He had thought the blood-show would terrify me, but I felt a strange sense of victory as I watched him on the video. His over-throw of the last royals had been caught on video. Televised. Lux bade me good-night sometime past mid-night when the blood-shed got too bad.

But, I didn't want to sleep. Instead, I took over the long couch and scoured the footage. Crowds in the streets. Fiery bottles arching into the sky.

The crown-prince Steven Arcelia had refused to lay down his arms, even with the crowds at his door. Even with certain victory, Easton had accepted his challenge.

"I hated him." His low voice sounded behind me. I turned on the couch, watching as he stepped into the room cautiously. "Steven Arcelia wasn't fit to drive a child's bicycle. Never mind a nation."

"You're very convincing in these videos." I jerked my chin to the armchair beside the long couch and he took that invitation, sinking into the seat.

"I had something to say," Easton rubbed his hands along his legs, vaguely uncomfortable as he gazed at the screen. "And people began to listen."

"Did you think it would get that big?" I wound the blankets around me, enmeshed in a cocoon of blankets.

"Not at the beginning no." Easton told me softly. "But then I began hearing more stories. The hidden abuse and the basic rights stripped from people just because of the moon and ... I thought if I could save those people or if I could change something for non-Lycan mates, then I could make up for what I did to you."

I glanced at the screen. At that old, grim expression. Golden eyes, flat and lethal. No wonder people whispered about him – called him Supreme Alpha. "Did it help?"

He sighed. "In some ways, yes. In a lot more ways, no."

I clicked the play button and both of us fell silent as the televised fall of the Arcelia monarchy unfolded. The prince had been a more skilled fighter and tore into Easton like he was flesh ribbons. Even with that skill, Easton didn't tire. Didn't back down until he had his hands on Steven Arcelia's throat. Such un-restrained brutality that belonged to people that had nothing to lose.

In the Mad-Maze, I would have hesitated against fighting someone like that.

He held the head by the hair, high into the air. The cheering was crackling through the speakers, but on screen, Easton Young's face was just a mask of grim sadness.

Easton didn't watch that. He watched me instead, his gaze unwavering as he tracked my expression.

I had created rivers of blood before, but it had never created anything. It had never meant something more than my own survival and selfish desires.

He had taken down the monarchy.

He could take down the Ravi.

The thought made me giddy. They had been a weight on my back for so long and I had imagined a million ways of killing Doc-Mai and her army of doctors but I had never imagined a world without the Ravi. I had never thought bigger than the white-cell.

I could be there to take down the Ravi.

I paused the video again. "You killed the others who attacked you or challenged you, but you brutalized him. Why?"

He paused and through the garish light from the t.v., I could see his reluctance. "I ...we had been friends once. I was a good soldier. Loyal, even when I taught the Law was wrong. Then, you vanished. I knew the Ravi had taken you and knew that every second you were missing heightened the chances that they would kill you. I went to him, my friend, on my knees and begged him for help."

His hands curled into thick fists. "He looked down at me, kneeling there and laughed. Laughed. And the sound seemed to tear the veil that had been over my head. Maybe I would have radicalized even without that, but that spurred me on."

"So, I was only partly the reason." I mused, turning around on the couch.

"Mostly," He corrected. "When he laughed at me, I realised that the higher-ups didn't care about the weakest in our society. Not weak, but without supernatural strength. We could overpower you easily and they fed off of that."

I left the couch, rising with my blankets wrapped around me like a veil. I was confused mostly – unsettled by what I had seen. Not because of the blood, but because I was partly the reason for one Lycan to overthrow a monarchy. In my name, and in the name of people like me, he had created.

"Goodnight Easton."

A pause. Then, "Goodnight Nova."