I set tentatively on the edge of the hospital bed.

Easton stood by the bouquet of flowers that broke up the oppressive white, scanning the line of blooms. He had discarded his coat, but large blotches of rainwater darkened his shirt. I had changed and sat in a thin strapped sundress that exposed the vicious, liver-purple scars that marred my visible skin. They would be gone in two weeks – just a bad memory.

I kicked my legs out, eyes on my hands. My nails were chipped, my fingers mottled and aching. The run had wiped it out of me and now that I was sitting and warm, I felt the throb of protesting wounds.

"Here."

I looked up. Easton stood before me, the stem of a soft pink rose held delicately out to me.

"Thank you." I took it, tracing the pad of my thumb over the soft petals. "Did you bring all these flowers?"

He swallowed. "I thought you wouldn't like to look at all this white."

I pressed the rose against my cheek, biting down a small smile at how the softness tickled my skin. I focused on that feeling as I spoke. "The room they kept me in was white. Their clothes were white. Their lights. Their tools. I wanted just a splash of colour, something to look at in those long, lonely days but it was always white. Just white."

"Is that why you wouldn't sleep in that first bedroom?"

"Too white." I looked at the flower again, trying to muster the courage to ask about the one person who I had shoved away in the wave of lightening. That pain was better than the image of her crumpled body. "What about...Lux? Is she..."

"Alive."

The relief brought a wave of emotion. "Is she okay?"

"Bruised. A broken leg and collarbone but she is being well-taken care of. Nicolas has been steadfast in her care."

I pursed my lips and tried to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. "I'm sure he has."

The door opened and I tensed, a growl rolling in my throat. I recognised the young face first. Darren. A nurse. A boy once in the Mad Maze. Then there was Blav, his shoulders hunched and his dark eyes wary. They both knew.

"Nova." Blav looked at me differently. I could sense the way our relationship had changed. I wasn't just a broken, damaged woman that was his friend and Alpha's mate. I was a monster. I refused to be ashamed.

"Blav."

"You're the Omega."

A snarl rolled in the back of Easton's throat. Blav's mouth twisted and he faced his Alpha unblinkingly. "She is the Ravi's weapon. You read the Ravi's reports. Saw their videos. She attacked a farmer and killed a guard."

"I did." I said, my voice as clear as a bell. "But don't address those accusations to him. I'm the one of did it. I can take it, come on Blav. Give me your disgust."

Blav looked back to me. His fists were curled tight. "You tricked us for weeks."

"How?"

"You knew we were looking for the Omega and you lived right under our noses. Right in the heart of our home."

"How did I trick you? You never asked if I was the Omega. I said I knew it. I didn't lie about that."

"Manipulating words to make you sound better isn't going to help."

"True."

"You spent time with my mate. With vulnerable humans and all this time, that wrongness was twisted inside of you."

My lip curled in anger. "Your mate would have been killed by the Ravi had I not interfered at the market. I never laid a finger on Merri. I never would."

"How do you know? How tight is your control?"

"You insult me by asking that. I know Lycans aren't iron-tight with their own control. I hate the Ravi just as much as you. I hate what they did to me and what I've become just as much as you. Do you think I want to be their weapon – their success? Of course I don't, but I value my survival more. I could have been killed a hundred times over in the Mad-Maze in the early days with their manipulations in my blood."

"How can we trust you in our home, among our weakest and most vulnerable?"

"I have been fighting for my life for more than eight years now. I did butcher and main and disfigure in the Mad-Maze. I won't lie about that, but after I escaped, did you hear of any of that happening at my hands? You would have known – my methods are very recognisable. I attacked the farmer because he shot at me. I killed a vampire because he was hunting women like Lux. I killed the guard because I was being tortured and I only wanted to escape."

"You attacked Easton." Blav accused.

"And he would be dead if I wanted him to be." I was getting bothered, feeling corner in a room with them all. "Not that you'll believe me, Blav. I can see it in your face. I'm not your friend. Not anymore."

"She saved me." Darren spoke up quietly. "In the Mad-Maze. Sunny and I would have been eaten if she didn't come for us."

"I was bribed."

Darren gave me a sharp look. "You wanted to know what the weather was like outside. You risked your life for strangers to know if it was raining or snowing."

"I hadn't seen the sky since the day I was shoved into the white van." I admitted. "I missed the weather. Even the bad weather. There was rain when I was taken. Snow when I saw the sky again."

"And you fought a group of cannibals to keep us safe." Darren held my gaze. "And I knew that you weren't quite right. That you were a woman that wasn't truly humane anymore."

"Darren... what are you saying?" Easton asked, his voice tense.

"I suspected that Nova was something else even before she vanished into the woods on the day of our escape. When I saw her again, my suspicions grew." His cheeks darkened, his nerves visible. "You asked me, Alpha, to run her blood-work in secret. I did. It returned with large anomalies, mixes of different species that somehow worked in collaboration to keep her alive, powerful and strong. Lycan. Siren. Elf all working in warped harmony."

"You knew." Easton breathed, eyes narrowing on the young wolf whose shoulders curled under the weight of Easton's gaze.

"All this time..." Blav's anger was obvious. "All this time, you knew what she was! And you didn't tell your superior!"

Darren didn't look away from me. "Nova saved my sister. She saved me. I knew that revealing her secret too early would send her spiralling, or send her fleeing to the wild. I owed her a life for a life – some sort of payback for her help in the Mad-Maze."

I had underestimated the young nurse. A lump hardening in my throat at his thoughtfulness, I said. "Thank you."

Blav sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Nova, I'm mad."

"I know."

"You're my friend."

"I am?"

"Yes. And Merri likes you. But you've put us all in an awkward position."

"Because I'm the Omega?"

"No." Easton murmured, those molten eyes resting on me. he seemed to chose his words carefully. "You killed a guard. Rickard Seane."

"He stood between me and freedom."

"Which is understandable to you, when you've lived for so long wishing for freedom. To others though..."

"I'm the monster that they think I am..." I scented the flower again. "Does that mean that you'll try to imprison me?"

"Try?" Blav questioned.

I faced him, my lip curling into a snarl. With a voice deadly and cold, I said, "I won't be locked up again. Death would be preferrable."

"No one is being killed in this room." Easton huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "There is a solution that has been...accepted with stipulations. Of course, the final acceptance will be put down to you, Nova."

Suspiciously, I faced him. "What is it?"

Easton glanced at Blav and Darren. A second passed before they wordlessly left the room and Blav clicked the door shut.

"Are you planning on strangling me?" I eyed him and then his large hands, curling and straightening in mild agitation.

"No." He growled at me.

My lips quirked. My frequent accusations of murder seemed was making him grumpy. The marks of the past few days seemed to me lined under his eyes, making him tired and drawn. "Fine. Tell me."

He sighed, catching sight of my brief smile. He couldn't resist returning it, before masking his expression. "You will be an indentured ally of the Lycan forces. An informant who is placed in the custody of the Alpha Supreme, to be watched over by the Alpha Supreme and his inner-circle. As far as my allies know, you are confined to the town of Lunar and any other places the Alpha choses to visit. You will provide the Lycan army with every scrap of knowledge you know about the Ravi...within reason."

"Where will I stay?"

"In my home. So I can keep an eye on you?"

"Can I leave the house?"

"Only accompanied and to complete work within the town. To show your new turned leaf. You will be assigned a schedule to work in the town-hall with Trudie."

"I will have a job, a place to stay, the music room and a chance to take down the Ravi." I mulled it over, watching him closely.

"I've tried to make all those things sound very unappealing to my higher-ups." The corners of his mouth twitched, before it smoothened and he gazed down at me impassively.

"But it isn't to me. How did you manage this?"

"By twisting the truth." Easton admitted. "But have no doubt that if you were not my moon-bound, they wouldn't have agreed to this."

"One advantage I suppose to that." There was no heat in my voice.

Easton ignored that, and told me frankly. "You will need a handler."

"A handler?"

"Someone highly skilled and trained to watch over you at all times and report back to me on your behaviour. I have appointed someone highly skilled in dealing with someone like yourself."

I bristled. "If you stick some drooling fool on me, I will..."

"Lux Armstine seems the perfect candidate for the job." Easton interrupted me, moving his attention to the flowers again. "And she has been approved to be your handler by my council of advisors."

"Lux."

"Yes." He thumbed the soft petal of a tulip. " Some doctored documents. Some enhanced photos to make her taller than she appears. She has accepted the role whole-heartedly."

I blinked, staring at him. Everything had been twisted to sound horrible to his advisors, but he knew as well as I did that it would mostly be ideal. I would be in the house, with my music room. I would be around my friends and busy with work. He had known that about me, done that for me.

Slowly, as he was the dangerous one, I rose. Easton's gaze flickered back to me, growing taut as I inched towards him. He didn't move, frozen as I was close enough to scent the musk on his skin, hidden under rainwater and leaking stress. Carefully, I treaded my arms around him and pressed my ear to his chest. His heart beat furiously, heavy and thick inside his chest. Duh duh, duh duh. Who knew a heart sounded better beating inside the chest?

"Thank you," I whispered.

He returned the hug, one massive arm hooked around me. He smoothed a hand over my hair, before cradling my head. His hand felt large enough to crush my head like an egg. Even as I thought it, I relaxed into him.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. "You're welcome."

>

Day one as an agent of the Lycan army.

Facing down the rare, but formidable anger of Lux Armstine. She moved around me in the kitchen, a hurricane of wired anger. We had returned to the house that morning, silent during the long car journey. I had slept, jolting awake at sudden knocks in the jeep. Easton had sat in the back with me, uncomfortable with his long legs pressing against the back of the passenger seat. Somewhere, along the journey, my head had gone from resting on the edge of the window to the soft dip where his shoulder met his collarbone.

He said nothing when I woke and shifted away from him. Said nothing as shameless sleeping Nova sought out comfort again.

Lux was waiting for me when I got back, skin purpled and bruised. Nicolas had peeled his lips back at me but for Lux's sake, I refrained from telling him that I could and would fold him into a pretzel.

I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry you got hurt Lux."

She pursed her lips. "I was trying to protect you."

"You knew it was me?"

"I've suspected you weren't human since I saw you lift that stage prop back before the performance of the 'Man and his time. One armed. It took four of our strongest lifters sweat and tears to shift that bloody giant golden wooden horse."

"You didn't say anything."

She shrugged a shoulder. "It wasn't my business."

Emotion welled in my throat, such bursting appreciation for my peppermint friend that the tremulous emotions I had been feeling over the last couple of days bubbled up. My chest hitched, my breath catching. "You're a good friend, Lux. Better than I deserve."

Lux set down the mugs in her hands and fixed me a firm look. She didn't balk from my gaze, which I knew was too unwavering, too still. "You took a bullet for me, Nova."

My lips twisted. "Several."

"And you think not asking personal questions is the makings of a good friend."

The coffee maker beeped. I focused on the smell of coffee, tracing a nail along the wood of the table. "I spent – I spent a long time making sure that I didn't let anything important slip. I forced my name down, became the monster they were making me because I knew if they suspected who I was, my family would be used to force me into obedience. Being around people who don't pry, who don't try and trick me into spilling secrets is ... another kind of freedom."

She slid a cup of coffee across to me. Her small hand settled over my wrist. "We'll solve this together."

"I believe you."

Not an easy truth, but with her staring at me so earnestly, I didn't want to crush her. The Ravi weren't a simple solution. They were a disease, rooted deep into the marrow of bones. Rotting through the spine, knotted around the spinal cord.

Later, in the safety of my bedroom, I examined myself in the long mirror. I was safe, I told myself. Surrounded by familiar scents, colours and a place that I knew.

But my body was marked by livid bruises, still touched by the marks of lightening that had scoured my skin. Easton's blows were the most violent, so vivid against my goose pimpled skin. I was tired in the mirror, face drawn. Eyes tired.

My mouth moved. I heard the words, but it didn't feel like me. "You're never going to rest until the Ravi are gone. Are you?"

I blinked and those cold, awful eyes vanished for a long moment. I knew the answer. I had always known that answer, but there a ray of hope. I looked away from my body, to the artwork along the walls. Traced by the delicate hand of a massive Lycan. I recognised the warmth blooming in my chest, the fondness that I didn't let flicker across my face.

Everyone knew what I was.

The Lycans had a weapon that the Ravi had created to defeat them.

Hope.

Hope in the form of a broken, delicately hopeful me.