His blood was hot against my face.

I had dreamed of his blood on my hands in my most twisted moments, where my anger and pain overcame my fear of having to face him once more. I had not imagined this. His breathing was stuttered and pained, short bursts of gasping groans as he sunk into me. My fingers tightened on him and though his weight should have been no problem, but as panic consumed me, my strength fled.

Blav cried out for him, stuck behind the crumpled jeep. Easton's hand, shaking, rose to clasp my arm.

Alive.

His heartbeat was there. Alive.

"Easton?" I breathed, afraid to look at his face. Afraid to let my voice be heard, heavy with panic. "Easton?"

"Let's get him inside." Adken was at my side, a strong arm wrapping tight around Easton. He peered down at his face and I caught a sight of him, grey and his face twisted in a grimace.

"Here." Grant at my other side, sliding an arm around Easton as Blav had. "We need to get inside."

The two of them pulled Easton inside and I stayed there, in full view of the sniper. The gleam was obvious on the hill. They were making no attempt to hide from me.

I stepped forward, churning that panic into rage. I could wield this. I could use this. I would break their bones and grind them to dust with a curl of my fingers. How dare they! I would take the bullet, but not him.

"Nova, what are you doing?" Blav hissed. "Get down."

The little Ravager, Ophelia, was hiding behind the barn. She stared at me wide-eyed as I stepped forward, running my tongue along my teeth. Easton. They had hurt him and why did that hurt so god-damn much? I knew why, but now I knew that the Ravi knew too.

"They're trying to lure me out, aren't they?"

I spoke into the evening air, watching the dark rise of the slumbering hills. The farm was silent after the fight had ended, leaving only the haggard breathing of the tired and the rasping breath of the dying Ravager. If they shot me now in the skull or heart, no meddling by the Ravi would save me. I would die, as if I was just a human girl.

Yet, still I called their bluff.

I knew Doc-Mai, probably better than I knew myself. She wouldn't want to lose to me. Not like this. If I died, all her years of work would die with me. There was still more to be injected in, to be twisted out. The Ravagers were mirrors of me, but I was her main attraction. She just wanted me back. She would shoot me, but she knew too that a bullet from a rifle like that might shatter bone but I would piece myself back together again. I had been faced with the spray of a shotgun, a bullet to the knee-cap that had been one of many times I had begged – begged – for death.

But they had popped champagne when my knee-cap reformed and the cartlidge began to slide back together, generated by wrongness that they had twisted inside of me.

Doc-Mai wanted me to come for them.

I was coming. Just not now.

"There's a Ravager dying around the barn." I told Ophelia. "Pull them inside. Blav, tell them there's a sniper in the hills."

Blav just stared at me as I stalked to the crumpled jeep and hauled the Ravager there over my shoulder. With another hand planted against the crumpled jeep, I pushed. "Stay behind the jeep, Blav."

He did and I pushed. Sweat matted my hair to my neck. The air boomed, the sharp whip of a bullet striking the earth close behind me.

"Shit, Nova!"

"Move."

So he did. Another two bullets broke the air. None broke my skin. Blav got inside. Ophelia broke a window around the side and I heard a body hitting the ground, followed by the rasp of bloody breathing. I shut the front door behind us and then dropped the Ravager's body onto the couch. The kitchen was a mess as Grant and Adken had cleared off the dining table and had stripped Easton of his shirt. Blood ebbed along his skin, running along the rivulets of his scars.

"How is he?" Blav was at his side in a second.

Adken was bent low over Easton, his fingers slathered in the Alpha's blood. "Alive."

Easton's head rolled to the side, lips pressed tight. "Nova?"

I was frozen in the kitchen door, torn by indecision. I wasn't good at this. The comforting thing. Easton's light was long, his smile falling into a grimace. "A-are you hurt?"

Was I hurt?

My chest tightened and I forced myself to step into the kitchen. "No. Not hurt. H-How are you?"

"I will be fine." He breathed. "Silver just burns."

"And you were shot by a rifle." Mikey sat on the kitchen table, his cheeks red. The young Ravager was all long limbs that he didn't seem quite grown into yet. "I've seen documentaries on those things! Those bullets would take chunks from you!"

Blav and Grant just looked at him. Mikey's cheeks went red. "Uh. Sorry. Not the time."

"How old are you Mikey?" I asked. There was still innocence in his wide-eyed stare, despite the hollowness of his cheeks.

Mikey balked as I stepped closer to him, unable to look at me fully. "Uhm, seventeen I think. I don't know how long I was in with the Ravi. A couple of months, I think."

"What's the last thing you remember happening in the world before the Ravi caught you?" Adken asked. "That's what helps me come to terms with the time."

"Ehm, there was a news story on the telly the night they caught me. About a sinkhole down in Pottery that swallowed three whole houses. No one was hurt, thankfully."

Blav sucked in a breath. "That sinkhole was three years ago."

Mikey blinked. "Three years ago? That's not right. That means I'm like...nineteen."

Another person to comfort. Mikey was beginning to lace himself tight and I stared at the boy, uncomfortable with the emotions that I recognised in him. As Adken found what he was looking for, I sat by Easton's side to clasp his arm. Adken withdrew a long slug of a bullet, a garish burning silver.

Easton's jaw gritted, a pained breath huffing out. His hand, wrapped around mine, began to tighten as the pain overcame him. His eyes glazed over and I welcomed the brutality of his grip, feeling my bones grate.

"You are good at this." I told Blav, tucking a strand of bloodied hair behind Easton's ear.

"E and I spent a lot of dark nights cleaning each-others wounds. The Lycan war was brutal and silver was the monarchy's favourite weapon. Many of these scars would have healed if they had used only their claws and teeth. The Prince in particular, laced the tips of his claws with silver."

"Strange that a metal would bring down such a powerful beast."

"All beasts have a weakness. It is the order of things. Even the Ravi could not prevent a weakness, an aversion from developing within us. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if they purposefully laced it within us to control us." Adken said.

"And what is our aversion?" Mikey had regained control of himself, his shoulders laced tight and his young face brave and resolute.

The stoic Ravager side-eyed the young boy. "Lavender."

Blav's head titled and I spoke, "Lavender?"

"The smell sends us spinning. Under our skin, it would burn." The side of Adken's mouth lifted. "I was the one they tested their theories on."

"Hmmm." It made sense, in a way that annoyed me for not realizing it earlier. "Lavender always reminds me of Doc. Mai."

"I used to love that smell." Ophelia pulled at the ends of her jumper, inching closer. "I remember the lavender fields outside my house. Miles of fields in colourful bloom and the smell used to cling to me wherever I went."

"The Ravi are feckers." Mikey muttered. "How did the Ravi catch you then?"

"Perhaps we should not bring up such memories." Grant eased a heavy coat over Ophelia's shoulders. My mother's scent clung to it.

Finally, a flicker of fire in Ophelia. Her head raised, her eyes bright and burning. "My parents gave me to them."

Grant stepped back and Ophelia's gaze found his. She drew strength from him, and swallowed. "My parents were staunch anti-Lycan supporters. My older sister fell in love with a Lycan and fell pregnant. They were fated and a few nights after she told them, she vanished. They never showed any anger for her pregnancy or her partner. They congratulated them."

Easton's tight grip was easing, his breathing deepening as he tipped over the worst of the pain.

A stray, angry tear trailed down Ophelia's cheek. "They buried her out in the lavender fields. I found out and told them, I would rather run with the wolves until my lungs gave out and I died, rather than deal with their hatred any longer. I said the love of a Lycan must be purer than their wretchedness. I left. Days later, the Ravi broke down my best friend's door. My parents were there, crying and saying it was for the best. I don't remember the months after that, but as they broke me, moulded me, I remembered my anger. I remembered my sister and those lavender fields."

"Thank you for telling us." Grant murmured.

"The only reason I survived was because of my anger. My desire for revenge. I don't have anything to bet, but if I did, I would bet that we all had reasons to keep pushing."

"I just wanted to see my Mam again." Mikey kicked a scuffed boot against the floor. "She is sick...well, was sick. She didn't have long left when I went missing and if it's really been...if it's been this long, she's long gone and buried.

My chest tightened further. Adken just clasped the boy's shoulder, squeezing tight.

"I – there are enough resources in Lunar to find where your mother has been buried" I told him.

Mikey blinked. "I would appreciate that, Omega."

With a grimace masquerading as a smile, I left Easton's side to go to the cellar. I tossed the table to the side, flipped over the corner of the carpet and opened the door. I blinked as I reorientated myself with the darkness below. Three, drawn, worried faces looked up at me.

"Nova!" Kale breathed a sigh of relief and clambered up to me, wrapping me in a tight hug. I held him for a moment and he released me to help Mam clamber up. Nyssa brushed away his helping hand, her eyes swollen with tears.

Kale was breathing hard. "I heard a shot."

"A sniper."

He scoured over me closely. Mam was shaking, her face gaunt and white. "Did you get shot?"

"No – Easton..."

A sob tore from Nyssa's throat and she flew out of the room and into the other. I heard her footsteps stop, her heart racing as she must have beheld the Ravagers before her. I followed after her, a looming shadow over her shoulder.

Easton was sitting up in a puddle of his blood, his face growing grey. His eyes found mine immediately, never wavering, even as Nyssa fled forward once more. Her hands, unscarred and unmarked, wrapped around one of his. Easton jolted, drawing his hand away and wincing at the movement.

Nyssa flinched. "You are hurt."

"I am a little battered and bruised too, thanks for asking." I remarked.

She ignored me. "What happened?"

"He got shot by a bullet."

Nyssa regarded me sharply over her shoulder. "I didn't ask you, Nova."

"Yeow." Mikey grew awkward, detaching himself from his newly favoured spot and began searching for food. "Fights to the death and family drama. A sitcom?"

"Sitcoms weren't usually so violent." Ophelia piped up, her gaze riveted on Nyssa.

I ignored the both of them, smiling with saccharine sweetness at my sister who struggled to learn her place. I licked the blood from my teeth and brushed her away from Easton's side as easily as a gnat. "As the Alpha Supreme's moonbound, I think I have the right to answer for him."

And because I could not help myself, could not stop myself from prodding an enemy before me, no matter how weak they were, I pressed a kiss to Easton's knuckles. Poor Easton was dazed, but I couldn't fault him for that. Even I, as riddled as I had been at one time with bullets, had never had one rip through me like this. A little higher and his body wouldn't have been able to regenerate at all.

"We need to get him to the hospital." I turned to Blav, dismissing her.

"We have a unit only a minute away. His personal doctors are being prepped."

The room moved into rushed movement once more and Nyssa scowled, turning on her heel with that sheet of dark hair swinging behind her. I peeked at her only when she reached the doorway, a dark sense of foreboding in my gut.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Easton did not die.

He did not teeter on the edge of life and continue to shred my soul and sanity. No. He healed and grumbled good-naturedly in hospital. When I was called to the compound, it was Lux and Merri who sat with him. Lux knitted him a pair of socks and a scarf that he wore with minor complaints, but I could tell he was delighted with the gift. It had made me laugh when I spotted him in the hospital bed, restless and irritated, his chin tucked in the soft chunky wool of a sage-green scarf.

I sat with him every evening and told him I was going home to my colourful bedroom, away from the burning white walls. But when he slept, heavy and snoring, I slipped back into the room. The Alpha did not wake as I sat on the armchair beside his bed, my legs tucked close to my chest. I was gone by morning, arriving with his breakfast and scolding him over the sugar in his coffee even though I would never deny it to him.

On the fifth day, where Easton had been allowed to walk the halls of the hospital, my family came to visit him. I had not been there. Instead I had been in the dark bowels of the cells, watching soldiers question captured Ravi doctors. We were closing in on them like a tightening net and I would not let Easton's hard work, nor mine falter if there was a perceived weakness.

Low conversation halted me as I reached the room. My mother's scent was old, but the twins were strong and present.

"You have to stop this, Nyssa." Kale begged, his voice low. "Please."

"I have been standing in front of him for years and he still didn't see me." Nyssa's face was a mask of wretched pain and neither twin noticed me standing there, a tall figure with dreadful suspicion rotting inside of me. No. No longer suspicion. I had lost a lot of my understanding of nuanced behaviours when I was under the Ravi's control, but I couldn't ignore my sister's burning jealously any longer.

"How could he?" Kale hissed, glancing at Easton's sleeping face. Though Easton liked to pretend he was unfazed, this particular bullet had left him drawn and weak. The doctors and Easton and I shared a suspicion that perhaps there was something else hidden within it.

I hitched a shoulder against the doorframe. The soft petal of a tulip tickled the underside of my chin.

"How could he what?" Nyssa demanded. "Love me? Want me? He could have got there when he saw me as something other than her younger sister."

"Her? Can't you say her name!"

"No, I can't. All Mam and you talked about for years was Nova. Nova this, Nova that. Nova did this first, so of course it wasn't amazing when I achieved it. 'Oh, Nova would have loved to have seen this, Nova would have been so good at this. I remember when Nova'... fecking hell, we thought she was dead and I mourned but now that she's back, all conversations lead straight back to Nova! Even the man I love has fallen into her trap."

"Nyssa..." Kale eased a step back, looking stricken. "Don't talk like that.."

"Oh shut up, Kale." Nyssa ran her hands through her hair, shaking it over her shoulder. She looked at Easton's sleeping face. "I feel like, no matter what I do, we will always be in competition together. I don't intend to lose this time. I will be second best to no one. Especially not to her."

"We aren't in competition together, Nyssa." I barely sheathed my claws, furious at how she spoke of me and discarded Kale's concerns so easily. The twins startled as I stepped into the room.

Nyssa flamed, whirling on me. "Are you threatened Nova?"

That made me laugh and that laughter rolled out for my belly. Tears dotted at the corners of my eyes and she grew angry as I flashed her a toothy smile. "After the last few days that I've just had, I needed that laugh."

"You're such a bitch, Nova." Nyssa snapped.

Easton's eyes fluttered, his shallowing breath too low for the twins to hear. I decided not to draw their attention to the fact that they were waking him. To me, Nyssa was close to foaming at the mouth, ready to spill her vile truths out because she couldn't hold it in any longer.

"I can't be offended by the truth." I slipped Easton's flowers into a pot. "And neither can you. Forgive the wolf comparison, but you are a lame, disease ridden wolf trying to hunt down the king of stags. And me, well...I already have my teeth in his neck."

"You hated him at one point."

"And I no longer do."

"That isn't fair." Nyssa shook off Kale who tried to stop her from stepping forward. "You can't just push him away and then change your mind! I love him and I have always loved him!"

"And saying that aloud changes nothing." Some sick and twisted part of me delighted in how my words must have hurted her. I would never use my strength against her, but Nyssa was a different kind of enemy. An enemy I couldn't kill, one I loved, but one who was dangerous to my carefully built happiness. "What kind of sick girl continues to try going after her sister's fated mate? I could forgive a childhood crush, a lovesick puppy because Easton is a handsome man but I know you don't see him like I do. You see his power, his wealth and that's what you crave."

I stepped closer to her, my hand whipping out to grip her by the chin. I tilted her face to him, my nails sharp against her skin. I whispered to her. "If there was a competition, you lost before it began. You lost before you began playing it, to a woman who wasn't even playing."

"Because you are bound together by fate. If Easton had a choice..."

"I would choose Nova, a hundred times over. In a thousand different timelines and face a thousand different consequences." Easton was fully awake now, grimacing as he sat up. His molten eyes were sharp and focused though, his voice stern as he stared Nyssa down. "The moon pairs us, but we forge it. Look at the stars that burn in the sky, the stars that are millions of fated souls who built the path before us. Even if there was no bond and Nova and I met naturally, I would choose her. I have protected you, your brother and your mother because of your sister. Giving you all that I have may have made me look like a good man, but I did it for Nova. Though this must hurt Nyssa and I don't wish to hurt you because I consider you a younger sister, I must say it. I do not love you romantically. I will never love you romantically, because I - well, Nova is Nova."

Nyssa took a sharp intake of breath and when she blinked, tears washed down her cheeks. With her voice choked, she directed that rejection to me. "I hate you."

"Better for you to hate me, than I you, Nyssa." I sheathed my claws, knowing that she was fatally wounded now.