Panic set in, but I tried to think through it.

Vaulting up over the walls wouldn't work. The walkways were illuminated in light and questions would be raised if the Alpha's human guest climbed that without aid or rope. I ran fingers through my hair, mussing it. I broke my hands to curve them into claws, cutting into my dress and flesh.

The little farmer Lycan had scored me some injuries, but not enough to explain my tattered, worn self. As I ambled down the walkway to Lunar, dragging my feet and curling in my shoulders, a light suddenly illuminated the road.

A guard on the wall shouted down at me 'stop'.

With my poor old human ears, I pretended not to hear. A gunshot wound would earn me some sympathy points – shift the attention away from me and to the guard who would shoot a poor, innocent woman. And the wound wouldn't kill me.

The gates opened to me and I winced at the screech of tires over loose stone. A jeep thundered towards me and I kept walking, sucking in a calming breath. Lying wasn't hard. Not when I had done it enough to keep me alive all this time.

The driver's door popped open as the jeep screeched to a halt and Blav leapt from the seat. He heaved a breath, stark concern plastered across his face. "Nova!"

I stopped, illuminated by full-lights. Blav looked at me, a slow frown pinching his brow. I blinked and Blav reached in to dim the lights.

"You're bleeding!" He breathed. "By the moon, Nova. What happened?"

He drew a jacket from the jeep and handed it across to me. Gingerly, I pulled it on. It was Blav's – his scent was all over it. Still, it was warm and cosy. "I want to go back to the house."

"You worried us, Nova." Blav hovered, but didn't move to touch me in any way. "I – moon, I thought my heart would going to explode."

"You don't know me that well." Along the walls, the blinding lights were dimming.

"I like you Nova. I don't need to know you a million years to like you, do I?" Blav glanced at Lunar, uncertain. "And if something happens to you, Easton will – well, I can't see him go through that again."

"There isn't a monarchy to over-throw?"

Blav glanced at me sharply. At the gates, another jeep appeared. Even without seeing the driver, I knew who it was.

"You think the path from meeting you and deciding to over-throw the monarchy was a linear path? Easton fell hard – deep and dark into grief and guilt."

"Are you trying to make me feel sympathy?" I asked. Blood was crusted on my arms and I picked at the flakes curiously.

"No. No – that's not your fault, but I love him and I don't want to see him like that ever again."

The second jeep rolled to a stop, and Easton stepped from the car. At the sight of him, the harsh expression of worry. The heavy brow and those whiskey-brown eyes that burned too bright to be human.

"What happened?" He stepped towards us, barely restrained. I could see the effort it took for him not to rush me – in the straining muscles. The gritted jaw.

"I –" My mind whirred. "I got upset and wanted to go for a walk. I went too far and..." Unseen, I dug my fingers into an open wound. I pushed hard into the flesh and the pain caught in my voice. "Something attacked me."

"A Lycan?" Easton risked another step, his voice sharp as a whip.

I dug my fingers in tighter. "It must have been. It tossed me around like a rag-doll, but then a farmer came and distracted it. I—I just ran. I left him there! He saved me and I just left him there."

Concern softened the cold fury on Easton's face. "I will send someone to find the farmer. Come back into Lunar. We'll get you seen to. Blav?"

"I am on it." Blav dipped his chin.

"Bring Aron and Xeela."

"I can handle it by myself."

"Which is always said before you are captured, kidnapped or killed. Radio in—get them to accompany you."

"Alright boss." Blav flashed me a warm smile before sliding back into the jeep.

As he drove away, Easton placed a hand gently on my lower back. I felt like I was some kind of errant sheep being shepherded back into a pen. Playing the poor, confused and traumatised human, I let him push me towards the car.

The atmosphere was tense. I watched as he rolled up his cuffs, eyeing the flesh of muscles along his thick hands. The wolf swallowed as the car turned around, risking a glance in my direction. "I apologise, Nova."

"For what?" I asked.

"For what happened in the kitchen." The town of Lunar looked quiet again as we turned onto the streets of the housing estate.

"I didn't run because of that."

"Oh." He took a breath. "Why did you run? You know that you are free to leave. Whenever you want. Nothing that happens between us changes that."

An uncomfortable feeling tightened my chest. I thought it might have been a kind of guilt – new and soft – that was beginning to bud.

"Sometimes I feel like running – running so far and fast to just escape, but it's trapped in my head and I can't escape that." A lie right now, but not always. Gravel crunched under the wheel.

"I know what that's like."

I cut him another glance. "You were worried?"

He paused. "I ... yes. I was. Very worried."

We pulled up in front of the house. Low light was cast against the lawn. I hesitated in the passenger seat even as the door flew open and Lux stumbled down the steps. Her hair was dishevelled, her mascara streaking her cheeks.

"Oh Lux." I murmured. That guilt returned, stronger now.

Behind her, the Lycan Nicolas stepped out aswell. She let him touch her shoulder, but she hurtled across the lawn and threw her arms around me. "You fool. You ran off into the night! What happened?"

Easton drew us into the house. No trace of our guests remained, but the stain of muddy boots marked the entranceway.

"Let me see what's wrong," Darren stepped out of the sitting room, carrying a small medical bag. Darren brought me upstairs. What small wounds I had were cleaned and dressed. As I swallowed antibiotics, I let him bring me back downstairs. A passive, frightened little human.

I stepped into the kitchen, illuminated only by a low light. I knew they would find the injured farmer and that he would speak of a beast. My denial – my bloody clothes would only simplify the problem. The farmer was a Lycan. He would know what attacked him wasn't a Lycan.

"The Omega attacked me." I cleared my throat. "Out on the fields."

Easton's head whipped up. Lux and Nicolas were a little clueless, but the Lycan shifted to stand in front of her as Easton snarled. "The Ravi must have sent the beast to scout the land outside Lunar."

"Your wounds are consistent with an attack from a Lycan. Or Lycan type creature," Darren hedged. He looked down when I stared at him, his cheeks darkening.

"What did it look like?" Easton started towards me and then pulled himself back, gripping the counter behind it.

"It came for me, but I was just a toy. It threw me around before it attacked a ram. Movement seems to attract it. And ..." The lie slipped off my tongue, as easy as breathing. Easier even. "...and then, a farmer shot at it. It ran after him and I ran."

"Is the farmer dead?" Lux fretted.

"You could have told me that." Worry made his words seem harsh.

I hesitated. "They spoke about the Omega only in whispers in the Mad-Maze. I never thought it could get out into the open air. Speaking that it was here brings the Ravi closer to Lunar. I – I don't want to associate this place with them."

"And have you seen the Omega before?" Easton pressed. "In the Mad-Maze?"

"Yes." I looked away, to where Muffin was reclining stubbornly in the box that had carried her new bed. She ignored all of us, uncaring of the tension that sat heavy in the room. "Eight years is a long time not to run into it."

"But you survived," Lux said severely. "And that's all that matters."

Darren was still looking at me, visibly shaken. I stared back when I caught his gaze, wondering why the Lycan dared to even try and hide my secret. I knew that he knew. I didn't have some kind of secret ability. He was just too obvious for his own good. Well, too obvious for me. I hadn't noticed Easton picking up on the younger Lycan's discomfort.

We 'went' to bed, but really we stewed in our rooms. Easton asked Darren to stay over, 'just in case' my wounds magically split open again.

"Good night," Lux pressed my hands between hers. "Sleep well."

"I hope."

She squeezed my hands tighter, with bones of glass and skin of paper. "Don't vanish, okay? I'm not very good at tracking and it would be cool to be like those innocent-turned vigilantes you see in movies. But, I hate being hit."

"Everyone hates being hit." I said, partially amused.

"You're avoiding the point." Lux shook my hands. "I don't know a lot about your old life, but it's not safe to trapeze out into the night. You can always come into my room and we can eat ice-cream and watch terrible movies and moan about things that don't really matter. It's therapeutic."

"Okay."

"Or at least tell me you're going to vanish." Lux said. "Then I won't be so worried."

"I didn't mean to make you upset." Another truth.

"Sometimes, when you spend so long looking after yourself, you don't think of the people who do care for you when you get them." Lux shrugged a thin shoulder, her expression becoming clouded. "At least, that's how I always felt."

I escorted Lux to her room and when she was settled inside, I prowled past the guest-room that Darren was sleeping in. I stood on the other side of the door, listening intently to his heart-beat. The scent of his unease leaked under the door.

I swayed, skin itching as that irked a syringe given urge.

He knew my secret. But he was keeping it? Which meant something I didn't understand. I couldn't corner him – not in this house with Easton fretting like a beefy mother-hen.

I could kill him.

Effective in killing that secret, but that would only raise a host of problems that would rot on my doorstop. Plus, it would be rude.

When I settled in bed, I heard the light tread of Easton's footsteps outside my door. He lingered for a long while, eerily silent. If I had been human, there wasn't a hope that I would have heard or sensed him there. I didn't hold my breath and kept calm, staring at the gap under the door. No light from the corridor illuminated him.

Eventually, he returned to his room.

An hour and a half later, I heard him again. Moving down the stairs to check the handle of the front door. Tapping something in on the house alarm. Shuffling around aimlessly. He walked back upstairs and made a round of the upstairs, tapping on windows and hesitating outside of people's doors.

'Worried' I realised.

He must have been. A big Alpha checking his modern den for weaknesses. No phone rang which meant no news had come from Blav yet.

No news was good news. Right?

His bedroom door clicked shut. To me, that click echoed like the boom of a gun in the silent, sleeping house.

An hour later, he rose again to make the rounds.

I don't think either of us slept until dawn arrived and with it, Blav. I heard the jeep pulling to a stop outside the house. Easton had given up the pretence of trying to get sleep and as I cracked open the bedroom door, I could hear him humming mindlessly, moping the floors downstairs.

The front door opened and I slipped outside my room, feeling a sudden flood of nerves. They were silent in their greeting and I descended the stairs as they moved to Easton's office.

For the first time, I felt nervous about hearing what information might have been passed in the home. I listened in the hallway to Easton's office, silent as a waiting tragedy. Their voices picked up once I risked getting near enough.

"So close to Lunar." Easton snarled. "And to Nova."

"The farmer is lucky to be alive." Blav said. "Finn Lochlin. Just welcomed his second child into the world. He trained to be a solider, remember? But the life of a farmer always appealed to him more."

"Finn was a strong fighter." I heard the tread of his feet just inside the door.

"And he says this Omega just tossed him around like he was food. He was no threat to it."

"But it didn't kill him?" Easton pressed.

"...It nearly did. E, come on lad. You know you can't try to justify this any longer."

A breath. "I know. I just hate to think of this creature, locked away for years and abandoned by the Acrelia family now being hunted like some beast."

"And what if your mercy ends with Nova being tossed around like that farmer? Or with her friend Lux being butchered? Or Merri? Do you think any of us could live with ourselves if it hurt them?"

"No. I'll make the call."

"I can make it if you want," Blav offered.

"No," The was a darkness in Easton's tone that struck me. A savage coldness that didn't belong to the sweet-toothed Alpha built like a fridge. "I knew this day would come, eventually. The holding cell has been built already. The prongs just need to be hooked up to the power. Tell the men to follow the red ledger from now on. I will go to Donshoc to sort a few things."

Red ledger? Sounded ominous. Which probably meant great pain awaited me if they ever figured out that I was the Omega.

"No matter what happens, the Omega gets nowhere near our people." Easton vowed. "And keep an eye out for Nova when I'm gone, Blav. Not that she'll need it, but I will."

"I promise. I'll guard her like she's my own moon-bound."

A whisper of quietness. "Thank you."

When the men left the room, the house was a picture of ignorant bliss. I knew there would be strains of music echoing out into the foyer. I was mindless as I practised the song, wondering would it be a good idea to tell Easton what I was.

Would this talk of moon-bounds and living life to be worthy of the night sky even matter if he realized the danger I posed to people around him. I could argue that my additions could be of use. I could turn the open world into the Mad-Maze if I needed. It was easier than living a life of niceties.

Easier for me perhaps, but it wouldn't make me happy.

He risked entering my music-room that day. "I will be leaving for a few days."

"Alright."

"I need to sort out some things."

I turned on the stood. "You don't have to explain that to me."

He glanced around the music room, then out at the garden. His gaze flickered to me. "I want to."

Again, that guilt. "You shouldn't trust me so easily, you know. I could rob you blind, burn your house down. How can a bond determine whether or not I'm trustworthy?"

"Do you think you're undeserving of my trust?"

"I think you're foolish to trust me."

"A pack doesn't survive if the head of it is a spitting, vicious fool," Easton watched me closely as I rose, his adam's apple bobbing. "I have to make the hard decisions, but I can't be what the Arcelia family was. I am not a dictator. I help train the football teams. I go to weekly bingo when I can. I have to give trust when I can, because if I trust no one, what example does that set for my people?"

"You're a good fighter," I said. "A brilliant one, but the Ravi would have squashed that out of you. No one, no matter how noble and strong, can withstand them."

"You did."

I scoffed. "Something survived wearing Nova Linden's body. Let's not pretend I'm anything normal."

"I'm not pretending." Easton risked a step closer to me. "Blav will check in...not that you need it, but it will make me feel better."

"You do need to lessen the stress," I advised sagely. "I think I see a new wrinkle forming."

He touched his forehead before his lips twitched at the sight of my smile. "I don't have wrinkles."

"I think they're cute." I touched his arm as I passed him, a sudden lump in my throat. It was hard to voice it, but the music-room didn't feel like a real place. It was a room away from everything, painted with the sky and free of panic and stress. "Be safe when you go."

He didn't answer and when I turned at the door, he was staring out at the garden. Broad hands clenched into a tight fist. He let out a quick breath. "I will."

"Good."

He looked over his shoulder, sunlight brightening his eyes. "Good."

"You wouldn't want to upset me. I'm scarier than the Ravi."

He gave me one last smile before I left. My smile faltered, that guilt burning like acid in the back of my throat. I shouldn't feel guilty for keeping secrets, but I did. These people had plans for the Omega and I doubted they would be merciful to me when it came out. I doubted Doc-Mai would let that little nugget of information lie if she found out where I was living.

I would have to find this red ledger, or scour his office for information when he was gone. Sneaky, sneaky Nova. He trusted me, but I wished he wouldn't. Not when I picked apart my own truths and offered only what served me – and he seemed to give me everything.

Still – eight years of harsh survival wouldn't be washed away by a handsome smile and blushing cheeks. It only made me feel bad. It wouldn't stop me.