My head throbbed with possibilities. But with no laptop or computer, there was no way of knowing what was on the USB.

Phelan had told me that I was better off resting. Apparently Sophia was out of town and on her way to purchase a laptop.

Wonders never did cease. The man I met at the Full Moon Restaurant and Bar who once proudly asserted that Haven didn't have the need for such things, had now arranged for those very such things for me.

The truth was, he was right. My temple felt like it was in a vice, my neck was so tight that I could barely move it from side to side, and my body was exhausted.

He'd explained that although my body had healed from its wounds, there was bound to be residual pain. Particularly from the mark itself.

The mark.

It wasn't the romantic experience I had worked myself up for. I had spent so long anticipating the moment. I had pictured him buried within me for the first time, before sinking his canines into my neck as our bodies came in unison.

But I had lost that experience. I was lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.

As I laid amongst the covers within his dimly lit room, I absentmindedly began to explore the mark on my neck. My body was too stiff to sit upright, but I could make it out with my fingertips.

It was on my left side. I could feel two distinct areas where my skin had ripped and somehow weaved back together like ribbons. Each mark where his canines had pierced the skin were softer, more sensitive, and still slightly tender.

As I laid there touching it, I let my mind wonder back to what happened with my father. With Leila.

I remember the expression on his face as his throat was slit. He knew it was coming. It was part of his plan, to be a distraction to them. To lull them into a sense of triumph that they couldn't see what was closing in.

I knew that I should be grateful that I got to meet him. That I had the chance to get to know him when I never thought I would, but to see him die, because of me, I didn't know how I was supposed to grapple with the weight of it.

And Leila. How could someone be so devious and rotten to the core? That she'd chain someone in servitude, not really because he'd fallen in love with the wrong species, although that was a good cover... but because he could be exploited to bolster her strength. Greed did awful things to people, werewolves I had learned, were no exception.

I sighed as I looked to the ceiling. If it weren't for my dad, I would have been trapped. Confined. Tortured. Dead. But now I was free. But... how could I feel free carrying the weight of what I had done?

The fact that I was still alive was miraculous, but I still couldn't believe that I was actually responsible for someone's death. I had killed a wolf. A man. And I enjoyed it.

Had I turned into a psychopath? If my brain were dissected by scientists, would they discover that I had some kind of abnormality in my pre-frontal cortex? Had I become emotionless? Did I lose my empathy?

I tried to find a peace with the past events, but doing so would never come easily. It couldn't be something that I'd overcome in a day, a week or a month. I knew that grief didn't have a timeline and like my new life, adjustments were part of the process.

My mind was tired. I needed a therapist, a punching bag or a stiff drink. Perhaps all three. But what distracted me from my pit of misery was noticing that despite being in a darkened room, everything was in crystal vision. I could read the titles of each book on the bookshelf, I could see the veins that ran through each leaf on the ivy that rested on the dresser. I could see each grain of wood in it's intricacies, carved to precision around the door frame.

I am hallucinating, I thought.

See, I do have a brain abnormality.

I thought too, that I heard Phelan downstairs in the kitchen. I heard the ceramic plate being placed on the countertop and the lid of the strawberry jam spinning to a still as the knife scrapped the edges of the jar.

I swore the sweetness of the jam wafted through under the door, before the four, no five, different scents of grain from the bread permeated the air.

He was making a strawberry jam sandwich.

No. I was losing it.

Rolling over, I covered the duvet over my head, determined to drown out every sound, smell and sensation. I was sure I'd wake up with some clarity, and not be stifled by my muddled brain and sore body.

~

The morning hue that casted itself under the curtains told me that I had again, slept through another day.

But unlike the one prior, where I felt battered and bruised, I felt something completely different.

I felt like a new and improved Edie.

I felt bulletproof.

Wriggling my toes and fisting my palms, I tensed all my muscles... muscles.... before throwing the covers off and launching from the bed.

The second my feet hit the hardwood floor, I knew something was different. I was different.

Rushing to the floor length mirror, I was instantly struck by my reflection.

In shock and awe, I reached for my face before stepping forward as if to check that my eyes weren't deceiving me.

My skin. It was like porcelain. Where there had been the odd pimple and blemish, was now nothing but the clearest and smoothest of skin. I turned my head from side to side, noting how my cheeks had a natural glow, a tinge of pink that they lacked before.

I was gobsmacked.

But that wasn't the only difference.

My hair, although always long and wavy, was darker and smoother. And where kinks and frizz had always given me a complex, now sat symmetrical waves that fell past my shoulders like strands of silk.

What the hell...

My lips. Those were my lips? I had found the elixir of youth! They were soft, red and noticeably plumper. Not the distinctive look from filler or whatever else people did to enhance themselves, this... this was the real deal.

Staring at myself, I forced a smile, inspecting my teeth, which despite still having the one crooked eye tooth like I always had, they were all now a pearly white. Like, veneer white.

I was in shock!

My eyes! My sky blue eyes shimmered with flecks of gold. They looked three dimensional, they looked like they couldn't be real.

But they were. I was.

Next, I shifted my focus to my body. I lifted up my shirt and lost it at what I saw next.

I had abs.

I burst out laughing, I couldn't believe it. Me, whose dietary choices consisted of every form of processed carbohydrate had abs.

Twisting from side to side, I noticed I still had my curves, but there was now muscle that had miraculously appeared to add definition to my frame.

Was I really now able to have my cake and eat it too?!

The excitement was too much. Swinging the bedroom door open, I ran downstairs to find Phelan.

I called out to him, checking the office, the laundry, the kitchen, only to find him sitting out on the back deck with his black coffee in hand.

"Based off your reaction, I take it you've discovered some changes..."

I ran to stand directly in front of him, looking down expectantly as I awaited an explanation.

"Phelan. I'm me, but I'm not me. What the hell has happened?"

Placing his coffee down, he stood and grasped my hands, holding them by my side.

"You've shifted. I've marked you... As you've discovered, it comes with a few perks."

"So am I a hybrid, or a wolf? I don't-." I instantly cut myself off as I looked into his eyes. What I saw floored me.

"Phelan. Your eyes, the colors in your eyes are swirling, they're moving!"

"Mmhmm..." he smirked.

I gripped his cheeks, pulling his face closer to mine. "Holy shit, you're even hotter than before! How is that even possible?! You have a dust of freckles over your nose? How did I not ever notice that?!"

"As I said... a few perks... heightened senses, vision, hearing, smell, all adaptations for a wolf to survive... you have these now too."

"So I'm not human? a hybrid? Am I a werewolf now?"

He chuckled.

"Well, my mark did heal you... My guess is that it tipped the scales and made you a little more werewolf than what you were as well."

He reached forward and stroked my neck, right where he did it. His eyes honing in as he inspected it with a sense of pride and admiration.

"It looks perfect on you."

"So, did your mark transform the human side of me?"

He stepped back, looking out to the green distance as it became clear that he too had been trying to piece together some of the events that had transpired.

"Yes or no. It has always been folklore that a bite could do that to a human, but it has never happened before, in fact it has only killed them and nothing more. You were half way there already Edie. But who really knows... You didn't need me to shift into that gorgeous wolf of yours for the first time did you? Perhaps it was all you."

He pulled me in for a hug, his huge arms wrapping around me as he held me to his chest.

"This is all so confusing...." I muffled against him.

I shook my head, in part because I never could take any form of compliment, but also because I realised that I looked so different than before. I wasn't blind, the truth was I looked better despite how superficial it sounded.

I pushed myself off him and wanted an answer to the one thing I really always wondered.

"How could you have even been attracted to me Phelan? Honestly, I don't get it. You're...you're like a filtered Joe Manganiello and I am- like-"

He cocked an eyebrow mutual amusement and confusion as I began my rant.

"Stop right there. I have no idea who this Joe person is, should I be jealous? I could kill him you know..."

"Jesus no. That's not what I meant!"

"What I meant was-"

"I know what you meant Edie. I was being facetious... I have always seen you the way you see yourself now."

I began to pout. I knew how ugly insecurity made someone but I couldn't help but wonder what he ever saw in me.

"You're crazy..."

"I've been called worse," he chuckled. "Now can we stop this nonsense and eat some breakfast, Sophia and Gunner are on their way over, they've been dying to see you."