Togi’s hand found the curve of Arina’s back as they walked. When they reached her door, she pushed it open without a word. The faint scent of iron and rain still lingered there from before — from when she’d returned half-conscious and bleeding. Her coat was draped over a chair; her boots still flecked with ash. Togi closed the door behind them.
For a moment, neither spoke. Arina moved toward the window, resting her palm against the glass, looking down at the courtyard where the last traces of gathering vampires had dissolved into night. Her reflection stared back at her — too pale, too sharp, eyes still carrying that faint feral glow that hadn’t yet faded.
Togi leaned against the edge of her desk, arms crossed, studying her in silence. His voice, when it came, was quiet but steady. “You didn’t tell anyone,” he said. “About Aleksei. About the bait.”
Arina didn’t turn around. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“It would’ve changed everything,” he said, his voice breaking slightly, a crack under the control. “We could’ve stopped you from walking into that trap alone. You could’ve—”
She spun then, fast enough that the motion stirred the air. “Could’ve what? Risked one more person dying because of me? Let someone else bleed for my mistake?” Her eyes blazed red for a heartbeat, then dimmed back to blue.
He stared at her before he stepped closer. “You think you’re the only one carrying the cost of this coven,” he said. “You’re not. You never were.”
Arina’s breath caught. “I made Aleksei what he is,” she whispered. “The hunger in him is mine. And if I hadn’t… if I hadn’t done what I did, maybe he wouldn’t have become another monster in their game.”
Togi’s expression softened. He reached out, hesitating only once before touching her hand. “He’s still your brother,” he said. “Nothing erases that.”
Her throat worked, swallowing words that refused to form. She looked down, her hand trembling under his. “You shouldn’t have come for me,” she said, almost to herself.
Togi gave a low, humorless laugh. “You think I could’ve stayed behind? Not when it was you out there.” He moved closer still, until the distance between them was only breath. “Next time you walk into hell, Arina, take me with you. Because I’m already halfway there when you don’t.”
“I thought love made us stronger,” she suddenly murmured, eyes unfocused, chasing something invisible beyond the window. “But sometimes… it just makes the fall hurt more.”
Togi reached out, the gesture hesitant but tender, brushing his thumb along her jaw. Arina’s hand rose, trembling, to find his. She didn’t look at him. Instead, her gaze drifted toward the floor, the shadow of guilt carving quiet lines into her expression. “All the arguments we had…” she said softly, the words catching at the edges of her breath, “they seemed such childish things when I thought it was over.” Her voice faltered, then steadied. “I was so confident,” she continued, forcing herself to face the confession that burned her throat. “So sure of myself that I didn’t even wait for my squad to arrive. I thought I could handle it — thought I didn’t need anyone.” Her lips curved in a bitter ghost of a smile. “And when the trap closed, I realized how foolish my pride was.”
Togi’s expression softened. He cupped her hand fully now, his palm warming hers, grounding her in the present. “You’ve never been weak, Arina,” he said quietly.
She exhaled a shaky breath. “I know that…” she whispered, her voice catching on its own weight, “I just wish I wouldn’t have been that stupid.” Her hand slipped from Togi’s, fingers curling in on themselves. She let out a quiet, fractured laugh. “To think,” she said, her tone twisted with disbelief and hurt, “that I would actually believe my brother went to kill humans.” She shook her head slowly, strands of red hair falling over her face. “I should’ve known,” she murmured. “He’s reckless, yes — but not cruel. I let them play me. Let them turn my fear against the one person I swore I’d protect.”
“They used what mattered most,” he said quietly. “They knew if they whispered his name, you’d walk straight into their hands.”
Arina’s lips parted into a long, quiet sigh. “And I did,” she answered. “I didn’t even hesitate.”
Togi watched the way her shoulders curved inward. Every flicker of regret that crossed her face carved deeper into him. He couldn’t bear seeing her like this, drowning in the guilt of what she couldn’t have known. He wanted to tell her she was right — that she had every reason to fight, to act, to believe in what she did. But the words tangled in his throat, caught between reason and the desperate ache of wanting to take her pain away by any means.
Before Arina could finish her next sentence, Togi’s hands found her waist in one slightly trembling motion from the restraint he’d been holding onto for too long.
Arina gasped, startled, the rest of her words dissolving into the quiet air. He didn’t give her time to recover; his lips met hers with an urgency. The kiss deepened tasting of rain and all the things they couldn’t say. His fingers traced her spine, pulling her closer until her balance tipped, the back of her knees brushing the edge of the bed.
“Togi—” she began, but her voice broke against his mouth as he continued to kiss her, slower now as if he was trying to rewrite her sorrow into something gentler, back to the warmth they thought they had already forgotten…
***
When Arina finally stirred, the light spilling through the curtains was already full. Togi’s arm was draped across her waist, heavy and protective, his breath steady against the back of her neck. For a moment she simply lay there, listening to that slow rhythm and let herself forget everything beyond that room.
The sunlight painted them both in pale gold: his hair tousled against the pillow, her bare shoulder gleaming where the light caught it. Their bodies were still tangled.
Arina turned slightly, enough to see his face — softer in sleep, stripped of command, anger and fear. A faint smile ghosted across her lips, though it held a shadow. Last night had burned away the distance between them, but morning brought reality creeping back with it.
She brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, fingertips lingering on his skin. He stirred, eyes opening slowly.
“Morning already?” his voice was rough.
“More than morning,” she murmured, glancing toward the light. “We missed breakfast. Maybe even lunch.”
He smiled faintly, the kind that curved slow and lazy, and pulled her closer until her head rested against his chest. “Good,” he whispered. “Let them wait.”
Arina exhaled softly, the edge of a wry smile tugging at her lips. “I also missed my squad’s training,” she murmured, voice still husky from sleep. “At least for that part, your father will be pissed a lot.” Her fingers idly traced the lines along Togi’s chest.
Togi’s lips curved into a smirk, a familiar arrogance that softened only when it was aimed at her. “Even if he is,” he said teasing, “after what happened to you, I doubt you’ll let him moralize you this time.”
Arina arched an eyebrow. “Moralize me? Rylan doesn’t moralize—he interrogates with his twisted philosophy.” She pushed herself up slightly on one elbow, the sheet slipping just enough for sunlight to kiss a deeper curve of her shoulder. “And then your mother looks at me like she’s already decided I should’ve done better.”
Togi chuckled, his hand sliding up her back, lazy circles drawn against her skin. “And yet you’ll still stand there, argue with them both, and walk out as if the entire coven answers to you.”
Her smile deepened caught between pride and defiance. “Maybe that’s because I forgot how to bow,” she said softly, the humor dimming for just a heartbeat. “Or maybe I just learned that bending gets you killed faster than standing your ground.”
He reached up, fingers brushing along her jaw, forcing her eyes back to his. “Or maybe,” he murmured, “you just don’t know how to stop fighting.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But it’s the only thing I’m still good at.”
The air between them shifted — the teasing melting into something quieter, heavier. The sun was already bowing to the horizon when Arina and Togi finally left the sanctuary of tangled sheets. Their steps were unhurried, almost lazy, as they crossed the silent mansion halls. Togi carried an already torn open blood bag, while Arina nursed hers.
When they turned the corner back toward her room, they froze. Rylan and Lysara stood in the doorway, framed by the dying light, both visibly holding back something sharp and unspoken. Rylan’s hands were clasped behind his back, but his shoulders were too stiff, too tight to mistake for calm. Lysara’s expression was polite, but cold.
Rylan drew in a slow breath, his mouth parting, ready to unleash a storm — the lecture about duty, about responsibility, about how the coven cannot run on hearts alone. Arina braced herself, her spine straightening, already expecting the familiar reprimand.
But before the words could come, Togi’s arm wrapped around her waist. Rylan’s words faltered mid-breath. Something flickered in his eyes — a rare, disarming crack in his usual authority. The anger melted into something else.
When Rylan’s gaze finally shifted to Arina, he saw no trace of weakness. No ghost of the woman who’d almost died the night before. Her skin was pale, but her eyes were sharp, clear, unflinching. Then Rylan let out a sound part sigh, part growl, part surrender and the fury that had threatened to rise in him dissolved into something older, heavier, almost paternal. He turned slightly, the weight of command returning to his posture, though softer now. “Next time,” he said, voice low, controlled, “make sure the world knows why you come back standing.” He didn’t wait for a reply and just walked past them, leaving the faint echo of respect and warning in his wake.
Lysara lingered a bit longer. Her eyes landed on Arina’s for one long, measuring moment. Then a curve stretched at the corner of her lips and she turned to follow her husband.
***
The moment Arina stepped into the training yard, her squad closed in around her almost instantly.
Jasper was the first to speak. “You could’ve waited for us,” he said, but the words came out closer to a growl than a plea.
Zoki stood a step behind. His eyes burned into hers. “You were supposed to lead, not die trying to prove you could fight alone,” he said, his voice low, edged with disappointment.
Sura’s arms were crossed. Her braids swaying as she shook her head slowly. She didn’t speak right away, but her silence was worse than any reprimand. When she finally did, her voice was quiet. “We don’t need a martyr, Arina. We need you alive.”
And then Kade simply muttered, “Next time you pull something like that, we’ll chain you to the damn car.”
Arina’s lips parted to answer, but for a breath she couldn’t find her voice. The yard felt too bright, too still. Finally, she let out a slow exhale and said, “I didn’t jump in because I wanted to die. I did it because I thought I could end it before it reached you.”
That earned her a flicker of reaction — a soft shift in Jasper’s stance, a narrowing of Zoki’s eyes, a sigh from Sura that sounded almost like forgiveness.
“But you didn’t,” Jasper said quietly.
Arina nodded, eyes lowering briefly to the dirt beneath her boots. “I know,” she whispered. Then, raised her chin again: “I’ll do better next time. I’ll wait.”
Jasper finally cracked a faint smile, shaking his head. “You? Wait? I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Arina’s lips curved, the ghost of her old defiance returning. “Then you’d better keep up.”
Footsteps echoed behind them. Instinctively, the squad turned toward the mansion. Aleksei was walking down the marble steps. The wind tugged at his coat, at the sharp line of his jaw, but nothing could soften the tightness in his face. His eyes were fixed entirely on his sister.
Arina didn’t need to see more. She knew that look of fury and guilt simmering behind it, the way it twisted him inside out. He was coming not as the brother who once laughed beside her, but as the shadow of her own mistake.
Her sigh was almost imperceptible, but Jasper caught it. He tilted his head, reading her like a page he’d memorized long ago. Arina straightened, masking the flicker of unease, though the pulse in her neck betrayed the weight behind her calm.
She glanced back at her squad and forced a smirk. “I wasn’t joking about the speed,” she said, her voice snapping through the courtyard. “One hundred circles around the mansion grounds. Now!”
They knew better than to question the tone that brooked no reply. But even as they moved, there was a knowing glance exchanged between them.
Arina turned back just as Aleksei reached her. “You’re still angry,” Arina said at last.
A faint smile touched his lips. “You think this is anger?” His voice was too calm, too measured. “No, Arina. Anger burns fast.”
She crossed her arms, meeting his gaze. “Then say it. Whatever it is you’ve been swallowing since you got here.”
His eyes locked on her. “You thought I was killing for pleasure when I was alone, before I found you again.” His voice didn’t rise, but each word struck deep enough. “You—my own sister—believed it before you even asked what I was doing before that.”
Arina flinched, though she tried to hide it. “There was proof—”
“There was fear,” Aleksei interrupted softly, his tone cutting sharper for how gentle it sounded. “And you trusted it more than you trusted me.”
Her lips parted, then closed again. For a heartbeat, her eyes softened. “You know what fear does, Aleksei. You taught me that. You taught me never to ignore it.”
He laughed, but it was hollow. “And you taught me to burn it down before it devours you. Seems we both forgot our own lessons.”
“You’re not leaving,” she said finally, more as a statement than a question, but meant to change the subject.
“No,” he replied, stepping closer. “I trust Rylan. I see what he’s building here — something almost resembling peace. But you…” His eyes flickered, wounded. “You look at me like I’m still the knife in your hand instead of the brother who bled beside you.”
“Aleksei…”
“Don’t,” he said, a tremor of rawness slipping through his restraint. “Don’t say my name like that, not when you still don’t believe in me.”
“I’m trying,” she whispered.
“Then try harder.”
For a moment neither of them moved, bound by everything they couldn’t undo.
“Try harder!?” Her voice tore through the air. “Aleksei, it was you—” she stepped closer, eyes blazing, the old hurt rising from the ashes of her restraint. “You, who after arriving in the city, didn’t even look for me. You hunted me! And it didn’t matter what I said, how I tried to reach you—nothing! You were feral, blind, lost to your own bloodlust!”
Aleksei’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t speak.
“The only thing that stopped you,” she went on, voice breaking into a tremor, “was him!” She pointed toward the mansion, toward the shadow of Togi behind its walls. “Togi had to strike you down, lock you in that basement, because I couldn’t!” Her breath came fast. “Do you have any idea what that was like? To see my brother, my own blood, look at me like I was his target? To hear your cold voice and know there was nothing left of the brother who used to guard me from the dark?”
“And you think I don’t remember that night?” he asked quietly. “Yes, I lost myself. But I didn’t lost you during that night, Arina. You let me go long before it and after.”
Her expression faltered. “Don’t you dare—”
“You buried me in that cell before I ever woke up. You made me the monster so you could feel safe again. But tell me, sister—how safe did you feel when they came for you? We both know you wouldn’t have walked into the trap alone if it wasn’t related to me. You had come after me alone before after all.”
Arina’s voice dropped, quieter now, trembling under the weight of everything unsaid. “Maybe I did let fear win…” she whispered, her eyes dark and glinting. “But you gave it reason to exist.”
Aleksei’s laugh came out sharp and broken. “Of course,” he said, his lips curling into a bitter half-smile, “of course you turn the fault against me again.”
“You think I forgot who taught me how to hate, Arina? Who whispered in my ear that vengeance was the only thing that would keep us breathing?” His voice trembled, rough with memory. “I found my sister within coven walls — a sister who once said that every vampire deserved to die for what they did to us. And now you look at me like I’m the monster you created.”
Arina’s lips parted, but no words came.
Aleksei’s voice grew lower, the anger thinning into hurt. “You think you would’ve acted differently than me? You think you wouldn’t have lost yourself if you’d been the one crawling through ash, dragging my body through the blood of our parents, hearing their screams every night while you hunted the ones who did it?” He swallowed hard, jaw tight. “The difference between us, sister, is that I never pretended that the darkness wasn’t already inside us.”
He stepped back, breathing hard now. “So don’t tell me I gave you a reason to fear. You taught me what fear was.”
Arina’s eyes flared with fury and pain. “You think you own the darkness, Aleksei? You think you’re the only one who suffered!?” Her voice cracked. “I thought about you through every hunt, through every sleepless night when I thought you were dead — and when I found you again, I believed the monster they painted you to be because that’s what you showed me!”
Aleksei snarled, his fangs flashing in the light. “No, Arina. You chose these purebloods and I became the thing you fear, because they did!”
“I saved you!” Arina’s voice rose into a shout, sharp and trembling with old guilt. “You would have died that night. And yes, I stayed because I thought maybe not every vampire was like the ones who made us! Maybe there was a way to live without killing all of them, to be a part of the family who cared!”
Aleksei’s face twisted, grief burning behind rage. Arina knew before he spoke what was coming next and her body stiffened. “Careful what you say next,” she whispered, voice low and trembling. “Because I swear to you, brother or not, I will not stand and let you insult my family..”
“Then stop calling it family,” Aleksei spat. “Families don’t set traps for their own and don’t chain their blood in cellars!”
Arina’s hand struck first. Aleksei staggered, then lunged forward, his own fury igniting as well. Her knee meeting his ribs, his arm catching hers mid-strike. He swung low; she twisted aside, grabbed his arm, and threw him into the nearest tree. The bark split under the force as Aleksei ripped free and charged again.
“Try harder, sister!” he shouted, voice breaking through the storm of movement. “You’ve always been good at running from what you made!”
Her answer was a growl. She darted forward, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed him into the wall. Stone fractured, dust billowing around them. “And you’ve always been good at blaming me for your own damn choices!”
He laughed. “Choices? You call surviving your war a choice?” His hand shot out, fisting in her hair, dragging her head back just enough to bare the fury in her eyes.
She broke his grip with a twist and a shove that sent him crashing into the fountain. Water splashed up, scattering. He rose from it, soaked, snarling.
“After everything they did to us—after everything we did together—how could you cage me!?” he spat.
“Because you didn’t come for me, Aleksei!” she shouted, voice cracking with something older than anger. “You hunted me!”
They collided again, faster this time. When Arina finally pinned him down, straddling him, her fangs bared inches from his throat. “You think this rage is what will fix it? That fighting me will erase what happened?”
He stared up at her, eyes burning with hurt. “No. But it reminds me I’m still fighting.”
Her hand trembled. The fury drained from her face, leaving only the same ache he carried.
“Togi!” someone shouted — Jasper’s voice, alarmed.
Togi was already there, eyes wide as he took in the destruction — the shattered wall, the fountain, the broken tree, the blood on their clothes. “Enough!”
Arina froze. Slowly, she pushed away from Aleksei.
Aleksei sat up slowly, mud streaking across his jaw, water slicking his hair back. He spat blood into the puddle beside him and let out a bitter laugh. “Guess some things don’t change,” he said, voice rasping with exhaustion. “Still takes a man to stop you, sister.”
Arina froze just long enough for the words to pierce her pride. “You arrogant bastard!” she hissed, lunging forward, tackling him into the mud once more.
Her hands slammed against his chest, pinning him as her claws dug into his shoulders. “You think this is a game!?” she shouted. “You think any of this — what we lost, what we became — is something to laugh about!?”
Aleksei twisted beneath her, catching her wrists, smirking through his own exhaustion. “Better to laugh than to rot in guilt!”
Before Arina could slam into him again, Togi’s strong hands landed on her shoulders. “I will not let either of you destroy each other!”
Arina froze, the tension in her muscles faltering against his grip. She glared at him, panting, her voice trembling with fury and frustration. “He—he doesn’t understand! He—he—”
“He is your brother!” Togi raised his voice, his grip firm enough to hold her back from attacking again. “And neither of you leaves this courtyard bloody over old wounds!”
Aleksei rubbed at the mud streaked across his face, glaring at Togi, his expression a storm of defiance and begrudging respect. “And you think you can control this?” he spat.
“I don’t think, Aleksei,” Togi replied, eyes locked on both of them. “I know. And I won’t let you tear each other apart. Not here. Not now. Not ever.”
Arina’s chest heaved. Her hands trembled as Togi held her, fury burning through her, but beneath it, a reluctant recognition — he was the anchor in the storm, the only one stopping her from making a choice she couldn’t undo.
But what neither of them noticed was the shadowed figure observing from the mansion steps. Rylan’s gaze narrowed, lips pressed into a thin, cold line. He watched the clash, the mud, the fury — and his displeasure was unmistakable.
“They will be leaving the courtyard,” Rylan’s voice finally reached them. He turned his gaze briefly to Togi, then back to Arina, eyes glinting with something between warning and cold promise. “This time… I won’t go easy on her.”
Even Aleksei’s smirk faltered under that weight, and Arina felt the chill crawl down her spine, the first seed of doubt piercing through the storm of her anger. Togi’s hands tightened slightly on her shoulders.
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