Aleksei vamp-sped straight into the black mass of the Alpha, shoulder slamming into fur and force with enough momentum to throw Aoni aside before claws or teeth could finish their arc. The impact cracked against the street, and for a fraction of a second the wolves recoiled from shock.
Aleksei spun back instantly.
His eyes found her.
The body at her feet, the blood soaking her hands, the way she stood—not startled, not defensive, but alive in the wrong way, lips still stained, chest rising with a pleasure she had never let herself show before.
He took a step back. “What the fuck did you do, sis!?” His voice tore out of him, raw and cracking, louder than he meant it to be. “And you called me a monster!?” His hands shook as he gestured helplessly at the corpse, at her mouth, at the truth smeared across her face. “Look at you. Look at what you’ve become!”
The words landed, but they did not wound her.
Togi and Erika moved at the same time placing themselves between the tightening ring of wolves and the woman who had just shattered something sacred. Erika’s jaw was set hard, eyes blazing with denial and fury, while Togi’s face had gone pale in a way no immortal should ever look.
“Arina?” he whispered, stepping closer despite the impossible horror tightening his chest. “Oh gods… no.” His breath hitched. “She didn’t—You didn’t—”
But the answer lay at his feet, throat torn, eyes empty.
Arina broke left, but Aleksei was already there. He caught her mid-motion and drove her down, the impact rattling bone against asphalt as he pinned her, knee in her back, forearm locking her shoulders. “Stop!” he snarled, desperation bleeding through the command. “Stop, Arina!”
She thrashed beneath him, feral strength surging, laughter bubbling up again—too light, too wrong—until the wolves began to close in, claws scraping stone, growls rolling low.
Togi stepped forward. He inhaled deeply, forcing his shaking hand to still. His gaze lifted to the black wolf at the center. “Please,” he said, and the word was cracked open, bleeding. “Arina is not well. She’s been pushed by my father, by the coven, by expectations.” His voice wavered despite his effort. “Let us handle this. Let me handle this.”
The wolves hesitated.
“She’s ours,” Togi continued, swallowing hard. “This is our city. Our responsibility. If we’ve failed… then we’ll answer for it.”
Aoni growled lowdly, the sound vibrating with fury that had not yet cooled, his massive form pacing once, twice, eyes never leaving Arina as she finally kicked Aleksei off and surged upright again.
The black wolf shuddered, bones pulling inward as he shifted back into human form, breath steaming in the cold night air. He straightened slowly, eyes burning gold as they swept over the scene.
“We will be back with you,” Aoni said, voice low and edged like a blade drawn slow. His gaze locked onto Togi, then flicked toward Arina with open disgust and disbelief. “Your father has a lot to explain.” He took a step closer, stopping just short of Togi reach. “I thought she cared about people,” he said, the anger finally spilling through the restraint. “I thought that was the point.” His jaw tightened. “Now what? A dead human whose family will never know why he didn’t come home? Because we can’t return a body carved up by fangs?”
Arina laughed again—soft and splintered, bright with a hunger that no longer bothered to hide its teeth. Then she lunged hitting Aleksei with a ferocity that stole the breath from his lungs. There was no hesitation in her strike. She slammed into him shoulder-first, the impact driving him backward across the blood-slick pavement as claws tore free and fangs snapped inches from his throat. Aleksei barely had time to brace before she was on him again.
She moved like savage, knees slamming into his ribs, fingers locking into his collarbone with crushing strength as she tried to drag him down to end the fight before it could even begin. He felt her power immediately—hot, reckless, swollen with stolen life—and it terrified him how familiar it was, how much of it felt like looking into a warped reflection of himself.
“Arina—stop!” he snarled, blocking her next strike.
Her fangs grazed his jaw, close enough to draw blood and to promise exactly how this would end if he faltered. Aleksei twisted just in time, shoving her away, but she flowed with the motion, boots scraping as she spun, laughing again as she came back at him low and fast, sweeping his legs out from under him.
They hit the ground together. Her weight crashed onto his chest, pinning him as she straddled his torso, one hand slamming down beside his head hard enough to crater the pavement, the other fist driving toward his face again and again. Aleksei caught her wrist, muscles screaming as he held her back by sheer will, their faces inches apart—hers lit with feral delight, his twisted with disbelief and grief.
“This isn’t you,” he growled, teeth bared.
She smiled wider. “Isn’t it?” she hissed, head tilting as she wrenched her arm free and slammed her forehead into his nose. Blood sprayed.
Aleksei roared, rolling them both, using his greater mass to throw her off and regain his feet, but Arina was already moving, springing up, kicking off a wall to launch herself at him again. They collided mid-air, bodies locking as they crashed into a parked car, metal screaming as the frame buckled beneath their combined force.
She drove him through the windshield.
Glass exploded around them, glittering like frozen rain as they tumbled across the hood and hit the asphalt again, Arina never letting go, never giving ground, her laughter threading through the violence. Aleksei grappled her arms, struggling not to strike back with killing force, every instinct screaming to end the threat even as his heart fractured at the reality of fighting his own sister.
Her knee slammed into his gut.
His grip loosened.
She took the opening instantly, slashing across his shoulder, blood blooming dark and fast as she vaulted away, crouched low, feral and gleaming, ready to spring again.
For a heartbeat too long, Togi only watched her move with a mastery that was no longer learned but devoured, watched Aleksei bend beneath a storm he refused to answer with full force. His hand trembled again, fingers curling uselessly at his side as shock sank its teeth into him, rooting him in place while his mind lagged cruelly behind what his eyes had already accepted.
This wasn’t the Arina hew knew. She had crossed the line.
“What do we do?” Erika whispered, panic thinning her voice until it almost broke apart. She couldn’t look away from the fight, from the way Arina’s body moved. “Togi, I—I don’t want to kill her.” The words spilled faster, desperate. “We’re not killing her. We can’t. We won’t. Right?”
Memory of Arina’s laughter in quiet rooms, the way her touch lingered as if she were afraid of endings, the intimacy of nights where the world felt briefly survivable because she was in it together with him. Something inside Togi cracked then. When he lifted his gaze again, denial was gone.
Aleksei was still barely holding his own—every movement measured, every strike pulled at the last possible moment, fighting not to win but to contain. Sweat and blood streaked his skin, his jaw clenched with the effort of restraint. He couldn’t keep this up with Arina slipping further from herself with every breath.
Togi’s eyes met Aleksei’s across the chaos.
Aleksei moved first, lunging in close, arms locking around Arina in a crushing hold. She screamed as she realized—furious, feral, betrayed—the sound raw enough to slice straight through Togi’s chest. She thrashed violently, strength flaring wild and unchecked, her body fighting.
Togi didn’t hesitate again. Distance collapsing into nothing as he appeared behind her. His hand was already rising. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, too quiet for anyone but himself.
Then he struck. Arina went slack instantly, her body folding into Aleksei’s arms as consciousness fled her, laughter dying mid-echo, hunger extinguished into sudden stillness…
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