They moved through the sleeping city. The Nocturne club loomed ahead, its once-vibrant facade now hollow and silent. Its sign flickered weakly. Arina led the way, her eyes flashing crimson under the cold glow. Aoni’s breathing grew faster. The soft whimper that tore from him was raw that made every head snap toward him.
“What is it?” Arina asked.
Aoni’s eyes were wide. “Don’t— don’t ask stupid questions!” he growled, voice breaking. “Just open it! Now!”
Arina blinked, startled by the panic threading his tone. “Aoni—”
But he was already moving himself. With a curse, Arina surged forward, kicking the doors off their hinges in one hit. The splintered wood flew inward, crashing against the floor. Aoni lunged through the opening first.
“Wait!” Arina hissed, vamp speeding into his path. Her hand shot out, catching his shoulder. “The fuck is wrong with you!?”
Aoni’s eyes snapped up to hers and in that instant, she saw fear instead of rage.
But it didn’t last. His wolf broke free. The sound that erupted from him was guttural, shattering snarl that tore the silence apart. Before Arina could react, he hurled her across the room. She slammed into the bar. Glass exploded, bottles shattered. The marble cracked, collapsing as debris rained down and buried her beneath splinters and smoke.
“Arina!” Aleksei roared. He and Togi lunged forward toward Aoni.
“Stop!” Rolak screamed, throwing himself between them and Aoni. Kara’s snarl joined his, her form half-shifted, claws dragging grooves in the wooden floor.
Aoni was trembling, panting, his claws dripping with glass and Arina’s blood. His eyes darted around the empty, silent club, searching for something none of them could see.
“She’s here,” he rasped. “I can feel her. My mate— she’s here.”
Arina stirred — one crimson eye glinting through the dust.
Togi’s jaw tightened, glancing from Aoni to the shattered bar and then to the darkness that stretched beyond. “Then we’d better find her,” he muttered.
Aleksei stepped toward the ruins of the bar, offering Arina his hand. “You good?”
She brushed off the debris, blood trickling down her temple. “Yes.”
Together they turned toward the corridor that led deeper into the Inner Circle’s den.
Arina led again. The air was colder downstairs, heavy with rot and blood that had long dried.
Behind her, Aoni’s breathing was jagged, uneven. He walked like a man being pulled by a leash only he could feel, the invisible tug of instinct and bond threading through every nerve. Rolak stayed close, ready to restrain him again if his wolf surfaced one more time.
Togi’s eyes darted from shadow to shadow, while Aleksei’s expression hardened into the same haunted mask he’d worn on the battlefield. “Smells like hell itself down here,” he muttered.
“Not hell,” Arina murmured, “just what vampires make when they forget they used to be human.”
They reached the end of the passage — a metal door, dented and burned.
Aoni stepped forward, shoving her aside. “Move away.”
“Aoni—”
He didn’t wait. His claws tore into the lock, shredding metal as if it were paper. The door screamed open.
Inside, the room was small and stifling — a cage masquerading as a cell. The air was thick with blood, the ground sticky with what had been spilled and left to dry. And in the middle, chained by wrists and ankles, lay a young woman. Her body stained with soot and scars. Silver cuffs bit into her limbs, her breath shallow and uneven. When the light hit her face, Arina saw that her lashes fluttered.
Aoni fell to his knees beside her, a broken sound tearing from his throat. His hands trembled as he touched her cheek. “No… no, no, no,” he whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of relief and horror. “It’s her… it’s her…”
Arina stepped closer, her gaze softening despite the dust and blood on her skin.
“Careful,” she said quietly. “Touch the chains too long, and they’ll burn you too.”
Aoni didn’t listen. His fingers wrapped around the shackles, ignoring the pain.
Togi exchanged a frustrated look with Arina. “He’s going to kill himself before he helps her.”
Arina didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into her coat, pulled out a dagger with a curved edge and cut through the first chain.
***
The mansion was already glowing with the warmth of light when they returned. Arina walked in first — her clothes torn, streaked with blood.
Rylan’s brow furrowed as his gaze swept over her. “What happened to you?”
Arina didn’t hesitate, though her voice was soft and cracked around the edges. “I slipped.” The lie fell easily from her lips, but her eyes betrayed the ache beneath it. She brushed a streak of dried blood from her arm, and turned toward Aoni, who now stood in the center of the room, cradling the unconscious she-wolf in his arms.
“If we’d left her there,” Arina said, her voice steadier now, “Aoni would have never found his mate.”
Rylan’s eyes widened slightly. Lysara covered her mouth, glancing between the young Alpha’s son and the fragile girl he held. Alpha, silent until then, studied them all with the slow gaze of a man measuring the shape of destiny itself.
Aoni didn’t speak. He simply stood there, holding the she-wolf as though the world might shatter if he let her go. His pulse was wild; his eyes glowed faintly with the ghost of his wolf beneath the surface.
Rylan finally exhaled. “Then it seems fate waited for the right kind of storm,” he murmured.
Arina’s lips curved faintly. “Maybe so,” she said quietly. “But storms always leave a mess behind.”
She turned away before anyone could read more in her expression. She could feel the weight of everything pressing down — the lies, the fire, the mercy she hadn’t given herself.
Behind her, Alpha moved closer to Aoni, his voice deep, rumbling with approval and warning both. “Take her to the guest room. And thank the goddess she still breathes.”
Arina didn’t look back. She simply started up the stairs, leaving a faint trail of crimson on the polished floor — the only trace of how much she’d given to make sure the young wolf lived to see dawn.
Alpha’s eyes narrowed as Arina disappeared up the stairs.Then turned toward the ones who’d come in behind her. “She fell?” The question was deceptively calm, but the edge beneath it was unmistakable.
Togi froze under that gaze. He understood why Arina had lied but lying to an Alpha never came without a cost.
His jaw tightened, his throat working before words came. “I’ll bring her a blood bag,” he muttered, the words ground out between clenched teeth.
Alpha’s gaze followed him, unreadable. Then his eyes shifted, sharp and glowing faintly with dominance, to Rolak trying too hard to stay invisible.
“Tell me the truth,” Alpha said, his voice deepening into that unmistakable tone of command that allowed no refusal.
Rolak’s body stiffened. He glanced once toward Aoni, then dropped his eyes to the floor. “Arina tried to stop him,” he said finally, voice low, heavy with guilt. “She was warning him not to rush in. The wolf in him surfaced before any of us could stop it. He… he threw her into the bar.”
A snarl rolled from Alpha’s chest, quiet but full of fury.
Aoni, still standing with the unconscious she-wolf in his arms, flinched but said nothing. His eyes were dark, his knuckles white where they gripped her.
Rylan watched silently, tension running through his frame, but he didn’t interfere yet.
Alpha turned away from Rolak, his voice quieter now but no less dangerous. “We will speak of this tomorrow,” he said. His gaze flicked toward Aoni. Then, to Togi who stood rigid with blood bag in his hand. “See that she feeds,” he ordered.
Togi nodded as he turned toward the stairs.
Steam coiled thick through the bathroom, curling around the light. The sound of running water drowned everything else — her heartbeat, his thoughts, even the faint crackle of anger still buried under his ribs.
Togi stepped inside quietly. “Arina,” he said softly.
She didn’t answer. The shower’s glass was fogged, her silhouette a blur behind it motionless, head bowed, red-streaked water pooling at her feet.
He pushed the door open without knocking. The heat swallowed him whole.
“You’re still bleeding,” he murmured, holding up the blood bag. “You should have called for this first.”
Her voice came faint, barely audible through the hiss of water. “I needed to wash first.”
He frowned. “That’s not how our kind heals.”
Her head lifted just slightly, water streaming down her face like tears she would not shed. “I wasn’t trying to heal,” she said quietly. “I was trying to forget.”
Togi’s chest tightened. He stepped closer. The steam parted between them as he reached for her shoulder — his hand trembling before it found her. “You think scrubbing away the blood makes you clean?” he asked tired.
“No,” she whispered. “But maybe it makes me less of what I became.”
He stared at her, and for a moment: a vampire who’d seen too much, done too much, and still wanted to believe she could crawl back toward the light.
Togi tore the blood bag open, pressed it into her shaking hands. “Drink,” he said roughly. “Before you tear yourself apart for nothing.”
She hesitated, but the instinct was stronger than her guilt. She drank slow at first, then deeper. With every swallow, the rawness on her skin smoothed, the wounds sealing.
When she was done, she looked at him with eyes faintly glowing. “You shouldn’t be here,” she murmured. “You shouldn’t see me like this.”
Togi shook his head. “I’ve seen worse. You, pretending not to care that’s the part that hurts.”
Her lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Caring gets us killed.”
“Not caring turns us into them.”
She said nothing. The water was still running, but it no longer smelled of blood.
Finally, Togi reached forward and turned it off. “Enough,” he whispered. “You’ve punished yourself enough for one night.”
And for a long, fragile moment, neither of them moved. Just silence, and steam, and the quiet truth between them — that monsters could still feel shame, and even the damned could still crave redemption.
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