Irina’s POV

Alexei’s howl tore through everything.

I gripped the railing with both hands. My wrist was still screaming from the recoil, throbbing in a hot, dull pulse that ran all the way up to my elbow. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My legs had gone to concrete, nailed to the floor of the walkway, and all I could do was watch.

Below me, everything shifted.

It happened fast — faster than I’d expected. Alexei’s wolf had lurched sideways, a stumbling, graceless thing that nothing like the deliberate, untouchable creature that had been moving through the chaos thirty seconds ago.

Roman moved first.

He was still bleeding. I could see the dark stain across his flank, still wet, still there — but he lunged like none of it mattered, throwing his whole body into the nearest wolf and driving it back three, four feet before it hit the floor. The sound of it cracked across the training ground like a gunshot.

Andrei came from the other side.

The Iron Stone wolves didn’t regroup.

That was the moment I understood it was over.

Without Alexei standing in the center, giving orders, they were just wolves. Scared, leaderless wolves. Some of them broke off immediately, turning to run. The ones who tried to keep fighting got taken down in seconds. Roman’s soldiers closed in from three sides, efficient and merciless, cutting off every exit.

I watched Alexei get pinned.

Four of them went for him at once, and he was too injured to throw them off — the silver round was still in his shoulder, burning, blocking his ability to shift back or heal. He thrashed, snapping his jaws at anything within reach, but it was all animal panic by then. Nothing calculated. Nothing in control.

They got his wolf down on the stone floor.

One knee pressed into his neck. Another on his flank. He stopped thrashing.

I exhaled.

The sound that came out of me was shaky and too loud and I didn’t care. I pressed my forehead against the railing and just breathed for a second — one full, real breath — while my heart kept hammering like it hadn’t gotten the message yet that it could slow down.

*It’s over.*

I said it to myself. I needed to hear it, even if only in my own head.

*It’s over. He’s down. It’s over.*

Below me, they were shifting Alexei back to human form by force, stripping him of the wolf and replacing it with something smaller, something that could be zip-tied and dragged. He was still fighting it, twisting against the hands holding him, face twisted with a fury that looked almost exactly like every memory I had of him — sneering, red-faced, furious that something dared not go his way.

I stared at him until they started pulling him toward the exit.

Until I watched him get smaller, and smaller, and then disappear through the doorway.

Something in my chest loosened. Not completely. Not all at once. But enough that I could feel myself start to breathe normally again.

I looked down at my hands.

The gun was still in my grip. I hadn’t even noticed I was still holding it.

I made myself open my fingers. One at a time, slow and deliberate, prying my own hands apart like they belonged to someone else. The guard whose weapon I’d taken was still somewhere behind me — I didn’t look back at him. I just set the gun down on the railing, carefully, with both hands, and then stepped back.

I made it to the wall and put my back against it and slid down until I was sitting on the floor of the walkway with my knees pulled up to my chest. The noise below had changed — no longer crashing, snarling, the violent cacophony of a battle — it was cleanup now. Voices giving orders. Boots on stone. The low, controlled sounds of aftermath.

My hands were shaking.

I don’t know how long it was before I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Heavy. Fast. Taking them two at a time.

I looked up.

Roman came around the top of the landing and stopped.

For a second he just stood there, breathing hard, looking at me — sitting on the floor, back against the wall, still shaking. His grey wolf form was gone, shifted back at some point in the chaos, and he was human again. There was blood drying on the side of his neck. His jacket was shredded across one shoulder, the sleeve hanging open.

He crossed the walkway in four steps and dropped to one knee beside me.

And then his arms went around me.

It was fast, almost fierce — the kind of hug that doesn’t ask permission, that just *happens* because there’s no other option. He pulled me in and held on, tight, one hand pressed against the back of my head, and I was so startled by it that for a second I didn’t move at all.

Roman never hugged me.

Roman barely tolerated me, most days.

"Hey." His voice was rough, close to my ear. "You did good."

I exhaled against his shoulder.

"You did *really* good," he said again, and it didn’t sound like he was talking to someone he’d spent months eyeing with suspicion. It sounded like he meant it. Flat and simple and real. "That was —" He paused. "That took guts, Irina."

I didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t, right then. My throat was too tight.

He held on for another moment, then pulled back, keeping both hands on my shoulders, looking at my face like he was checking something. Making sure I was still in one piece. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were sharp and tired and something else I didn’t have a name for.

"Can you stand?"

I nodded.

He got me up. One arm under mine, steady, not rushing me. I made it to my feet and stood there for a moment, getting my balance back, while the sounds from below kept settling into something quieter.

"Andrei," I said.

Roman’s face changed.

It was subtle — a tightening around the jaw, a shift in the eyes — but I’d gotten better at reading him over these past weeks, and I saw it.

My stomach dropped.

"He’s okay," Roman said, quickly. "He’s —" He stopped. Tried again. "He took some hits. His leg, and his side, a couple others." He looked away for a second, toward the railing, toward the floor below. "Werewolf healing got him part of the way there. He stopped bleeding."

"But?"

Roman exhaled through his nose.

"Some of the wounds aren’t closing." He said it evenly, the way he said everything — controlled, precise — but there was something underneath it, something that cost him to keep his voice that flat. "Silver contact. A few of them. His body can’t process it out fast enough on its own."

I stared at him.

"He finished escorting Alexei out," Roman said. "Insisted on it. Wouldn’t hand off until it was done." Something flickered across his face — exasperation and something achingly like pride, tangled together and going nowhere. "They’ve already taken him to the emergency room."