The Hale House was hushed after the storm of the night. Derek had been pulled inside, Laura guiding him away from Kate's broken whispers. Peter prowled like a wolf pacing a cage, eyes flicking toward the kneeling captives with a predator's instinct sharpened by decades of survival. The younger pack members whispered among themselves, tense, unsure, their gazes darting between the two bound figures and the man who had brought them here.
Only Talia had not moved. She lingered at the doorway, rain dripping from her hair, eyes steady on Alaric as if measuring him for threats. Her stillness carried danger sharper than any claws.
"Inside," she said finally, voice low and commanding. It was not a request.
The sitting room smelled of pine polish and leather, of fires long tended and houses long lived in. Time had changed the Hale estate—new tapestries hung along the walls, photographs dotted the shelves—but the hearth still held the same warm amber glow, crackling with familiarity.
Talia set a bottle of whiskey on the low table. Her hands were precise, deliberate; each motion a small exercise in control. Alaric's eyes followed her movements, noting the slight tension in her shoulders, the way her jaw flexed as if restraining a torrent of emotions he could sense but not yet touch. He did not reach for the glass. Not yet.
She seated herself finally, spine straight, one ankle crossing the other. She slid a glass across to him.
"You should have let me handle it," she said, voice even, but tinged with old frustration.
Alaric's laugh was soft, humorless, echoing faintly against the walls. "Two nights, Talia. That was all they gave you. Two nights, and you would have been nothing but ash. Forgive me if I did not gamble with your life."
She lifted her glass and drank, letting the liquid burn a slow trail down her throat. Silence fell, thick and heavy, punctuated only by the rain hammering against the windows and the soft crackle of the fire.
"You always did prefer theatrics," she said finally, voice edged with amusement and irritation both. "Dragging them half-dead to my doorstep. Making sure every eye in this house remembers your entrance."
Alaric moved then, fluid as smoke, letting shadow unfold into motion. He sat opposite her, finally taking the whiskey. Fingers curled elegantly around the glass, yet his gaze never left hers. Crimson eyes glimmered in the firelight, catching reflections of old regret and unspoken promises.
"Perhaps I wanted you to remember me as more than the man who left," he said.
Her throat tightened. Memories clawed their way to the surface—river nights, laughter that made the world feel small, kisses pressed into the dark, and the cold, sudden void when he had gone.
"You left because you chose to," she said, voice brittle yet controlled.
"No," Alaric's tone dropped, raw and unguarded. "I left because the world would not allow it. Werewolf and vampire. Hunters would have torn us apart. You know what they would have done had they known you carried my scent, your pulse so entwined with mine?"
Her eyes flared, wolf-bright, feral. "You think I cared what they would have done? I would have fought them all."
"And died," he said flatly. "Or worse—your family would have. They would not have stopped until the Hales were slaughtered. I would not let that be your legacy."
The fire hissed as a log cracked. Silence settled over them, heavy, almost physical, like a wound that had never fully healed.
Talia turned first, breaking the spell of memory. She set her glass down, slow and deliberate. "And now you come back. Two days before the fire that would have ended us. How… poetic."
Alaric's lips curved—not in mockery but in pain. "Not poetry. Instinct. Something drew me back to Beacon Hills. I had not set foot here in decades, yet I knew. Perhaps fate finally chose to play fair."
They drank in silence. Whiskey burned, rain drummed, fire flickered. Outside, Kate muttered curses, Harris groaned against his bindings. Inside, two sat across from each other, years folding like shadows around them.
Finally, Talia spoke, voice quieter, dangerous:"What do you intend to do with Kate?"
Alaric tilted the glass, amber liquid catching the firelight, a slow swirl of fate and decision. "Gerard will never admit her guilt. He would rather burn the world than let the Argents fall from their pedestal." His eyes lifted, crimson glinting. "It is best she dies. And his granddaughter… turned."
Talia stiffened, hand tightening on her glass.
"The girl is young," Alaric continued, calm, matter-of-fact. "Innocent still. If I take her, she becomes weapon and proof alike. Proof of Argent corruption. A child turned not by malice, but by necessity. She will be a curse on their bloodline… eternally mine."
The fire snapped as if recoiling from his words. Talia's crimson eyes flared, wolf-bright.
"You would curse a child to make a point?"
Alaric's gaze was steady. "I would save your bloodline from extinction. I would ensure no hunter ever dares whisper your name with threat again. What I propose is not cruelty—it is protection, bought in the currency hunters understand: fear."
Her hand crushed the glass, the wood beneath groaning. "You have not changed."
Alaric's smile was bitter. "Nor have you."
Time softened its grip for a moment. Rain, fire, and whiskey bound them together in fragile reprieve. Talia's shoulders eased, Alpha mask slipping just enough to reveal the woman beneath, vulnerable yet strong. She poured them another drink.
"Do you remember the river?" she asked.
Alaric's eyes softened, crimson melting into memory. "The night you dared me to race through the current. You swore you could outswim a vampire."
"And I nearly did," she said, a fleeting smile touching her lips.
"You cheated," he said softly.
"Strategy," she corrected, raising her glass. "Not cheating."
For a flicker, they were not Alpha and progenitor, not wolf and vampire. They were just Talia and Alaric—youthful, reckless, alive. Laughing as if eternity could be tamed.
But the moment shattered. Reality intruded—Kate's muted curses, Harris twitching in obedience, the palpable tension of the storm still lingering outside.
Talia's gaze hardened. "Tomorrow, I decide what becomes of them. Tonight… you will stay."
It was not a request.
Alaric's eyes lingered on her, firelight catching a glimmer of regret, of longing, of centuries of withheld words. His head inclined, graceful, old-world.
"Until it is over," he murmured, "I am yours."
Talia watched him for long moments. Her breath quiet, her heartbeat steady, drums in a room filled with ghosts and whiskey and fire.
And though neither spoke the words aloud, the air between them pulsed with the memory of what might have been, what could still be, if the world would only permit it.
The whiskey burned down to ash in their throats. Outside, the storm began to fade. Inside, centuries of love, loss, and consequence simmered, waiting for dawn.