Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

A week had passed since the silent deal with Alaric Drago.

Nikolai spent most of it buried in paperwork or beating his body to the edge of collapse. After the ambush at the tower, he abandoned open training grounds and took to the underground chambers beneath the Volkov estate—an old battleground once reserved for the heads of the clan.

He fought whoever he could convince. Some days two at once. Some days until his fists bled.

The training was brutal. And Nikolai no longer held back.

The quiet left in him after the battle wasn't just exhaustion.

It was loneliness.

His mother no longer lingered around him, the pendant glowing a faint blue, lacking his mother's essence. From the moment she came to the mansion, Elizabeth spent her time in the mansion owned by Ivan.

Nikolai couldn't blame her and felt the pressure to make a new body for her, though research was progressing. It would take time.

But...

It was quieter now.

Too quiet.

"Pay attention, Nikolai!" Alexei's voice cut through the stillness, sharp and loud.

The floor cracked under Nikolai's heel as he dashed forward—no warning, no wind-up.

Alexei barely raised his guard in time.

Crack!

Nikolai's punch landed flush against his forearm, forcing the older man three steps back.

"Tch—you're faster."

"I'm not finished."

Nikolai twisted and followed with a low kick—sharp, efficient. Alexei grunted, raising his knee to block. Stone dust flew where their limbs clashed.

They broke apart—then clashed again.

Steel against stone.

Speed against weight.

Alexei's claws extended, fur bristling across his arms and neck. His body bulged with that familiar half-transformed power, skin shimmering faintly with the bloodline's golden hue.

But Nikolai hadn't shifted.

He didn't need to.

A soft blue glow pulsed under his skin—Celestial Aura rushing through his veins like wildfire. It licked along his spine, hissed around his fists.

His eyes didn't glow.

They burned.

Alexei lunged. A downward hammer fist, quick and heavy.

Nikolai stepped inside it, shoulder to chest, and drove his fist straight into Alexei's ribs.

Thud.

Air shot from Alexei's lungs as he staggered.

Another punch—left hook. Then a short elbow.

Each hit was clean, snapping the head, clipping his jaw.

Enraged, Alexei grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the chamber.

Nikolai twisted mid-air, landing low—one hand on the floor, knees bent, before he launched back in.

They met halfway.

Fists. Knees. Blood.

Alexei ducked a spinning backfist, rolled under Nikolai's follow-up strike, and caught him in the gut with a rising uppercut. A ripple of force cracked through Nikolai's chest, displacing his organs as blood spurted from his mouth.

He didn't fall.

Instead, he stepped in close again—no space left—and brought his head forward.

Crack.

A brutal headbutt to the nose.

Bone splintered and blood spraying.

Alexei reeled.

"I said pay attention!" he barked, voice distorted by the blood in his throat.

"I was," Nikolai muttered, wiping his mouth. "You're the one slowing down."

Alexei growled and flashed in with a full-speed charge, arms wide, claws bared, aiming to slam Nikolai into the far wall.

But Nikolai pivoted, dropped low, and hooked his leg behind Alexei's ankle.

The takedown was clean.

Alexei hit the stone with a solid boom, a dust cloud blooming around them.

Nikolai stood over him, chest heaving, knuckles bloodied but loose.

He didn't gloat.

Just held out a hand.

Alexei took it after a beat.

"Fuck," he muttered, pulling himself up. "You're finally stronger than my half-transformed state..."

Nikolai exhaled. "Took me long enough."

"You're not done, though."

"No. Not yet."

Because of a genetic mutation, Alexei carried the blood of his father and a small amount of his mother's werewolf bloodline. A pseudo-hybrid, but he couldn't fully transform into a werewolf.

He only had this half-transformation—at least until Nikolai told him about his bloodline.

"Are you sure you want to start training against my werewolf form?"

Alexei's voice was rough, but he was a gentle man, even more so towards Nikolai who helped awaken the special bloodline of his mother.

"Let's take a break today... Otherwise, your lovely wife will kill me."

"Shut up, your wives are already watching from the door!"

"Huh?" Nikolai turned around and noticed Risa and Lunaria both peeking from the reinforced glass that stopped any damage to the building.

"Well, let's talk a little first? You're the only friend I can speak to like this..."

"Haha, sure."

Alexei slapped Nikolai's shoulder, and the pair sat together for a moment.

The floor was still cracked beneath them. Dust drifted in slow spirals as the tension bled from their shoulders.

Alexei passed Nikolai a chilled towel from the storage bin on the wall. He kept one for himself, pressing it to his neck and jaw, wiping blood from the corner of his lip.

"...You really are a bastard," Alexei muttered, half-laughing. "My joints are still shaking."

"You asked for it."

"I always ask for it. Doesn't mean I enjoy getting ragdolled across the room like an old sparring dummy."

"Don't you remember when you wiped the floor with me daily at your gym!?"

"Hahaha!"

"Don't Laugh!"

Nikolai smirked faintly, towel resting over the back of his neck. The heat was still pulsing in his chest, but it felt good now, as if he truly earned it.

They sat on the edge of the old bench pressed up against the far wall, shoulders bumping once, then settling.

"You've changed," Alexei said after a moment. "You're more... I don't know. Present. Less angry. Less human."

Nikolai didn't reply at first.

Then: "I think I finally accepted who I am and what I have to become."

"That's what impresses the rest of them, you know."

Nikolai tilted his head. "Who?"

"Everyone," Alexei said, looking straight ahead. "They're in awe because you stopped apologising, worrying and have finally become a leader. Brother, I feel like I can trust you with my life now, even when I swore to never trust anyone but my wife and your father..."

The silence stretched for a moment before Alexei reached into the pocket of his coat, draped over the bench. He pulled out a small silver locket, worn but polished, the chain wrapped around his fingers.

He stared at it for a few seconds before cracking it open with a soft click.

Inside: a girl's photo. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Bright eyes. Half-tied hair. Smile crooked on one side.

"Her name's Marianne."

Nikolai looked at it, then at him.

"Careful, I don't think your wife would accept a harem..."

Alexei's eyes bulged as he elbowed Nikolai.

"Little bastard! She's my half-sister. I've met her twice. Same father. Different mothers." He paused. "She was taken before I could. Passed off in some deal years ago. House Baldon sold her to gain a temporary alliance with the Everen family."

Nikolai's heart throbbed... a sense of confusion and fear.

'How could it be Everen!? Such a coincidence cannot be true!'

Alexei kept talking, his voice quieter now. "I thought it was political. An arranged union, maybe. But the reports I dug up say otherwise. She's basically a hostage now. Bought, caged… maybe worse."

He looked at Nikolai then.

"I want to get her out."

Nikolai didn't respond right away.

Not until Alexei added, "The city she's in... the Everen's stronghold—it's in Drevnos."

That name hit like a stone to the chest.

Nikolai turned his head slowly.

"Say that again."

"Drevnos."

Nikolai's gaze sharpened as his head lifted, looking towards the sky, with tense shoulders.

"That's where they took my grandfather and, ironically, it's house Everen who is keeping him."

The weight between them shifted—no longer just two men resting after a spar. It was something deeper now. Shared blood. Shared loss. Shared war.

Alexei didn't speak, but he couldn't help but look at Nikolai with a strange expression, as if asking, "How could it be such a coincidence? Did someone plan this from the start?"

Nikolai stood up, slowly.

"Then it's settled, brother. We are going to Drevnos, but can you give me some time?"

"To comfort the wives? Haha, don't worry, I will have to do the same... since she will kill me."

"Then we're going."

"Let's go, Nikolai."

The cold stone underfoot felt warmer than it should have.

Nikolai reached for his coat, draping it over his shoulders with a faint grunt. Muscles ached. Blood was still drying on his knuckles. But inside, the fire was starting again—low and steady.

Alexei tied the locket back around his neck and stood beside him. No more jokes. No more teasing.

Just silence.

The kind of silence that followed a decision.

Nikolai looked back at the reinforced glass.

Risa was gone now. So was Lunaria.

They'd both seen enough.

"You'll tell the others?" Alexei asked.

"Not yet," Nikolai said, his voice low. "I'll speak to Kumiko first. Then Selene."

Alexei nodded. "Understood."

Nikolai walked toward the chamber doors, footsteps echoing softly behind him. The long corridor beyond was lined with steel pillars and the claw marks of generations before him.

So many wolves had walked this path.

Now he would walk it too—toward blood, fire, and war.

But not alone.

Not this time.

At the door, he paused. Turned halfway.

"I'll call the others when it's time. But Drevnos belongs to us."

Alexei grinned. "Then we'll take it back together."

And with that, the chamber door groaned open, spilling them both into the lightless corridor ahead.

The larger man couldn't help but look at his younger brother in arms and feel that his growth and changes were beyond his imagination.

He also felt the desire to become his strength...

The day when the empty 4th Seat became a new family's spot might not be far off.