Liam broke the silence first.

He turned slightly toward Tatiana, his expression still calm but now more focused, like he was finally putting the pieces in place in front of everyone.

"You should tell Irina what you can do."

Tatiana blinked.

For a moment she just stared at him like she had misheard.

"What I can do?" she repeated slowly. "I have no idea what you’re talking about."

Liam smiled faintly and shook his head.

"You know exactly what I mean."

That only made it worse.

Tatiana frowned harder, glancing at Irina as if silently asking for help. Irina, however, looked even more confused than she did. Her arms were still crossed, her expression unreadable, but her eyes were clearly shifting between the two of them like she was trying to figure out if this was some private conversation she had accidentally walked into or if Liam had simply lost his mind mid-sentence.

For a second, it genuinely felt like he might be drunk.

Liam let out a quiet sigh, almost like he was disappointed he even had to explain it.

Then he looked directly at Tatiana.

Right in the eye.

"Come on," he said more seriously now. "You know there’s something special about you. I know you know."

Tatiana stiffened slightly.

Her fingers rubbed the side of her nose out of habit, a small nervous gesture she did whenever she felt cornered.

"I-It’s not special," she muttered quickly.

Liam immediately shook his head again.

"Oh yeah, it is."

His voice softened just a little, but the certainty in it didn’t change.

"I know you think it’s some sort of curse," he continued, "but it’s not."

That word made Tatiana’s expression flicker.

Curse.

Irina, who had been silently observing the exchange like a stone statue, finally exhaled through her nose. She looked between them again, slowly starting to realize she had been completely sidelined in her own conversation.

It felt like they had both forgotten she existed.

Tatiana closed her eyes for a moment.

Just a few seconds.

When she opened them again, she looked more tired than confused now.

Then she turned toward Irina.

Her voice dropped slightly.

"I have a special ability," she said carefully, "that disables my victims’ healing ability for a period of time."

Irina blinked.

Once.

Then again.

"...Sorry?" she said slowly. "Excuse me, what do you mean disables healing ability?"

Tatiana hesitated, then continued, trying to explain it more clearly.

"If I injure someone... I can suppress their regeneration. They can’t heal properly for a while."

Irina’s brows slowly furrowed.

"So you’re telling me," she said carefully, as if testing whether the sentence even made sense, "if you wound me, I won’t be able to heal normally?"

Tatiana nodded.

"It won’t stop completely," she added quickly, trying to clarify. "But it slows your regenerative ability by about ninety-five percent."

There was a pause.

A long one.

Irina just stared at her.

For once, the alpha didn’t have an immediate response.

Not sarcasm.

Not a joke.

Just silence.

Then slowly, her eyes sharpened.

That silence shifted into something more serious.

Something calculating.

"That means," Irina said quietly, "any wound inflicted during that time becomes extremely dangerous."

Tatiana nodded again, her expression uneasy.

"Yes."

Irina leaned back slightly, still processing it.

For someone like her, a werewolf, regeneration wasn’t just an ability, it was survival itself. The difference between life and death in battle was often how fast you could recover from damage. If that ability was suppressed, even temporarily, it changed everything.

It meant armor meant nothing.

Speed meant less.

Mistakes became permanent.

Irina’s gaze slowly shifted back to Tatiana.

This time, it wasn’t confusion anymore.

It was something sharper.

Interest.

"You’ve been hiding this?" she asked.

Tatiana lowered her eyes slightly.

She opened her mouth slightly, clearly about to respond, but Liam cut in before she could.

"Because she can’t control it," he said simply.

Both women turned toward him.

Liam shrugged.

"She’s scared of it."

There was no accusation in his tone.

No judgment.

Just observation.

And somehow, that made it heavier.

Tatiana didn’t deny it.

She just stood there quietly, fingers lightly gripping the edge of her sleeve.

Irina looked at her for a long moment.

Then slowly exhaled.

"...Right," she said finally.

But her eyes didn’t leave Tatiana.

Not even for a second.

Irina’s rested her hand on Tatiana’s shoulder for a moment longer than usual, firm but not heavy, like she was trying to anchor her in place more than comfort her. Her expression had softened in a way that was rare, almost unreadable at first glance, but there was something steady in her eyes as she spoke again, quieter this time, telling Tatiana that it would be fine. That now that they knew what she could do, they would figure it out together. They would help her understand it, control it, even refine it if possible. Tatiana just nodded slowly, like she wasn’t fully convinced yet but didn’t have the strength to argue against it either.

Liam, meanwhile, was already done with the emotional part of the conversation in his head. He clasped his hands together like he was wrapping up a meeting that had gone on too long and let out a breath.

"Are we done here?" he said casually. "I can’t be wasting time anymore. I need to spend my last one month alive with friends and families."

Both Tatiana and Irina immediately turned to him at the same time with identical glares, the kind that carried the silent message of shut up before I actually do something. Liam noticed it instantly, raised both hands slightly like he was surrendering, then backed away from the mood entirely and whistled as he walked out of the room like nothing had happened.

The hallway outside was quieter, the heavy atmosphere of the discussion still lingering behind him, but he didn’t seem bothered. He only walked a short distance before spotting Danil near one of the corners of the factory interior, casually packing up some of the equipment and systems they used for monitoring. Liam paused, tilted his head, then whistled once in his direction like he was calling a dog over, not in a disrespectful way, just his usual careless way of getting attention.

Danil looked up immediately and jogged over with that easy energy of his, like he always had too much movement in his body to walk normally. Liam watched him approach for a second before speaking.

"Do you have a house?" Liam asked.

Danil literally stopped for half a beat, blinking at him, then burst out laughing like he had just heard the most absurd question in the world. He even looked behind him briefly like Liam might be joking with someone else.

"What kind of question is that?" Danil said through a chuckle. "Do I have a house? Of course I have a house. Who doesn’t?"

Liam didn’t laugh, he just gave a small thoughtful sound and glanced around the factory space again like he was reassessing everything he had seen since arriving here.

"I noticed most of you sleep here," he said, pointing vaguely around the place. "So I was wondering. If everyone has a house... why are you all still here?"

Danil’s laughter faded a bit as he finally understood the direction of the question. His expression shifted slightly, becoming more grounded, and he scratched the side his leg like he was trying to find the simplest way to explain something that felt too normal to him but strange to someone like Liam.

"It’s not really about having a house," he said. "Most people do have homes outside, yeah, but it’s not safe. Not really. Everyone is scared the vampires could just show up, break in, take people out one by one without anyone even noticing until it’s too late. So staying here... together... it just feels safer. Like if something happens, at least you’re not alone."

Liam nodded slowly at that, not interrupting, just absorbing it in that quiet way of his. His eyes moved across the factory space again, this time with a slightly different understanding behind them.

"Hmm," he said after a moment. "Makes sense."

He turned slightly like he was ready to leave again, already mentally moving on to the next thing, but then paused mid-step and looked back at Danil once more like another thought had just entered his head out of nowhere.

"Another question," Liam said.

Danil tilted his head, already bracing himself.

"How did you become a werewolf?" Liam asked, completely serious. "Let me guess... you got bitten by the alpha during a full moon or something?"

There was a short silence.

Then Danil lost it.

He started laughing again, but this time it wasn’t just a chuckle, it was full-on uncontrollable laughter, bending slightly at the waist, one hand on his stomach like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Even a few nearby werewolves glanced over, confused at what was so funny.

Liam just stood there watching him, blinking slowly, clearly not understanding what part of his question was supposed to be funny.

Danil finally managed to calm down enough to breathe properly, wiping the corner of his eye as he shook his head.

"That’s... that’s actually ridiculous," he said, still smiling. "It’s not like those human movies you watch. We don’t get turned like that."

Liam raised an eyebrow slightly.

"So how then?"

Danil exhaled, the last bit of laughter fading as his tone settled into something more normal, more matter-of-fact.

"We are born this way," he said simply. "It’s not a curse we catch. It’s something we are from the beginning."

Liam didn’t respond immediately. He just stood there for a moment, processing it in silence, like the world he thought he understood kept shifting slightly every time someone spoke.