He could feel the anger lacing her form. Each muscle hardened and coiled beneath her ebony pelt as her tail lashed about in the feline fashion. Had he truly expected anything less? Had he truly thought she might understand? Why should she? Even he hardly understood his own motivations in those moments and yet still he felt himself almost inclined to that regret. An emotion he was assured he had forgotten how to feel over those years. Still, it was hardly the death of the fellow Alpha that seemed to result in that discomfort within himself it was...her. Nadya's grief was almost painful to him in turn, the realisation of that almost shocking and yet still his features remained placid, blank, entirely concealed from those thoughts that turned rapidly within his mind in some effort to comprehend the distress of the woman before him. It was his fault, his doing and yet he had spent the better part of his life subjecting others to that grief at his hands. Still- this was different somehow. This one he felt in a way that was frustrating and agitating and tormenting all at once. He hated to see her look at him like that. All those years spent ignoring any shred of emotion and yet somehow, now, he was inclined to feel it all pressing upon him. No amount of shields capable of shutting off that tumultuous wave as his teeth gritted against it and he summoned those words at last to at least attempt to sooth the woman before him enough to listen. Rage was entirely blinding. Grief induced rage doubly so and it is that understanding that sees his caution now. Frost offering the admittance, at least, that her brother's death at his hooves was unintended. Her words flung back at him with disdain, breaking with that heartache within them.

"What happened with your friend was poor judgement on my part and I'm sorry for it. I did not take your brother keeping you away from me entirely well so I found something he liked and- exploited that."

It was nothing short of the truth entirely, his words as calm and cold as ever and yet the violet of his gaze met her own this time, Frost pausing to allow his explanation of that to rest within her mind. He had no excuse for his torment of Samantha in the slightest, save perhaps, that he had hardly intended the girl to come to any true harm as a result and yet she surely wouldn't have if Tetradore had not interfered. He had intended to simply worry her a little before leaving her entirely to let her own fear gnaw at her and keep both herself and Aidan awake at night. Cruel perhaps and yet it was significantly tamer then snapping her neck as he had contemplated in those darker of moments. The thought of Nadya alone perhaps saving the woman entirely and stilling his hand. He had never truly desired to try before, not for anyone, not until her and yet it was harder than he had anticipated. His efforts not wholly sufficient. The death of her brother however was an act he had never intended to occur. Harm perhaps, maim a little and yet he had never seen his own power expand to the point of incineration. He had been far angrier in his time then he had been that night with Tetradore. Why had not such power shown itself then?

"I did not attack your Brother, Nadya. He attacked me. He challenged. I never physically hurt your friend, perhaps Aidan thought I had. He attacked me though. He attacked first and I defended. It turned into a battle. If I hadn't killed him he would have killed me. Though how I killed him I still don't know. My power has never worked like that before. One of us would have died that night all the same. If you were not here shouting at me, you would be shouting at him over my death. One of us stood to lose all along. He started that fight- I finished it. He could have taken Samantha and left- he didn't."

It was hardly an excuse for such things, the stallion instead offering the woman that logic instead that Tetradore had known entirely what he started with that challenge, that had Tetradore not been killed accidentally or otherwise then Frost would have laid dead upon those docks in his place. The tension between them finally having reached that peak. Perhaps he would have murdered Tetradore wilfully all the same. Perhaps he had done so subconsciously he hardly knew and hindsight hardly seemed the place to consider it. His words, he knew, would afford the woman little comfort and yet he was unwilling to have her believe her brother was an innocent victim struck down either. Tetradore had struck first, at least to the mind of the stallion, and given that chance the panther would have ended him in the same fashion- he was sure of it. Perhaps he was to blame for Tetradore's demise and yet surely, Tetradore had played a part in it himself even if it was the actions of the stallion that had driven him too it.

"What lie did I tell you?"

The words were uttered softly once more, his gaze resting upon her still as a tree seemed to fall apart, part of his front lawn exploding but a moment later, Frost merely eyeing that haphazard destruction though affording it little reaction. Anger at her, lashing back at her, might well only prompt a battle between the both of them and his promise, so many months ago not to lay a hand upon her remained intact even now. The man simply unwilling- or incapable of bringing her harm. That command to lower his shields however saw his gaze glance upward sharply once more.

"No."

It was perhaps the first time he had ever so directly opposed any request she had offered him and yet here and now with her emotions askew and even his own given to instability it hardly seemed the time to allow her full manipulation of his form. The man resisting the urge in that moment to go towards her, fingers resting upon the door frame as if to halt himself. The words that followed perhaps the truest he had ever uttered. Surprising even himself. He hardly regretted Tetradore's death, not really. Yet still that....emotion moved within him all the same, faint and flickering though it was.

"If this is what guilt feels like then I am loath to feel it. I regret very little of anything in my life but I regret- hurting you. He chose his actions that night though and I chose mine. They cannot be changed now. I'm sorry, Naja. I'm sorry he died."

f r o s t
we built this city on broken glass