Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Dean stared at him. ”So that is not impossible.”

”I did not say that.”

”You also did not say no.”

Hendrik’s expression remained calm, but there was no comfort in it. ”There is no confirmed case of a dominant alpha infection.”

”Confirmed,” Dean repeated.

”Yes.”

Dean leaned back slowly. ”I hate that word.”

”Arion’s hand touched the edge of Dean’s chair.

Hendrik accepted the insult with the composure of a man who had probably been called worse things by dying soldiers, furious rulers, and field medics working without sleep.

”The current infection profile does not take in dominant secondary structures,” Hendrik said. ”Dominant alphas resist it. Dominant omegas resist it. Siren types like Lucas are affected indirectly at most, usually through sensory overload or backlash from corrupted pheromone fields, but they don’t get on the field.”

Dean looked at Otto. ”But the visions say dominant alphas fall.”

”Visions are not reports,” Otto said.

”No, they are worse. Reports wait until after the disaster has manners.”

Otto’s mouth tightened.

Hendrik touched the projection again.

Several lines opened beneath the beast breach maps, each linked to fragments of testimony. The language was uneven, some formal, some frantic, some so old that the translation shimmered faintly beneath the original script.

Dean read the repeated phrases.

Golden throats silenced.

Command scent broken.

The first wall fell when the alphas knelt.

The beasts did not bite them. The beasts answered them.

A chill moved through him.

Arion read the same lines, and his expression hardened into something dangerous.

”Answered them?” Arion asked.

Hendrik enlarged the fragment. ”That phrase appears four times in three separate custodian branches. It may be metaphorical.”

Dean gave him a look.

Hendrik did not look offended.

”It may also not be,” he added.

”Wonderful,” Dean said. ”I feel much better.”

Otto crossed his arms more tightly over his chest. ”The problem is that the temple interpreted these fragments through theology. Sin. Punishment. Corrupted bonds. Failed dominants. They did not analyze them as biological or pheromonal events.”

”Because that would have been useful,” Dean muttered.

”Because they were terrified,” Hendrik said.

Dean looked at him.

Hendrik’s face was severe, but not defensive. ”Fear makes institutions stupid. Temples are not exempt.”

Dean’s anger faltered, not because he forgave the temple, but because Hendrik was too correct to argue with effectively.

”So what are we actually looking at?” Arion asked. His voice had shifted now, crown prince rather than husband, edged and cold. ”Infection? Pheromone disruption? Command interference?”

Hendrik pulled three sections forward.

”Possibilities,” he said. ”Not conclusions.”

Dean hated him a little for the precision.

”The first possibility is simple collapse,” Hendrik continued. ”Dominant alphas are not infected. They fall because the defensive structure depends too heavily on them. If enough are killed, exhausted, isolated, or forced into rut instability during a major breach, the system collapses around their absence.”

”Well, that explains most of what we already know,” Arion said, tilting his head. ”All of us got on the field at least once in beast season; we know how they act and why. It’s rabies on steroids and pheromones, but why the temple put Sebastian in the position of becoming Nero’s mate? His shift from dominant alpha to dominant omega is marked as the main event.”

He stopped a moment. ”Even if Nero, an enigma, loses control, unless he kills all the dominant alphas and omegas on the field, there is no way we would fall.”

”And Nero might be unhinged,” Arion said, voice cooling, ”but he is not mad.”

Dean looked at him.

There was no softness in Arion now. Only the crown prince who had been raised on war reports, court failures, beast seasons, and the knowledge that command was not the same thing as fear.

”He would not slaughter an entire defensive line without purpose,” Arion continued. ”He is dangerous, yes. Obsessive, yes. His judgment around Sebastian is compromised; I will not deny that. But madness is not his pattern.”

Hendrik studied him for a moment.

”No,” he said at last. ”It is not.”

Dean’s fingers tightened around Arion’s beneath the table.

He did not like Nero when Sebastian was involved nor when every fragment of the future had Nero’s name wrapped around Sebastian’s like a chain, a warning, or a wound.

But Arion was right.

Otto’s gaze moved from Arion to Hendrik. ”Then we return to the central question.”

”The shift,” Hendrik said.

The projection changed.

Sebastian’s name brightened.

Under it, two classifications appeared.

Dominant alpha.

Dominant omega.

Between them, a line pulsed once, pale and thin, like a cut not yet bleeding.

Dean hated it immediately.

”That,” he said, ”is an ugly way to display a person.”

Hendrik touched the table, and the diagram softened. The classifications remained, but the line disappeared.

”Better?”

”No,” Dean said. ”But less insulting.”

Hendrik accepted that with a nod.

”The temple marked Sebastian’s secondary-gender shift as the primary event because it is the most visible change across the branches,” he said. ”That does not mean it caused the collapse.”

Arion’s eyes narrowed. ”Correlation.”

”Possibly.”

”Or the temple wanted it to be the cause,” Dean said, voice low, ”because then everything becomes simple. Nero is the monster, Sebastian is the sacrifice, and everyone else gets to pretend cages are strategy.”

Otto’s expression sharpened.

Hendrik did not disagree.

”That is one of my concerns,” Hendrik said. ”The language around the shift is inconsistent. Some custodians describe it as corruption. Others as binding. One calls it ascension, which I distrust on principle.”

Dean looked at him. ”Good. Anyone using ascension in a crisis should be removed from decision-making.”

”Agreed,” Hendrik said.

Arion leaned back slightly, though his hand remained locked with Dean’s. ”What does the data say, not the temple?”

Hendrik pulled three files forward.

”The branches where Sebastian remains a dominant alpha do not automatically end well,” he said. ”In fact, several are catastrophic.”

Dean went still.

Arion’s expression did not change, but Dean felt his hand tense.

Hendrik continued, ”Branches where Sebastian shifts to dominant omega are not automatically catastrophic either.”

Dean stared at the projection.

For a second, no one spoke.

Then Dean said, ”So the shift itself is not the disaster.”

”No,” Hendrik replied. ”Not based on current analysis.”

Arion’s voice was quiet. ”Then why does it matter?”

”Because when the shift appears, Nero’s enigma output changes.”

The room cooled.

Dean felt it in his skin.

Hendrik opened a Saha extract beside the temple records. ”Again, we have no full biological framework for this. Enigmas are not a known category in the way dominant alphas and dominant omegas are. We are working with fragments, witness descriptions, old field reports, and Saha’s very selective disclosures.”

”Dax is hiding things,” Dean said.

Otto’s mouth tightened. ”Dax is protecting his son.”

”That is a prettier sentence.”

”It is also true.”

”Both can be true.”

”Yes,” Otto said. ”They often are.”

Dean hated that answer because it sounded like ruling.

Hendrik enlarged the extract.

”When Sebastian shifts in the recorded branches,” he said, ”Nero’s pheromonal field becomes less explosive but wider in range. More stable, but more influential.”

Arion’s gaze sharpened. ”Influential over what?”

”That is the question.”

Dean read the file.

Field response altered.

Infected aggression redirected.

Dominant command interference reduced.

Omega sensory backlash increased.

He looked up slowly.

”Wait.”