Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

”Medical,” Nero said. ”Run.”

No one came fast enough.

That was the problem with emergencies. They obeyed distance, barricades, bodies, claws, and the terrible mathematics of corridors filling with beasts faster than people could clear them.

Thomas remained on one knee, one hand braced against the bloody floor, the other still wrapped around his blade as if he could hold himself together by holding a weapon.

Sylvia dropped beside him.

”Sylvia,” Thomas rasped.

”If you tell me to stay back again, I will scream.”

”You should—”

”I will scream louder.”

His mouth closed.

Blood ran between his fingers where he pressed his side. His breathing was controlled in the way that meant it was not controlled at all. The air around him was wrong, heavy with dominance cracking under pain, rage, and the terrifying need to protect what was behind him.

Her.

Sylvia looked at him and hated her own hands.

They were clean.

Uselessly clean.

She had no stabilizing pheromones, no medical training beyond pressure, bandages, and panic; and no dominant body built to stand in this kind of disaster and become useful.

Behind them, Minerva and Rina were fighting.

Minerva’s pheromones cut through the corridor in a sharp, controlled arc, holding two panicked guards steady while she fired with brutal precision into the breach. Rina had taken a fallen guard’s sidearm and was aiming with both hands, face pale but steady, every shot buying seconds.

Dean’s neutralization field pressed from outside, but beasts kept throwing themselves into the broken first point. The comm was full of orders, alarms, and screams.

No one had room to hear Sylvia fall apart.

So she turned to the only monster in the corridor who looked calm.

”Nero.”

Nero’s violet eyes moved to her.

He was standing near the breach, fire in one hand, Andrea unconscious at his feet where Hale had dumped him like refuse. Hale guarded the body with visible disgust, one boot planted near Andrea’s shoulder.

Sylvia’s voice shook. ”How long?”

Nero tilted his head. ”For what?”

”If I had pheromones.” The words came out too fast, almost tearing her throat. ”If I could stabilize him. If you changed me. How long until I could help Thomas?”

Thomas’s hand tightened against the floor. ”No.”

Sylvia ignored him. ”How long?”

Nero looked at her for one second.

Then another.

In that gaze, she felt every soft lie stripped away.

He was not cruel with it. He simply read her the way no one else could: fear, love, desperation, and the raw humiliation of being unable to touch the one person bleeding in front of her and make him safer.

”There are two options,” Nero said.

Thomas growled. ”No.”

Nero did not look at him. ”The first is mutation. Your body would have to be rewritten from beta to dominant omega. Genes, glands, receptors, heat structure, compatibility field, the whole secondary architecture.”

Sylvia swallowed. ”How long?”

”Months before anything useful. Longer before it is stable. It would hurt. It would be dangerous. And I do not want to do it.”

She stared at him. ”You do not want it?”

Nero’s mouth curved, cold and honest. ”My first omega will be Sebastian.”

For one insane second, Sylvia almost laughed.

Thomas, bleeding and nearly berserk on the floor, made a sound like he wanted to murder him on principle.

Nero finally glanced at him. ”Stay alive. You may object later.”

Then he looked back at Sylvia.

”The second option is not changing what you are. It is giving you what Andrea has.”

Sylvia went still.

Andrea lay in the blood and dust, breathing faintly, face slack, broken wrist twisted against his chest.

”What he has,” Sylvia repeated.

”His stabilizing field. His pheromone mechanism. The part of him that keeps dominant alphas functional and leashed.” Nero’s eyes sharpened. ”He used it badly. That does not mean the power itself is useless.”

Thomas forced the words through clenched teeth. ”Do not touch her.”

Nero’s expression did not change. ”If I were going to harm her, Lancaster, you would already be too late.”

Thomas’s pheromones surged.

Sylvia grabbed his wrist with both hands. ”Tom. Look at me.”

His eyes snapped to hers.

Dark.

Wild at the edges.

She leaned closer. ”I am asking.”

”No.”

”You are bleeding.”

”No.”

”You are close to losing control.”

”I will not.”

”You might.”

That struck him harder than accusation.

His face cracked.

Sylvia’s grip tightened. ”And if there is a way for me to help you, I need to know it.”

Nero’s voice came quieter. ”Taking Andrea’s power will kill him.”

Sylvia looked at Andrea.

There was no horror in her.

That horrified her more than anything.

”How?”

”In immense pain,” Nero said. ”Because I would not be copying it. I would be extracting what is rooted in him and transferring the structure into you. He survives only because the field is still anchored to his body. Remove the anchor, and the body understands what has been taken.”

Hale muttered, ”Finally, a medical complication I enjoy.”

Nero ignored him.

Sylvia’s mouth went dry. ”Would it hurt me?”

”Yes.”

Thomas’s growl deepened.

Nero continued, pitiless because pity would waste time. ”Less than it hurts him. More than you imagine. You are the first person to be changed this way, so I have no idea what other complications might appear.”

Sylvia’s face went very still.

”And if it works?”

Nero looked at Thomas.

Thomas was shaking now, not from weakness alone. From restraint. From rage. From the instinct to tear apart everything between Sylvia and danger until there was nothing left of the corridor but bodies and silence.

”If it works,” Nero said, ”Thomas can mark you, and he would be stable in seconds.”

The corridor seemed to lose sound.

Even the beasts outside became distant for one breath.

Thomas’s eyes went black with horror. ”No.”

Sylvia looked at him.

Not at Nero offering the devil’s deal.

Not at Andrea for being the one responsible for everything.

At Thomas, bleeding on one knee, still trying to place his body between her and every terrible thing in the world.

”You said you loved me as I am,” she whispered.

”I do.”

”Then love me as I choose.”

His breath broke.

Nero tilted his head, reading the shift between them with inhuman intelligence. ”The mark would anchor the transferred field to him first. After that, your body may learn it. Or reject it. Or do something no one has written a protocol for.”

Hale muttered, ”Comforting.”

”It was not meant to be.”

Thomas tried to stand again. Failed. His hand slapped against the bloody floor, fingers clawing for balance. ”Sylvia, do not make yourself a battlefield decision.”

Her mouth trembled, her eyes filled with unspilled tears.

Then hardened.

”I have been treated like one all day.”

Andrea groaned beneath Nero’s grip, half-conscious now, eyes rolling as terror found him before thought did.

Sylvia stepped closer.

”Do it,” she said.

Thomas’s voice tore. ”Sylvia.”

She looked at him one last time before the pain began.

”If this works,” she said, ”you can yell at me after you stop bleeding.”

Nero smiled faintly.

Then his hand closed around Andrea’s throat, and Andrea woke screaming.