Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Well... Sylvia had to deal with it that day.

Dean was in her—and Thomas’s—room, pacing beside the narrow windows with his hands clasped tightly behind his back.

He had been there for several minutes without sitting.

His movements were measured, almost silent, but the control made his distress more obvious. His scent filled the hospital room in restrained waves, clean and cold beneath the warmth of his natural omega pheromones.

He was not angry with her.

Sylvia understood that almost immediately.

He was frightened.

Frightened for her. Frightened for Thomas. Frightened by how close the breach had come to swallowing both of them before he could reach the corridor.

”You are stupid,” Dean said, turning toward the bed.

Thomas growled.

The sound vibrated through his bandaged chest and ended in a faint hitch of pain.

Dean stopped.

For a moment, the two dominants watched each other across the room.

Thomas’s arm remained around Sylvia, his injured body curved protectively behind hers despite every medical instruction ordering him to rest. His dominance rose instinctively, dark and warning, but weakened by blood loss and the healing suppressant circulating through his veins.

Dean did not answer it with aggression.

His pheromones spread instead—quiet, firm, and impossibly broad. They settled over the room like deep water, pressing against Thomas’s unstable dominance without striking it.

Sylvia felt the new structure beneath her skin respond.

Pressure gathered behind her ribs.

The field Nero had torn from Andrea stirred toward Thomas before she consciously called it, drawn to the pain and instability inside him.

Her nape throbbed.

Thomas inhaled sharply as the first thread reached him.

Dean’s gaze moved to Sylvia immediately.

”Do not push,” he said.

”I’m not.”

”You are beginning to.”

Sylvia tried to pull the sensation back.

The field recoiled too quickly, folding into her chest with enough force to make her gasp.

Thomas’s arm tightened.

Dean crossed the room and lowered himself beside the bed.

”Slowly,” he said. The severity had disappeared from his voice. ”You cannot control it by becoming afraid of it.”

Sylvia pressed one hand against her sternum.

”It moved on its own.”

”Because Thomas is in pain.”

”I’m stable,” Thomas said.

Dean looked at the monitors beside him.

”You are healing. That is not the same thing.”

Thomas said nothing.

Dean’s attention returned to Sylvia. His eyes moved over the medical collar protecting her nape, the lines taped against her wrist, and the exhaustion she had not been able to hide.

”I know why you did it,” he said.

Sylvia looked down at the blanket and reached toward him.

Dean took her hand carefully.

”You saved Thomas,” he said. ”You helped save everyone still standing at the first resistance point.”

His thumb moved once across her fingers.

”But you scared me,” Dean said.

Sylvia’s throat tightened.

Thomas’s growl faded into silence.

Dean kept his eyes on her, which somehow made everything worse. ”You were unconscious while we tried to understand whether your body had accepted the transfer or whether Nero had hurt you for nothing.”

Thomas’s arm tightened around her.

Sylvia felt him try to stop himself.

Before, she would have noticed only because his body moved. Now something beneath her skin recognized his fear before his muscles obeyed it.

Her new field stirred.

Dean’s gaze sharpened. ”Gentle.”

”I’m not doing anything.”

”You are beginning to.”

Sylvia breathed in slowly. The pressure settled, not gone but less wild.

Dean nodded. ”Good.”

”That was good?”

”For a first conscious attempt, yes.”

”My standards have fallen dramatically.”

”Welcome to royal medicine. The bar is often ’no one exploded.’”

Thomas’s voice was rough. ”Not funny.”

”It was a little funny,” Sylvia whispered.

Thomas looked deeply betrayed but relieved that Sylvia wasn’t panicking.

Dean’s expression softened, but only for a breath. ”There is something else.”

Sylvia closed her eyes. ”Of course there is.”

”We need to protect you.”

Thomas went still behind her.

Sylvia opened her eyes. ”From what?”

”Doctors. Courts. Temples. Reporters. Political factions. Curious idiots. Anyone who thinks an unusual body is public property.”

Her nape throbbed beneath the medical collar.

”What am I?” she asked.

Dean did not answer quickly enough, and she hated him a little for being honest.

”We do not know completely,” he said at last. ”But officially, you are a dominant omega with extremely low output who was misclassified as beta because your civilian screenings were incomplete and your pheromonal presentation remained dormant.”

Sylvia stared at him.

Thomas’s voice went cold. ”Officially.”

Dean looked at him.

Thomas did not need more than that. Commander Lancaster had entered the conversation before the wounded man could stop him.

”A dormant classification,” he said slowly. ”Awakened by mate-threat pressure during an active breach.”

Dean’s mouth tightened. ”Yes.”

”It explains why she stabilized me.”

”Yes.”

”It buries the reports that called her beta.”

”Yes.”

”And anyone who repeats them can be treated as spreading misinformation from Andrea’s faction, Draxil’s malice, or political sabotage.”

Sylvia looked between them, her stomach turning. ”You already thought of this?”

Dean’s voice softened. ”Arion and I had to.”

Thomas’s hand settled carefully over hers. ”It is not a cage.”

”It sounds like one.”

”It is a shield,” Thomas said.

Dean exhaled, relieved and miserable that Thomas understood so quickly.

Sylvia swallowed. ”But I was beta.”

Thomas looked down at her. ”You were Sylvia.”

Her eyes burned.

”You are still Sylvia,” he said. ”And now you are my mate in every way the world can be forced to recognize.”

Dean’s gaze flicked to him.

Thomas’s expression did not change. ”Use my name. Use my position. Use Rohan’s need to preserve command authority. If anyone questions her classification, they question me.”

”Thomas,” Sylvia whispered.

”No.” His voice stayed low and absolute. ”I will not let them make you an experiment. I will not let them call you false. I will not let them take what happened to you and turn it into gossip before you understand it yourself.”

Dean’s eyes softened. ”That will bind you politically.”

Thomas looked almost offended. ”She was already mine.”

Sylvia’s new field trembled.

This time, she did not yank it back.

It reached him, clumsy and frightened, and Thomas closed his eyes as his pain eased by a fraction.

Dean watched them with the soft misery of a friend who wished none of this had become necessary.

”You are enough, Sylvia,” he said. ”The rest is paperwork and biology being rude.”

Her laugh broke into tears. ”That was almost sweet.”

”I am very sweet.”

Thomas opened one eye. ”No.”

Dean looked wounded. ”You are both ungrateful.”

The door opened, and Seven appeared with the expression of a man who had heard enough to dislike everyone.

”No one is marking anyone,” he said.

Thomas closed his eyes. ”We know.”

”No transferring, stabilizing, awakening, politically reclassifying, or threatening medical staff for six hours.”

Dean raised a finger. ”Political reclassification may be urgent.”

Seven looked at him.

Dean lowered his finger. ”Six hours.”

”Good.”

Sylvia leaned back into Thomas’s arms, aching and changed and no longer entirely certain what she was.

But Thomas was warm behind her.

Dean was beside her.

Seven was terrifying at the door.

And somewhere beyond the hospital walls, a lie was being built to keep the world from reaching for her before she understood how to reach for herself.