Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

The call from Hendrik came after midnight.

The villa had gone quiet around them. Beyond the windows, the sea was almost black, broken only by white foam where waves struck the rocks below. The resort lights climbed the opposite hillside in scattered gold points, distant enough that the private terrace remained dark.

Dean had abandoned Snake Island’s map on the low table and curled into the corner of the sofa beneath a thin blanket. His ivory sweater had been replaced by one of Arion’s black shirts, the sleeves folded several times around his wrists. Boreas slept near the fireplace, occasionally twitching one paw against the rug.

Arion was still dressed in dark trousers and the charcoal knit shirt he had worn to dinner when his secure tablet vibrated.

One glance at the source was enough for him to sit straighter.

”Hendrik.”

Dean immediately pushed himself upright.

Arion accepted the call.

Hendrik appeared from one of Alamina’s command rooms. He still wore his black military uniform, though the collar had been opened and the exhaustion beneath his eyes suggested he had been there most of the day. Behind him, several large screens displayed aerial maps of the infected territories.

”We finished the test.”

Arion leaned forward, forearms against his knees. ”Results?”

”Nothing.”

Dean frowned.

Hendrik turned enough to activate one of the screens behind him.

Drone footage replaced the map.

The image showed dense forest from above, winter foliage broken by exposed rock and narrow clearings. Thermal overlays marked several patches beneath the trees in yellow and red.

Dean moved closer to Arion.

”There are beasts.”

”Yes.”

That was the first confirmation they had received in weeks.

Hendrik enlarged one section.

Several large bodies lay beneath a limestone overhang, packed together closely enough that Dean initially mistook them for one heat signature.

”They have not disappeared,” Hendrik said. ”They have withdrawn deeper into the territory.”

”How many did you identify?” Arion asked.

”In that sector, forty-three with reasonable certainty. There are more farther south, but the canopy interfered with thermal imaging.”

”And they ignored the drones?”

”Completely.”

Dean stared at the footage.

That alone was wrong.

During ordinary activity, infected beasts reacted violently to anything crossing their territory. Drones rarely survived long enough for detailed observation once they descended beneath a certain altitude.

These did not even lift their heads.

”What about the blood?” Dean asked.

Hendrik changed the display.

Three remote testing stations appeared in separate clearings, each surrounded by cameras and environmental sensors.

”We followed Seven’s protocol. Sylvia and Thomas provided fresh samples. Their profiles are the closest available biological comparison to Andrea and Eva without introducing unrelated dominant markers.”

Dean nodded.

Sylvia’s natural pheromone profile was effectively the same as Andrea’s registered profile before whatever Claudia had done to him.

Thomas gave them the corresponding dominant-alpha comparison.

”And Eva?” Arion asked.

”We used preserved blood from her medical archive as well.”

Dean’s attention sharpened.

Hendrik continued.

”Separate stations first. Sylvia. Thomas. Eva. Then paired samples based on Seven’s recommended ratios. We also tested ordinary alpha and omega blood as controls.”

”Nothing reacted,” Arion said.

”Nothing.”

”Not even movement toward the stations?”

”No.”

Hendrik opened a recording.

A sealed container released the first sample into the testing chamber while the drone remained several hundred meters away.

The timestamp accelerated.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Thirty.

The thermal signatures beneath the trees did not move.

Another recording showed Sylvia’s sample.

Then Thomas’s.

Then Eva’s.

Nothing.

Dean drew the blanket more tightly around himself without realizing it.

”What about pheromone extracts?”

”Same result. We increased concentration twice within the limits Seven approved.”

”Andrea’s preserved sample?” Dean asked.

Hendrik’s expression tightened.

”Unusable for comparison.”

Arion looked at him. ”Why?”

”Most remaining samples were collected after his ability had already changed. Seven cannot separate whatever Claudia introduced from the natural pheromone profile with enough certainty to use it as a controlled lure.”

Which left them precisely where they had started.

Dean looked again at the clustered heat signatures.

”They are alive.”

”Very much so,” Hendrik said. ”Their heart rates are lower than expected but stable. Body temperature is slightly reduced. Several moved during observation, but only to reposition themselves.”

”Dormant,” Arion said.

”That is our working description.”

Dean disliked the word immediately.

”Did you get close enough to collect environmental samples?”

”Drones only. Soil, water, and air samples from the outer edge. No personnel crossed the defensive boundary.”

Arion nodded once.

Hendrik brought up another recording.

This one showed a beast emerging slowly from beneath dense vegetation.

Its body was enormous even from the drone’s perspective, its limbs distorted by infection, its dark skin broken by ridges of hardened tissue along the spine. It stopped beneath an opening in the canopy and raised its head.

For a moment, Dean expected it to attack the drone.

It did not.

The creature simply stood there.

Listening.

Then it turned and disappeared beneath the trees again.

Dean’s skin prickled.

”That is worse.”

Hendrik did not disagree.

”If they were starving, we would expect them to hunt. If they were sick, we should see deaths. If weather drove them deeper, at least some populations should behave normally in warmer sectors.”

”But they are all doing this,” Arion said.

”Every concentration we located.”

Dean looked from Hendrik to the terrain map.

”Then the blood theory is wrong.”

”The dominant-blood theory,” Hendrik corrected. ”At least based on the samples we used.”

”Andrea could still have been drawing them somehow.”

”Yes.”

”Or Claudia changed more than Andrea.”

Hendrik’s jaw tightened.

That was the possibility nobody wanted.

If Claudia’s work had altered the behavior of entire infected populations rather than simply granting Andrea an ability to manipulate them, then removing Andrea might have disrupted something they still did not understand.

Arion sat back slowly.

”How long can you maintain drone observation?”

”Indefinitely if we rotate units. I have doubled aerial coverage and ordered all border forces to remain at readiness.”

”No ground teams.”

”Not until we know what wakes them.”

Dean looked at the screen again.

Forty-three beasts in one location.

Sleeping beneath rock and trees while the world waited for them to behave like beasts again.

”If they all move at once...” Dean murmured.

Hendrik heard him.

”That is what keeps me awake.”

The room fell quiet except for the low hiss of the fire.

Arion reached toward the table and pulled Snake Island’s map closer.

The shift was small, but Dean understood it immediately.

”We need access to Claudia’s research,” Arion said.

”Yes.”

”And getting Amaru back into Draxil remains our best route if neither brother cooperates.”

Hendrik nodded. ”Assuming he is alive and useful.”

Dean’s eyes dropped to the western residence marked on the island map.

Two stops away.

Their holiday suddenly felt much shorter.

”We find him,” Dean said. ”Then we determine whether he can take the throne.”

Arion’s hand settled over the map.

”And if he can, we move quickly.”

Because every day spent negotiating with Draxil was another day the infected beasts remained motionless inside territory no human army could safely inspect.

Dean looked back at the frozen drone image.

A creature stood beneath the trees with its malformed head raised toward something beyond the camera.

Waiting for what, none of them knew.

”Keep watching them,” Arion told Hendrik. ”Any change in movement, feeding patterns, body temperature, or concentration reaches me immediately.”

”It already will.”

”And no one assumes dormant means safe.”

Hendrik’s expression hardened.

”No one here does.”

The call ended.

For a moment, the dark screen reflected Dean and Arion sitting beside each other, Snake Island spread across the table between them.

Boreas lifted his head at the silence, looked toward them, then lowered it again.

Dean leaned forward and enlarged the western highlands.

”We were treating Amaru like an opportunity.”

Arion studied the marked residence.

”He still is.”

”But now we need him.”

”We need Claudia’s Palace,” Arion corrected. ”Amaru may be the fastest legitimate way through its doors.”

Dean nodded.

That distinction mattered.

They could not decide Amaru was capable because they desperately needed him to be.

If the man they found was physically destroyed, mentally unstable, manipulated by the island administration, or simply unwilling to return, they would need another route into Draxil.

Arion dragged the intelligence file beside the map.

”We do not lower the standard because the situation became urgent.”

Dean looked at him.

”No.”

Outside, the sea continued hammering against the cliffs.

Somewhere far beyond it, infected beasts remained buried beneath the forests of Alamina, alive but unnaturally still.

And somewhere ahead of them, perhaps behind the stone walls marked on their map, was a prince who might give them access to the only place that could explain why.

They had to reach Amaru before something changed.

Because sooner or later, Dean suspected, the beasts would wake up.