Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

The first thing Dean noticed was that the field worked.

The second was how badly they would have been affected if it had not.

The inner door sealed behind them with a soft hydraulic hiss, separating the airlock from the security corridor ahead. For one uneasy second, nothing changed. Then the ventilation system opened automatically, and the atmosphere beyond the threshold seemed to acquire weight.

Dean felt the synthetic pheromones strike the edge of his neutralizing field and disappear.

He released a breath he had not realized he was holding and looked at Arion.

His husband stood close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, golden eyes fixed on the corridor ahead. There was no change in his breathing, no tightening through his jaw, nothing to suggest the artificial output had reached him.

”It works,” Dean said quietly.

Arion’s gaze shifted to him. ”Completely?”

”As long as you stay inside the meter.”

”That will not be difficult.”

Dean almost smiled.

The earpiece beneath his hair activated.

Duncan’s voice came through from the outer security room.

”You should be inside the first corridor.”

”We are,” Arion replied.

”Anything?”

Dean looked beyond the invisible edge of his field.

He could not smell the synthetic output in the ordinary sense, but his ability made its presence unmistakable. It pressed continuously against the perimeter, dense enough that maintaining the field required more concentration than neutralizing ordinary pheromones ever had.

”A lot,” Dean said.

Duncan was silent for a moment. ”I told you I never tested it.”

”You made an excellent decision.”

”That was also my assessment.”

Arion started forward, and Dean moved with him.

The corridor looked disappointingly normal.

Dean had expected Claudia’s containment system to announce itself somehow through laboratory walls, exposed ventilation equipment, or medical machinery. Instead, the central residence had been designed to resemble an expensive private home.

Warm limestone covered the floor. Dark wood framed the doorways. Soft recessed lighting ran along the walls beside several landscape paintings, while tall windows looked into an enclosed courtyard planted with winter-green shrubs and a single bare ornamental tree.

If Dean ignored the constant pressure against his field, he could almost believe they had wandered into the wrong building.

”This does not look like a prison,” he murmured.

Arion glanced toward the nearest camera.

”It does not need to.”

That was true.

The locks were hidden in the doors.

The ventilation system was hidden in the walls.

And the thing controlling Amaru was invisible.

Duncan guided them through the first junction.

”Left. Do not take the stairs.”

Dean looked toward the staircase curving elegantly to the upper floor.

”Where do they go?”

”Bedrooms used by the medical staff when someone has to remain overnight. Empty today.”

Arion continued left.

The farther they went, the heavier the pheromonal output became against Dean’s field. It still could not penetrate, but Dean felt it coating the space around them, every step carrying them deeper into something designed for one specific dominant alpha.

He wondered what it felt like without protection.

Then decided he had no desire to know.

They passed a sitting room with books arranged neatly across built-in shelves and an untouched chessboard beside the window. A dining room followed, set for one person despite the hour, then a small exercise room containing equipment that looked regularly used.

Nothing was neglected.

Nothing appeared abandoned.

Amaru had been kept alive well.

That did not mean he had been kept well.

”The control room is ahead on your right,” Duncan said. ”Grey door. No external handle.”

Dean saw it before Arion did.

The panel beside it glowed green, waiting for authorization.

He stopped.

Arion stopped with him.

”If we deactivate the system now, what happens?”

Duncan took several seconds to answer.

”I don’t know.”

Dean frowned. ”You have been here eight years.”

”And the system has never been shut down while Amaru was inside.”

That was enough to make Dean step away from the control panel.

Arion looked at him.

Dean shook his head.

”Not yet.”

He had spent enough time around pheromonal medicine to understand the obvious danger even without Seven beside him. Amaru had been exposed continuously for years to something engineered specifically to alter his dominant response. Shutting it off abruptly might free him.

Or destabilize him.

Or trigger something Claudia had designed into the conditioning.

They did not know.

Duncan had called him functional.

Dean wanted to see what functional meant before changing anything.

”We talk to him first,” Dean said.

Arion nodded immediately.

”If he is capable of understanding us, we ask what he knows about the system.”

”And if he isn’t?”

Dean looked toward the gray control room door.

”Then we do not deactivate anything until Seven tells us how.”

It was a frustrating answer.

It was also the only responsible one.

They had come to determine whether Amaru could rule, not kill him through enthusiasm.

Arion touched his communicator.

”Duncan, route to Amaru without entering the control room.”

A pause.

Then, ”Continue past it. The corridor curves right. You’ll pass two closed rooms, then the inner residential doors.”

”Locked?”

”Yes, but your side should open automatically if the central system recognizes no security alert.”

Dean resumed walking.

Their pace slowed as the corridor curved toward the mountain-facing side of the building. Here, the architecture changed subtly. The windows became larger, the ceiling higher, and natural light replaced much of the artificial illumination.

The first closed room was a library.

Dean saw enough through the glass inset to recognize shelves reaching almost to the ceiling and several stacks of books arranged on a reading table.

The second appeared to be a used study.

Papers lay across the desk. A jacket had been folded over one chair. A cup sat near the window.

Dean looked at Arion.

Someone lived here.

They continued.

The synthetic pheromones pressed relentlessly against Dean’s field, but nothing else challenged them. No guards appeared. No alarms sounded. The only noises came from the ventilation system and their own restrained footsteps over stone.

Then the corridor opened.

Two glass doors stood ahead.

Beyond them lay a sunroom.

Dean stopped so abruptly Arion nearly walked into him.

Winter sunlight poured through an entire wall of windows facing south, warming pale stone tiles and the leaves of several large plants arranged around the room. A long sofa occupied one side, while a low table held a tea service and several opened books.

Near the windows sat a man.

Amaru.

He was reading.

For several seconds Dean simply stared.

The prince looked older than the photographs taken before his exile, which was hardly surprising after eight years, but he was not the ruined figure Dean had prepared himself to find.

Dark hair fell loosely around his face, longer than current Draxilian military fashion would have permitted, with a few early strands of grey near one temple. He wore dark trousers and a light knit shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms, exposing lean muscle rather than the wasted limbs of someone bedridden or heavily sedated.

One ankle rested over the opposite knee.

A book lay open in his hands.

Sunlight crossed his face and shoulder while he read beneath the glass roof as though the residence around him contained nothing stranger than a quiet winter morning.

Dean’s gaze moved instinctively toward Arion.

Arion was already studying the man with the same intense concentration.

They had found him.

Alive.

Awake.

Reading under the sun.

Between them and Amaru stood only two glass doors.