Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Theodore remained cradled between Arion’s hands, impossibly small against him, his dark hair soft beneath the neonatal lights and his newly opened eyes fixed somewhere near his father’s face.

Completely black.

Dean had seen that color too many times during the last several months to mistake it for unusually dark irises.

Ducky had those eyes.

The transformed beasts in the forest had those eyes.

The creatures surrounding Arion inside Claudia’s Palace had looked at him with exactly the same depthless black before following his commands as though recognizing something no physician had been able to identify.

Arion stared down at his son.

”The medical team.”

His voice was quiet enough that Dean almost did not recognize it.

Then everyone moved at once.

The neonatal nurse reached the bedside monitor while Lucas stepped away to clear the space around Arion, and Trevor guided Minerva farther back when she instinctively moved toward the child.

Dean pushed himself upright.

”Theodore?”

”He’s stable,” the nurse said immediately, checking the readings. ”Heart rate is normal. Oxygen saturation is normal.”

Arion did not seem reassured.

”Get Seven.”

The nurse nodded.

”And Victor.”

That earned a brief hesitation.

Dean understood why.

Victor was not a neonatal specialist.

He was, however, the person who knew more about corrupted pheromones and Arion’s unexplained physiology than anyone else alive.

”Call him,” Dean said.

Arion finally looked toward him.

Neither needed to explain what they were thinking.

Theo’s eyes remained black.

Yet the baby did nothing else unusual.

He did not cry, tense, release pheromones, or show any sign of distress while the nurse checked him, and after less than a minute his eyelids slowly lowered again.

Theodore fell asleep.

Arion looked almost offended by the normality of it.

Dean would have laughed under any other circumstances.

Instead, he watched Seven arrive with two neonatal physicians, followed several minutes later by Victor appearing on a secured screen because, in his own words, he had been across the medical complex and saw no reason to run when technology existed.

Theodore was examined.

Then examined again.

His pupils responded normally to light.

His neurological reflexes remained appropriate for his gestational development.

His temperature, breathing, circulation, and glandular activity showed nothing abnormal.

The black eyes were the only thing nobody could explain.

Victor stared at the enlarged recording longer than anyone else.

”They are identical to the transformed animals.”

Arion’s jaw tightened.

Dean looked toward him.

”Not helpful, Victor.”

”It is accurate.”

Seven folded his arms beside the incubator.

”It is also not evidence of disease.”

Victor glanced toward him through the screen.

”I did not say it was.”

”You were thinking loudly.”

Dean almost smiled.

Apparently that had become contagious.

—

Three days later, the conclusion remained frustratingly simple.

There was nothing wrong with Theodore.

The neonatal team had repeated the assessments often enough that Dean could recite most of the results without looking at the chart.

Theodore simply had black eyes.

Sometimes.

That last part had become important.

He had opened them twice more during examinations, and both times they had been the same impossible black before he drifted back to sleep.

Victor had requested samples.

Seven had refused anything invasive without medical justification.

Arion had supported Seven so quickly that Victor had looked personally betrayed.

Dean had enjoyed that part.

By the fourth afternoon, Theodore had become strong enough to spend longer periods outside the incubator, and Dean finally had him against his chest again.

The family had been temporarily reduced to something manageable.

Lucas and Trevor were elsewhere in the palace.

Otto had returned to work.

Minerva had been ordered home by Arion after arriving at the medical wing before sunrise three days in a row.

Rina had been threatened with removal after attempting to place another duck beside Theodore’s incubator.

Only Dean, Arion, and Seven remained in the private neonatal room.

Theodore was wrapped in a soft cream blanket, his tiny body tucked carefully against Dean’s chest while Dean reclined in the medical chair with one arm supporting his son’s back and the other resting beneath his head.

His eyes were closed again.

”He sleeps like Arion,” Dean murmured.

Arion looked up from the tablet in his hands.

”I do not sleep this much.”

”You slept almost fourteen hours after our wedding.”

”That was different.”

Dean smiled.

Theodore shifted.

A tiny wrinkle appeared between his brows, followed by a soft sound that barely qualified as a complaint.

Dean instinctively released a little more of his pheromones.

Mint lemonade settled gently around them, deliberately restrained so it would not overwhelm the still-developing glands of a premature infant.

Theodore relaxed almost immediately.

Seven glanced toward the monitors.

”No adverse response.”

Dean looked down.

”That was the least comforting way you could have said that.”

”I am a physician.”

”You are capable of sounding human when sufficiently motivated.”

Seven ignored him.

Arion moved closer and rested one hand along the side of the chair, watching their son with the same intense concentration he had maintained since the birth.

Theodore’s mouth opened.

Dean froze.

Then the baby yawned.

It was absurdly small.

His entire face scrunched with the effort, his mouth opening as wide as it could before closing again beneath the blanket.

Dean stared.

”Oh, my God.”

Arion’s expression softened immediately.

”That was—”

”Ridiculously cute.”

”Yes.”

Seven sighed quietly.

Dean looked toward him.

”If you disagree, you can leave.”

”I did not disagree.”

Theodore moved again.

His eyelids fluttered.

Dean automatically lowered his pheromonal output even further, keeping only a faint trace around them while he watched.

Theodore opened his eyes.

Dean stopped breathing.

Arion did too.

They were not black.

They were gold.

The same unmistakable color as Arion’s.

For several seconds, Theodore looked up at Dean with sleepy, unfocused eyes while his tiny hand rested against the fabric of Dean’s shirt.

Seven moved closer without making a sound.

Arion stared at his son.

Dean’s heart began beating much faster.

”Theo?”

The baby blinked.

Gold remained.

Dean looked toward Arion.

His husband had gone completely still.

Seven checked the monitor, then looked toward Theodore again.

”No change in heart rate. No distress. No abnormal pheromonal output.”

Dean barely heard him.

He was watching the eyes.

Arion’s eyes.

Except they had not been gold before.

They had been black.

Dean remembered the forest.

The black gland channels.

The yellowed, altered eyes that appeared when Arion’s strange inherited corruption surfaced.

He remembered Dax saying that whatever lived inside Arion did not feel infectious but old, integrated, and woven through biology that had developed around it since childhood.

Theodore had not been infected.

He had never been exposed.

There was only one explanation left that made any sense.

Dean looked at Arion.

”He inherited it.”

Arion did not answer immediately.

His hand moved slowly toward Theodore, one finger brushing carefully over the baby’s tiny fist.

Theo curled his fingers around it.

Gold eyes remained half-open for another few seconds before exhaustion won and they slowly closed again.

Arion watched him sleep.

Then his gaze lifted to Dean.

Neither of them said it aloud a second time.

They did not need to.

Whatever had become part of Arion all those years ago had not ended with him.

Their son had inherited it.