Chapter 501: A Beast Remains a Beast

Claudia began choking on her own pheromones.

Arion noticed the change before she did, the crushing pressure spreading through the entrance hall developing an irregular pulse as her damaged glands struggled to sustain the output forced through them by the enhancer.

Blood ran from the corner of her mouth.

Nero released her broken wrist and stepped back, watching the woman attempt to rise with one hand pressed against her throat.

"You might want to stop that before you kill yourself."

Claudia looked up at him.

"Fuck you."

Nero smiled.

"That is generally the response I receive when people run out of arguments."

Arion had already turned toward Victor, who was helping two soldiers carry an unconscious man toward the entrance. The physician had managed to clear most of the wounded from the immediate area, although several of Amaru’s men remained on the upper landing, securing the corridors where Claudia’s remaining guards had retreated.

The first brother was on his knees near the staircase, one hand pressed against his broken nose while Amaru stood over him.

The second had disappeared into the eastern corridor after losing his weapon.

Amaru had ordered his soldiers to block the exits.

Arion wanted both men contained before anyone decided to make another heroic attempt at suicide.

Then Claudia laughed.

The sound was wet and ugly.

"You really think you’ve won?"

Arion looked back.

The woman had managed to support herself against the broken railing, her ivory jacket stained with blood where the enhancer had damaged the glands along her neck. Her eyes were watering, but the hatred in them remained perfectly focused.

"You arrogant fucking bastards think you can walk into my palace, kill my people, and take everything I built?"

Amaru approached her.

"Most of what you built was stolen from people you kept unconscious in cages."

Claudia’s smile widened.

"And you were one of my favorites."

Amaru stopped.

For a moment, the only sound between them came from distant gunfire in the eastern wing.

Then Claudia looked toward Arion.

"You should never have come here."

He felt the first change beneath his skin before she moved.

A faint warmth spread from the glands at his wrists toward his elbows, accompanied by the strange familiarity he remembered from the infected forest.

Arion’s expression tightened.

Nobody move.

He almost said it aloud.

Then Claudia pulled a small black control from the inner pocket of her coat.

Nero moved immediately.

Unfortunately, the woman had already pressed it.

A mechanical impact rolled through the building.

Hendrik’s voice erupted through their earpieces.

"Multiple containment systems just activated beneath the central structure. Get away from the lower walls!"

Arion seized Victor by the back of his coat and pulled him toward the entrance.

The first section of marble flooring split open.

A reinforced panel retracted beneath the central staircase, exposing a dark compartment large enough to accommodate a military vehicle. Similar openings appeared along the lower walls, concealed behind decorative stone panels that had apparently been designed to break away when the mechanisms activated.

Something enormous struck the inside of the nearest compartment.

Victor stumbled.

Arion caught him before he fell.

Then the smell reached them.

Corrupted pheromones.

Dense enough to overwhelm Claudia’s drowning effect, carrying the same bitter undertone that had saturated the forest in Alamina.

Arion stopped.

The glands along his neck began burning.

Claudia saw his reaction.

Her laughter became almost hysterical.

"There you are."

Black veins spread beneath her skin, following the contours of her throat before branching across her jaw. The enhancer had already pushed her beyond what her body could tolerate, but whatever she had just activated appeared to be delivering something else directly into her pheromonal system.

Nero looked toward the spreading marks.

"You’re infecting yourself."

Claudia spat blood onto the marble.

"I am becoming something you cannot fucking control."

The first beast emerged from the wall.

Its enormous shoulders scraped against the stone as it forced its way out of the containment chamber, claws striking the marble with enough weight to leave pale fractures beneath them. Its dark hide was crossed by hardened ridges of corrupted tissue, and the gland channels along its neck glowed faintly beneath the skin.

A second beast climbed through the opening beneath the stairs.

Then another.

Amaru’s remaining soldiers retreated toward the upper landing, weapons raised as more compartments opened around the atrium.

Nero looked toward Arion.

"How many did she keep in here?"

"Apparently enough."

The nearest beast lifted its head.

Its eyes fixed on Claudia.

She smiled.

"Kill them."

The animal did not move.

Claudia released another wave of pheromones.

The pressure rolled through the hall, forcing two of the remaining ordinary soldiers onto their knees while the beasts began spreading outward from the opened chambers.

"Kill the fucking alphas!"

Arion felt the response inside his own body.

His vetiver had become heavier, the familiar scent gradually disappearing beneath something darker and strangely metallic. Heat moved along his spine, then through the gland network beneath his shirt, spreading outward with a precision that made his stomach tighten.

Not again.

He looked down at his hands.

Black lines were already appearing beneath the skin.

They crossed his wrists and branched toward his elbows, following pathways that had remained invisible since the day he left the infected forest.

Claudia stared at him.

Then she laughed.

"Oh, you poor fucking thing."

Arion lifted his head.

Her expression changed into something approaching delight.

"You thought you were different because you learned to suppress it?"

Nero stepped closer to Arion.

The nearest beast immediately turned toward him.

Arion noticed.

So did Nero.

Claudia continued, her voice distorted by the blood gathering in her throat.

"A beast remains a beast, regardless of how beautifully you dress it."

Arion’s vision sharpened.

The marble floor appeared clearer beneath his boots, every fracture and scattered fragment of glass acquiring an unnatural precision. He could distinguish the breathing of the animals around him, the minute movements beneath their corrupted hides, and the changing concentration of pheromones in the air.

His mind began slowing.

He recognized the sensation immediately.

Not now.

The beast nearest the staircase took one step toward Nero.

Arion looked at it.

The animal stopped.

Claudia raised her functioning hand.

"Rip them apart."

The beasts turned toward Arion.

Every enormous head in the hall shifted in his direction.

Claudia smiled.

"There. Now kill him."

The nearest beast approached.

Arion remained still.

The animal stopped directly in front of him, lowered its head, and settled onto its haunches.

A second followed.

Then a third.

Across the atrium, the beasts abandoned their positions around the remaining soldiers and moved toward Arion, arranging themselves in a loose formation that left him standing at the center.

Claudia’s smile disappeared.

"What the fuck?"

Nero looked at the animal sitting beside Arion.

Then at Claudia.

"Oh, this is embarrassing."

Amaru stared at the beasts.

One of them had positioned itself between him and Arion, but there was no aggression in its posture. Its attention remained fixed on the crown prince, waiting for something that Claudia apparently could not provide.

She released another wave of pheromones.

The beasts ignored her.

"ATTACK!"

The command echoed through the atrium.

Nothing happened.

Arion slowly looked toward her.

His eyes were no longer gold.

The irises burned an unnatural yellow, and narrow black pupils fixed on Claudia while the dark channels spread farther beneath his collar.

He could feel the animals now.

Their attention pressed against the edges of his awareness, familiar enough that he understood what they wanted without needing to examine their movements.

They were waiting for him.

Claudia staggered backward.

"That is impossible."

Nero folded his arms.

"You keep saying things like that when reality disagrees with you."

She looked toward the beasts again.

Then at Arion.

For the first time since entering the palace, the woman appeared genuinely frightened.

Arion wanted to ask her what she had done to him.

He wanted to demand every record concerning the infection he had survived as a child and the cocktail that had awakened something inside him on Snake Island.

Instead, his thoughts continued dragging through that familiar heaviness, leaving only one conclusion perfectly clear.

Claudia had filled the palace with beasts because she believed they belonged to her.

They did not.

Arion looked down at the enormous animal beside his leg.

It lifted its head immediately.

Waiting.

Then he raised his eyes toward the woman who had created them.

Claudia took another step backward.

And every beast in the hall turned with her.