Chapter 502: Let Us Eat Her

[WARNING - Disturbing and violent content.]

Arion could feel the beasts waiting.

Their attention pressed against the edges of his consciousness, an unfamiliar awareness that had somehow become easier to understand than the voices of the people standing around him.

He knew Nero was speaking.

He could hear Amaru ordering the remaining soldiers toward the upper corridors, and somewhere behind them Victor was demanding new readings through the communication channel.

None of it seemed particularly important.

Claudia stood several meters away, her back almost touching the broken railing, black channels spreading beneath her skin as the enhancer continued forcing corrupted pheromones through her damaged glands.

She smelled wrong.

Something in her pheromones was demanding obedience from the animals around him, pushing against their instincts with an artificial pressure that made the entire clearing of awareness inside Arion’s head recoil.

She was hurting them.

The realization arrived without reasoning.

Then came something else.

Hunger.

But it wasn’t his.

Arion had eaten before leaving Alamina. His stomach was perfectly comfortable, and he had absolutely no desire to put anything inside his mouth.

Yet hunger pressed against his consciousness from every direction.

The beasts wanted something.

Her.

The thought appeared with such clarity that Arion almost mistook it for his own.

Claudia.

The woman who had kept them imprisoned beneath the palace.

The woman whose pheromones had forced them into obedience for years.

The woman who had just ordered them to attack him.

Let us eat her.

Arion’s fingers twitched.

The nearest beast lifted its head.

He looked down at it.

There were no words passing between them. Nothing resembling the communication he shared with Dean through their bond.

Only instincts.

His mind, moving through that increasingly familiar heaviness, supplied meaning to something that had never needed language.

Let us eat her.

Claudia released another wave of pheromones.

The beast beside Arion recoiled.

A low growl rolled from its chest, joined almost immediately by the others.

Arion felt their agitation spread through the hall.

His eyes settled on Claudia.

She was still trying to make them obey. Still trying to force the same artificial command through damaged glands that were beginning to fail beneath the corruption consuming her body.

Arion wondered, distantly, whether allowing the beasts to kill her would make the pressure stop.

It seemed reasonable.

He looked at the nearest animal.

Then toward Claudia.

"Go."

The word came out almost conversationally.

Every beast in the hall moved.

Nero reacted first.

"Arion!"

His hand closed around the back of Arion’s coat, dragging him away from the nearest animal just as its enormous body surged forward.

Arion stumbled.

The sudden movement pulled him partly out of the strange awareness surrounding his mind, enough that he registered Nero’s arm crossing his chest and the sharp pressure of his cousin’s pheromones.

"Get back!"

Nero hauled him behind a broken column.

The beasts rushed past them.

Not one turned toward Arion.

The first animal struck Claudia hard enough to drive her backward into the railing.

Stone shattered.

Her scream cut through the entrance hall as she fell beneath its weight, the damaged enhancer still embedded against her neck.

Nero stopped.

"Oh."

Another beast reached her.

Then another.

Arion watched from where Nero had pulled him.

Claudia tried to release her pheromones again, but the suffocating pressure broke apart beneath the corrupted output pouring from the animals around her.

Her command failed.

The nearest beast closed its jaws around her shoulder.

Claudia screamed as it dragged her away from the railing, her functioning hand clawing uselessly against the marble while another animal caught her leg.

Bone cracked beneath the pressure.

Blood spread across the white floor.

Nero’s grip tightened around Arion.

"Arion, look at me."

He heard him.

The words took an unreasonable amount of time to become meaningful.

Claudia’s screams grew shorter.

One of the beasts tore into her throat, and the sound ended abruptly.

Arion felt the hunger beginning to subside.

The animals were eating.

That was what he had allowed.

Somewhere beyond the strange calm settling over his mind, a part of him recognized that he should probably feel something more complicated about it.

Instead, he wondered why Nero was still holding him.

"Arion."

His cousin’s voice sounded closer now.

Arion turned his head.

Nero’s purple eyes were fixed on him with an expression he rarely saw directed toward himself.

Concern.

That seemed unnecessary.

He was not hurt.

The beasts had done exactly what he wanted.

Behind Nero, Amaru had stopped beside the staircase, his wounded shoulder forgotten as he watched the animals tear apart the woman who had kept him imprisoned for eight years.

He did not intervene.

Victor, however, was moving.

The physician had taken one look at Arion’s face and apparently reached a conclusion that did not require another laboratory test.

He pulled out his phone.

"Dean."

Nero glanced toward him.

Victor was already calling.

"Tell him to contact Arion directly. Now."

Arion frowned.

Dean?

Why would Victor call Dean?

His mate was safe at home.

Probably still furious about the aircraft.

The thought made something inside Arion shift.

Victor’s voice reached him again.

"Your husband is conscious, but he is not responding normally. Call his private channel immediately. Do not ask me questions now, Dean. Just call him."

Arion wanted to object.

He was responding.

He had just looked at Nero.

That should have been sufficient.

Then his own headset chimed.

The private channel opened automatically.

"Arion?"

Dean’s voice cut through the heaviness.

Arion went still.

"Arion, answer me."

His mate sounded frightened.

That was wrong.

Dean should not be frightened.

Arion pulled his pheromones inward so sharply that Nero released his coat in surprise.

The strange scent disappeared from the air around him, leaving familiar vetiver beneath the bitter concentration of corrupted pheromones still filling the hall.

The burning in his glands changed.

Black lines began retreating from his hands, withdrawing beneath the skin in thin, branching pathways while the pressure surrounding his thoughts loosened.

"Dean."

His voice sounded rough.

There was a brief silence on the other end.

Then Dean exhaled.

"Oh, thank fuck."

Arion closed his eyes.

The familiar warmth of his mate’s voice settled something inside him that had been drifting farther away with every passing minute.

"What happened?"

"Victor called me and sounded like someone had just informed him the palace was on fire. Are you alright?"

Arion looked toward the entrance hall.

The beasts had finished with Claudia.

Several were already returning to him.

"I’m fine."

Dean made an offended sound.

"You are never allowed to use those words again without medical documentation."

Despite everything, Arion almost smiled.

"I’m coming home."

"You had better. Your son has been kicking me for the last hour, and I am beginning to suspect he inherited your terrible sense of timing."

Arion opened his eyes.

The black channels had disappeared from his wrists.

His vision was normal again.

Nero was watching him closely.

"Tell him I’ll call after we finish here."

"I heard that," Dean said.

"Good."

"And Arion?"

"Yes?"

"Whatever the fuck is happening, stop making Victor call me."

Arion glanced toward the physician.

Victor looked entirely unrepentant.

"I’ll try."

Dean ended the call only after Arion promised to contact him again before leaving the palace.

For several seconds, Arion remained beside the broken column, looking at his hands.

Normal skin. Normal eyes.

His thoughts belonged entirely to him again.

Then a voice came through Hendrik’s communication channel.

"Your Highness, we found something."

Amaru turned immediately.

The officer continued from somewhere beneath the eastern wing.

"Three patients in the lower containment rooms. All dominant omegas. They’re alive, but their metabolic activity is severely suppressed."

Victor straightened.

"Pheromonal output?"

"Multiple synthetic sources. The chambers look similar to the Veyran records you provided."

Arion looked toward Amaru.

The prince’s expression had gone completely still.

He knew exactly what that meant.

Three dominant omegas.

Three people being kept beneath Claudia’s palace in the same condition Amaru had endured for years.

Victor was already gathering his medical case.

"Do not open those chambers until I get there."

The beasts settled around Arion again.

One lowered its enormous head against his knee, demanding attention with the same shameless persistence Boreas used whenever someone stopped scratching his ears.

Arion’s hand moved out of instinct, scratching the beast behind what seemed to be an ear.