Chapter 503: Sleeping Pills

By the time Victor reached the lower containment wing, Claudia’s Palace had stopped resisting.

That did not make it peaceful.

Soldiers moved through the corridors carrying wounded personnel toward the temporary medical station established near the entrance, while technicians worked to isolate the remaining pheromonal systems before anyone accidentally activated another concealed chamber.

The smell of blood lingered beneath the heavier concentration of corrupted pheromones.

Arion followed Victor down the eastern staircase, accompanied by Nero and four soldiers who had apparently decided that keeping the crown prince away from anything dangerous was an admirable ambition.

He felt better.

His eyes had returned to their usual gold, the black channels beneath his skin had disappeared, and his pheromones were behaving normally again. Unfortunately, his thoughts still seemed to require an unreasonable amount of effort, and he had developed the irritating sensation that his body would prefer to lie down somewhere quiet rather than continue walking through an underground laboratory.

Nero noticed.

"You’re moving slowly."

Arion glanced at him.

"I’m walking."

"You’re thinking about every step before taking it."

"That is generally how walking works."

Nero looked unconvinced but allowed the matter to rest.

The containment wing occupied the lowest accessible level beneath the eastern palace, its reinforced corridors leading into a medical complex that looked disturbingly similar to the one they had discovered on Snake Island.

Five individual chambers stood behind a sealed observation wall.

Three contained dominant omegas.

The remaining two held dominant alphas.

All five were alive.

None were conscious.

Victor stood before the central monitoring console, reviewing the data collected from the chambers while Amaru’s soldiers established a secured perimeter around the medical wing.

"Do not open anything until I finish examining the environmental composition," Victor instructed. "If Claudia reused the system from Veyra, interrupting the wrong cycle could destabilize every patient simultaneously."

Arion studied the nearest enclosure.

A young man lay beneath a thin medical blanket, monitoring patches attached along his chest and neck while several translucent tubes disappeared beneath the raised edge of the examination bed. His scent gland was intact, though the surrounding skin bore the faint discoloration Arion remembered seeing on Amaru after his rescue.

The two dominant alphas occupied separate chambers at the far end of the room.

Nero looked between them.

"She certainly had a preference for collecting dominants."

Victor enlarged the environmental readings.

"She had a preference for biological material capable of producing specialized pheromones. Their secondary genders are probably more relevant to her research than their personal identities."

Arion’s attention shifted toward the list of compounds.

Five different synthetic carriers.

Several metabolic suppressors.

A controlled output of infected-beast pheromones.

And something else.

Victor stopped scrolling.

His expression changed.

"Interesting."

Arion immediately disliked that word.

"What?"

Victor enlarged one of the molecular profiles.

"This compound appeared in the samples Hendrik collected from the dormant beasts in Alamina."

Nero leaned closer.

"The one nobody could identify?"

"One of them. We knew it was present, but every attempt to isolate its effects failed because the extracted compound became inactive outside the original pheromonal environment."

Victor transferred the results to his own tablet.

"Claudia appears to have solved that problem."

Arion looked toward the sleeping patients.

"What does it do?"

"Induces a state of neurological suppression without necessarily causing unconsciousness."

Nero’s expression sharpened.

Arion felt his stomach tighten.

Victor continued.

"Think of it as a sleeping agent that does not always put the subject to sleep. At lower concentrations, it slows neural processing and interferes with the coordination between intention and movement."

Arion stared at him.

"The forest."

Victor looked up.

"Describe it."

"My thoughts were moving through something thick. I could understand everyone, but moving or answering required effort. Even when I wanted to do something, my body seemed reluctant to respond."

"That is consistent with what I am seeing."

Victor brought up Claudia’s final pheromonal profile.

"The agent itself may not have been sufficient to produce the reaction you experienced. Combined with Claudia’s drowning ability, however, it could have amplified the neurological suppression considerably."

Nero folded his arms.

"So she was drugging the beasts while making everyone else feel like they were suffocating?"

"Potentially. I need controlled analysis before I can establish exactly how the compounds interact."

Arion looked toward the five unconscious dominants.

"And these people?"

"They appear to be receiving a stronger combination, maintained continuously to prevent normal neurological activity and resistance."

Victor’s expression hardened.

"We can reverse the cycle, but I want the chambers transferred to a secure medical environment before attempting full withdrawal."

Hendrik’s voice came through the communication channel.

"Medical transport is ready. We have five containment units available."

Victor glanced at the screen.

"Then we start with the omega nearest the entrance."

Arion stepped aside as the medical team moved toward the first chamber.

At least they had found something useful.

Unfortunately, that did not explain why his body had reacted to the beasts as though they were familiar.

Nor why they had listened.

Amaru joined them when the first patient was being prepared for transport.

His wounded shoulder had been secured beneath a fresh dressing, and he had changed out of his bloodstained jacket, though the dark stains along the cuffs of his shirt suggested he had not bothered with anything more thorough.

Arion looked at him.

"Your brothers?"

"One is dead."

Amaru’s expression remained perfectly composed.

"And the other?"

"Alive. Under guard."

Nero raised his brows.

"I thought you intended to kill both."

"I did."

Amaru glanced toward the containment chambers.

"Then I saw what they had been protecting."

Arion waited.

Amaru continued.

"Someone needs to answer publicly for this fucking disaster, and I would prefer the person responsible to have a pulse when the investigators begin asking questions."

Nero’s mouth curved.

"That sounds considerably more inconvenient for him."

"I sincerely hope so."

Amaru had already authorized the seizure of his surviving brother’s communications, financial records, and command archives. Whatever happened to the Draxilian succession, the surviving claimant would have to explain his involvement in Claudia’s organization before the international courts.

Arion nodded toward the patients.

"Five survivors here. We still need to search the remaining laboratories."

"My people are doing that now."

"Alive?"

Amaru looked at him.

"The researchers?"

"Yes."

"Those who surrendered are being detained. Those who kept shooting received less accommodating treatment."

That was sufficient.

Arion wanted Claudia’s records intact more than he wanted another unnecessary firefight.

They returned to the entrance hall nearly an hour later.

Most of the bodies had been removed.

The marble remained stained, however, particularly near the broken railing where Claudia had died. Blood had spread into the cracks between the pale tiles, leaving a dark patch that the cleaning personnel had wisely decided could wait until the palace was fully secured.

Nero stopped beside it.

He looked down.

Then toward Arion.

"We have another problem."

Arion followed his gaze.

The beasts were waiting.

All of them.

Several lay beside the damaged staircase, while others had settled against the columns or occupied the patches of sunlight falling through the upper windows.

The enormous animal that had first approached Arion in the forest was not among them, but its palace counterpart had apparently appointed itself his personal escort.

The moment Arion entered, it stood.

Then it crossed the hall and pressed its head against his thigh.

Arion looked down.

Nero gestured toward the others.

"What the fuck are we going to do with these?"

The nearest beast sat.

Another rose and approached.

Then a third.

Within seconds, Arion had acquired an audience of corrupted animals that appeared far more interested in receiving attention than in returning to their containment chambers.

Nero watched one lower its head expectantly beneath Arion’s hand.

"They’re following you like puppies."

Arion scratched the enormous creature behind its ear.

"I noticed."

"You cannot take them home."

"I wasn’t planning to."

"Dean already has Boreas."

Arion looked at him.

Nero continued with perfect seriousness.

"And I doubt your medical board will appreciate twelve infected beasts wandering through the imperial gardens."