Chapter 142: Storytime

Chapter 142: Chapter 142: Storytime

"What exactly were they doing to him?"

The humor disappeared from Nero’s face.

Across the cabin, Duncan shifted slightly in his seat, while the two security officers working beside him exchanged a glance and returned to their tablets with the excellent judgment of men who knew when a conversation had stopped including them.

Nero rested his phone against one thigh.

"We didn’t know when we arrived."

"That sounds promising."

"It became worse."

Sebastian lowered the briefing packet.

Nero’s arm remained stretched behind him along the sofa, but the easy posture no longer matched his expression.

"The residence looked normal from the outside, and even after we entered, Dean and Arion thought they were walking through somebody’s expensive private home. Sitting rooms, books, windows, sunlight, all of it convincing enough that they reached what appeared to be a sunroom and found Amaru sitting there reading."

Sebastian frowned. "Appeared?"

Duncan answered this time.

"The building was saturated with synthetic pheromones."

Sebastian looked toward him.

"Mine were part of the formula."

That made considerably less sense.

Nero saw it.

"They copied abilities."

Sebastian stared at Duncan. "Your perception distortion?"

"Enough of it to reproduce the effect artificially. Distance changed, rooms appeared where there were none, walls looked farther away, and people could see things that did not exist."

Duncan’s mouth tightened.

"I didn’t know they had done it. I had never been permitted inside the central section."

Sebastian leaned back slowly.

The organization had employed Duncan to guard a building while simultaneously using a synthetic version of his own pheromonal ability inside it.

"That must have been pleasant to discover."

"It was one of several unpleasant discoveries that morning."

The forward cabin door opened.

Hale entered carrying a coffee and a tablet, having apparently finished whatever discussion had taken him toward the cockpit. He wore a charcoal suit instead of his usual long uniform coat, though the severe cut and silver Crown Prince clasp at his collar made him look no less like security.

His brown eyes moved from Sebastian to Nero and then Duncan.

"What are we discussing?"

"Snake Island," Nero said.

Hale stopped.

His gaze settled on Duncan.

"Again?"

Sebastian smiled. "Apparently I missed an unusually productive recruitment exercise."

"You missed several questionable decisions."

Nero looked offended.

Hale sat across from them.

Sebastian turned back toward Nero. "Continue."

Nero complied, although Hale’s presence seemed to make him more entertained by the story than he had been thirty seconds earlier.

"Dean could neutralize the synthetic output within his field, which was how he and Arion eventually realized the environment was false. Once they shut the system down, the beautiful residence disappeared."

"What was actually there?"

"A clinic," Hale said.

Sebastian looked at him.

"Medical flooring, reinforced observation rooms, emergency connections, sealed doors. The entire central residence had been disguised by pheromonal manipulation."

"And Amaru?"

Nero’s expression hardened.

"He wasn’t reading in a sunroom."

The aircraft hummed quietly around them, the slight vibration of the engines running through the sofa beneath Sebastian’s legs.

Nero continued.

"They found him unconscious inside a glass medical enclosure, connected to monitors and a separate ventilation system."

Sebastian glanced toward Amaru’s photograph again.

"What was in that system?"

"Infected-beast pheromones."

The answer came from Hale.

Sebastian’s head lifted.

Hale had lost all trace of amusement now.

"The carrier contained several additional compounds, including metabolic suppressors, but the active pheromonal profile came from infected beasts. They were using it to keep Amaru dormant."

Sebastian stared at the photograph for several seconds.

He remembered that period better now that the details had somewhere to attach themselves. Reports about infected beasts had been moving through Palatine at the same time he was dealing with Rohan’s border tensions, but most of the classified material had gone through Sirius and specialized teams rather than Fitzgeralt’s command.

"They had him like that for years?"

"We don’t know whether the exact mixture was continuous for all eight," Nero said. "But the facility had been built around long-term control."

"And you simply removed him?"

Duncan gave Sebastian an almost sympathetic look.

"Nothing involving those people was simple."

Nero ignored that.

"Seven walked Dean and Arion through tapering the pheromonal concentration instead of shutting it off immediately. Once Amaru’s vital signs stabilized, we moved him."

Hale took a drink of coffee.

"Which was when the residence attempted to release another corrupted pheromonal output across the extraction route."

Sebastian slowly turned toward Nero.

Nero smiled faintly.

"We left quickly."

"That sentence seems to conceal a lot."

"It does," Duncan said.

Hale’s mouth twitched.

Sebastian looked between the three of them and suddenly understood why none of this had appeared in the official briefing with any meaningful detail.

"Where did you take Amaru?"

"Saha," Nero said. "Father had the medical team ready before I managed to call him."

"That sounds like Dax."

"He was irritatingly efficient."

Hale looked at Nero over the rim of his coffee.

"You were attempting to sound sweet enough that he would forgive you for abandoning a meeting."

Sebastian’s eyebrows rose.

Nero turned toward Hale. "You were not invited into this portion of the history."

"You brought him up."

Duncan looked toward Sebastian. "The King refused."

Sebastian laughed.

Nero’s expression suggested he regretted allowing any witnesses from five years ago onto the aircraft.

"What happened after Amaru woke?"

"That became political," Hale said. "And medical. He knew enough to explain parts of what had happened, but extracting him also exposed how little the guards themselves had understood about the facility."

Sebastian looked toward Duncan.

Duncan accepted the implication without defensiveness.

"I believed we were protecting an exiled prince whom Claudia’s organization wanted contained. We knew there were medical procedures, synthetic pheromones, and restrictions. We did not know the residence itself was an illusion, that my ability had been copied, or that Amaru was being kept unconscious under infected-beast pheromones."

"Claudia," Sebastian repeated. "The same organization Dean and Arion had been tracing?"

"The successor," Nero said. "The original Claudia was dead by then. Another dominant omega had inherited the name, organization, and authority."

Sebastian exhaled slowly.

"That explains why you were involved."

"It explains why all of us were involved."

The jet shifted gently as it crossed a patch of turbulence, and Nero’s hand moved automatically from the back of the sofa to Sebastian’s shoulder, steadying him despite the movement barely being noticeable.

Sebastian looked down at it, then toward Duncan.

"So after all of that, you stayed."

Duncan’s expression became dry.

"I had already sworn loyalty before discovering that the people employing me had copied my ability and hidden an entire medical facility behind it. Returning seemed professionally unwise."

Hale added, "I still did not trust him."

"For months," Duncan said.

"Correct."

"You searched my room twice a day."

"You had worked for Claudia."

"I had also been stabbed by your prince."

Hale glanced toward Nero. "That was not a character reference."

Sebastian laughed again, and even Nero smiled.

For several seconds, the old operation lost some of its weight beneath the absurdity of what had followed it.

Then Sebastian looked at Amaru’s photograph one more time.

Five years ago, the man had been unconscious behind reinforced glass, breathing infected pheromones while an organization studied and controlled him.

Now they were flying to watch him become king.

"That coronation means more than the briefing makes it sound."

Nero’s hand tightened slightly against Sebastian’s shoulder.

"Yes."

The answer was quieter than the others.

Sebastian closed the packet.

He understood now why Nero had never considered declining the invitation.

And why Duncan had spent the entire morning reviewing their arrival protocols as though Draxil were something more personal than another foreign assignment.