Chapter 509: Familiar Ground

Arion had expected the same heaviness that had overtaken him during his previous encounters with infected beasts.

Instead, he felt perfectly normal.

His thoughts remained clear, his body responded without hesitation, and the familiar vetiver of his pheromones settled around him without the strange metallic undertone that had accompanied the transformations in Claudia’s Palace.

Even his eyes remained their usual gold.

That was almost disappointing.

Not because Arion particularly wanted to experience the sensation of his mind turning into molasses again, but because he had hoped that deliberately approaching the beasts might help him understand what the fuck was happening inside his own body.

Apparently not.

The nearest animal stood several meters away, its enormous head lowered to examine him while the remaining beasts approached through the undergrowth. Their movements were deliberate but unhurried, claws sinking into the damp forest floor as they emerged from beneath the limestone overhang.

Arion watched them carefully.

They were awake.

Completely awake.

The difference from their previous encounters was obvious.

There was no sluggishness in their movements, no delayed reaction to the sounds around them, and none of the strange metabolic dormancy Victor had spent months trying to explain. Their eyes followed movement through the trees, their ears responded to distant birdsong, and the largest animal had already turned its head twice toward the drone hovering above the clearing.

They were alert.

They simply did not want to attack him.

Arion looked at the enormous beast approaching from the overhang.

Its shoulder stood almost level with his chest, and the hardened ridges along its spine made it appear even larger beneath the shifting afternoon light. Black gland channels crossed its neck and disappeared beneath the thick corrupted hide covering its torso.

The animal stopped beside him.

Then it lowered its head and nudged his shoulder.

Arion shifted half a step beneath the unexpected weight.

"Oh, for fuck’s sake."

The beast nudged him again.

This time, its enormous nose pressed against his chest with the same shameless insistence Boreas used when demanding attention after being ignored for more than thirty seconds.

Arion stared at it.

The beast stared back.

Then it lowered its head farther.

Apparently, the request required clarification.

Arion lifted one hand and scratched the animal behind its ear.

The reaction was immediate.

Its shoulders relaxed, its head tilted into his palm, and a low rumbling sound vibrated through its enormous chest.

Arion looked toward the observation station.

Dean was probably watching.

That was unfortunate.

"Your Highness," Hendrik’s voice came through the earpiece, "the largest specimen appears to be responding positively to physical contact."

"I noticed."

Nero’s laughter followed.

"You should scratch the other side."

Arion closed his eyes briefly.

"I am surrounded by idiots."

The beast pushed its head harder against his hand.

Arion resumed scratching.

Apparently the animal agreed with Nero.

Through the communication channel, Victor spoke from the safety of his office.

"Your pheromonal profile is stable. The drones are registering no abnormal neural suppression, and the beasts’ metabolic activity has increased considerably since they approached you."

Arion looked toward the animals gathered around him.

"Is the sleeping agent still present?"

"Trace concentrations remain in their baseline profiles, but the active combination has disappeared."

That was useful.

Claudia’s cocktail had contained several components capable of influencing neurological activity, including the sleeping agent Victor had identified in the dormant beasts and the synthetic effects associated with Claudia’s drowning ability.

Whatever had happened to the animals after Arion took control of the ones in her palace, the artificial suppression was no longer governing their behavior.

The beasts in Alamina appeared to be responding similarly.

Without the complete cocktail, Arion felt no cognitive slowing.

Neither did the animals.

They were simply awake.

Arion looked down at the enormous head resting against his palm.

"And they remain infected."

"Yes," Victor replied. "Their structural alterations and corrupted glandular profiles are unchanged."

"Yet they are not aggressive."

"Not toward you. We have not established how they would respond to anyone else."

Arion glanced toward the observation platform.

That was a distinction he intended to preserve.

The last thing he needed was Nero deciding to approach another beast with the tip of his boot merely because the first one had accepted affection.

Unfortunately, Nero had already demonstrated that self-preservation was not always his first priority.

Arion lowered his hand.

The enormous animal immediately followed it with its head.

He sighed.

Then scratched it again.

He still had no idea what to call this.

An ability?

A secondary manifestation?

Some previously undocumented expression of his sigma physiology?

A pheromonal deviation caused by the corruption he survived as a child?

None of those descriptions felt particularly accurate.

Abilities had rules.

They had recognizable mechanisms, measurable limitations, and biological structures that could usually be studied even when the effects were unusual.

Arion had apparently acquired the capacity to make infected beasts obey him, influence their physical forms, and eliminate the neurological suppression that had kept them dormant for months.

He did not know how to activate any of it deliberately.

He had told the animals in Claudia’s Palace to behave, and they had become dogs.

That was not a particularly useful instruction for medical research.

Victor agreed.

Repeatedly.

Arion looked toward the other beasts.

They had settled around him in a loose circle, some lying beneath the trees while others continued inspecting the clearing. One had discovered a fallen branch and was examining it with the intense concentration of an animal deciding whether it deserved to be chewed.

Their behavior was almost ordinary.

Their bodies were not.

That distinction brought another question to the front of Arion’s mind.

One nobody had discussed.

"What happens if I meet an infected person?"

The communication channel went quiet.

Arion continued scratching the beast beside him while waiting for someone to answer.

Hendrik spoke first.

"We have no confirmed infected humans currently available for comparison."

"I know."

Human infection was extraordinarily rare.

Most people exposed to corrupted pheromones either suffered temporary physiological effects or developed complications that were identifiable and treatable before anything resembling the beasts’ condition emerged.

The few documented cases involving permanent infection had been severe enough that most victims had not survived long enough for extensive study.

Arion was the exception.

Perhaps not the only one.

That possibility bothered him more than the animals.

"If the beasts recognize me because of whatever remains from my childhood infection, would an infected person recognize the same thing?"

Victor answered after several seconds.

"We have no basis for predicting that."

"And if I tried to control them?"

"Do not."

Arion almost smiled.

"That was not a proposal."

"I am making sure it remains that way."

Dean’s voice entered the channel.

"Victor, you are about twenty years too late to start telling my husband not to do stupid things."

Arion looked toward the observation station.

Even through the distance, he could imagine Dean standing beside the window with one hand over his stomach, probably irritated that he was not allowed to join them.

Arion’s expression softened.

"I’m not doing anything."

"You are scratching an infected beast the size of a small vehicle."

"It asked."

Nero started laughing again.

Dean sighed.

"I married an idiot."

"You asked for a miniature version of me."

"That was before I discovered you could apparently adopt the entire infected population of Alamina."

The enormous beast nudged Arion’s hand again.

He obediently resumed scratching.

Behind it, the others remained calm, watching him with the same strange familiarity he had felt in Claudia’s Palace.

Whatever lived beneath their corruption recognized something inside him.

Arion still did not know what.

But for the first time, he was beginning to wonder whether the answer involved considerably more than the beasts.