Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Dean sat back and ignored them both.

This worked for approximately six seconds.

Then the outer security lock cycled.

It made a very discreet sound that nevertheless caused the room to reorganize around it.

Seven straightened a fraction.

Arion’s posture shifted into that infuriating stillness Dean had come to recognize as the shape of prepared impact. Even the air felt as though it had been informed it was about to host authority.

The door opened.

Otto entered first, dressed simply enough that lesser men might have mistaken the absence of ceremony for softness. They would have been wrong. He carried no folder this time, which Dean found more ominous than paper. A man could hide behind documents. A father who arrived without them intended to speak from memory.

Minerva came in at his side.

She looked composed in the way only truly dangerous women did. Dean, who had once thought the Emperor was the part of this couple most likely to ruin his week, revised that conclusion on sight.

Seven inclined his head. "Your Majesty. Your Majesty."

Otto nodded once. Minerva’s gaze touched Seven briefly, warm enough to acknowledge his work and tired enough to suggest he had been included in several private discussions already.

Then both of them looked at Arion.

Then at Dean.

Dean had the distinct and immediate sense of being assessed as a category of problem rather than a person, which, to be fair, was not entirely inaccurate.

Otto spoke first. "Sit."

Dean was already sitting, which he felt deserved recognition. No one provided any.

Arion remained standing for half a breath longer before resuming his seat near Dean, not close enough to touch, but near enough that the distance felt intentional. Minerva took the chair opposite them. Otto remained on his feet.

That, more than anything, made Dean’s spine straighten.

Because Otto was standing, it meant judgment had not yet found its final shape.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Otto said, "You are both healing well."

Dean glanced at Arion and decided this was the sort of opening designed to make fools answer too quickly.

So, naturally, he said, "That sounds like the beginning of a disciplinary hearing."

Minerva’s mouth shifted very slightly.

Otto’s did not.

"It is the beginning," the Emperor said, "of a conversation I would have preferred not to need."

Dean folded his hands in his lap. "That feels fair."

Minerva looked at him. "You say that now."

Dean, not for the first time, wished the cloned healing pheromones had included emotional armor.

Otto’s gaze returned to Arion. "You lost control."

Arion did not look away. "Yes."

Minerva’s gaze moved to Dean. "And you concealed a highly unusual skill with obvious strategic implications."

Dean sat very still.

He had been expecting the earful.

He had not fully accounted for the fact that emperors were also administrators, and administrators hated surprises in direct proportion to how important they were.

Dean let out a slow breath. "That depends slightly on how we’re defining concealed."

Otto said, "Badly."

Minerva added, "And from people with both the authority and the need to know."

Seven, standing by the sideboard with all the satisfaction of a man watching natural consequences bloom on schedule, said nothing. Which was somehow worse.

Dean looked at the ceiling briefly, as if perhaps it might collapse and save him from the conversation. It did not.

So he said, "In my defense—"

"No," Otto said.

Dean shut his mouth.

Minerva leaned back slightly in her chair. "There are few circumstances under which a hidden skill is merely personal once it can destabilize bonded expression, interrupt dominant output at the source, and potentially change infected-containment protocols."

Dean felt that land in his sternum with more force than the sentence technically deserved.

Because yes.

Put like that, it sounded less like private caution and more like state negligence with feelings attached.

Otto finally moved, crossing toward the table and placing one hand on its edge. "I informed Palatine."

That hit harder than anything else had so far.

Dean looked up sharply. "You what?"

Otto did not blink. "I informed Palatine."

The room seemed to lose one degree of temperature.

Dean stared at him.

Then at Minerva.

Then at Arion, as if this might somehow be his fault too on principle, and found Arion watching Otto with the exact expression of a man who had already guessed this was coming and still did not like it.

Dean’s voice came out flatter than intended. "Who in Palatine?"

Otto answered with the sort of clarity that removed all hope before an argument could start. "Trevor and Lucas."

Dean closed his eyes, spiritually bracing himself.

When he opened them again, Seven had the decency to look only professionally judgmental rather than curious.

Minerva, however, was watching him very closely now.

Dean said, with the measured despair of a man approaching the edge of a second catastrophe, "That seems excessive."

"No," Otto said. "They were informed after Arion discovered your second ability after the fight with Nero. They are already in Alamina, just waiting for you to be recovered enough."

The room went very still.

Dean stared at him.

Then at Minerva.

Then, with the slow and deepening horror of a man realizing the disaster had not been scheduled for tomorrow after all but was, in fact, already in the building somewhere, he turned his head toward Arion.

Arion met the look without flinching.

Dean’s voice came out flat. "You knew."

Arion did not insult him with denial. "Yes."

Dean closed his eyes.

"They are here," he repeated.

"Yes," Minerva said.

Otto’s tone remained offensively even. "For you to be medically cleared enough that this conversation did not happen through painkillers and fractures."

Dean opened his eyes again and looked at the ceiling, because it was less dangerous than looking at any of the people in the room.

"That," he said after a moment, "is actually much worse."

Seven, off to the side, made a small sound of professional satisfaction, as though reality had finally started arranging itself properly.

Dean turned his head just enough to glare at him. "Do not."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You vibrated."

"That was vindication."

Dean looked back at Otto. "You let me think I had time."

Otto’s brow lifted by a fraction. "You had a week."

"That is not time. That is a medically supervised ambush."

Minerva’s mouth moved at one corner. "It was a controlled delay."

"That is just a gentler phrase for ambush."

"Yes," she said. "You’re catching up."

Dean looked at Arion again, because if this had been known to multiple parties and he had somehow been the last person informed, then betrayal needed to be distributed accurately.

Arion, to his credit or further offense, looked entirely prepared to absorb that.

"You all knew they were here," Dean said.

Arion answered first. "Yes."

Dean let out a breath through his nose that was half laugh, half despair, and all hostility toward the structure of empire. "Excellent. So I’ve been recovering inside a coordinated family trap."

"No," Minerva said. "You’ve been recovering before facing the consequences in a condition where you can’t pretend pain made you vague."

Dean frowned. "That is alarmingly specific."

"It is based on observation."

Arion, beside him, had gone very still again.

Dean noticed that too, because apparently no disaster in his life now arrived without him becoming offensively aware of Arion’s body language.

"You knew," Dean said again, this time to him alone. "And you didn’t tell me."

Arion’s answer came low and direct. "You weren’t ready."

That should not have gone through him like that.

Dean sat back a fraction in the chair, then corrected immediately before his recovering body reminded him too sharply of the concept of consequences. "That sounds suspiciously like you made a decision for me."

"Yes," Arion said.

"You will pay for this." Dean hissed though his teeth.