Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Boreas growled again.

The sound was low enough to vibrate through the quiet corridor, nothing like the impatient rumble he used when someone refused to open a door quickly enough. His enormous body had gone rigid between Dean and Arion, black-brown fur raised along his shoulders while his attention remained fixed entirely on Arion.

Dean straightened.

"Boreas."

One ear flicked toward him.

The dog did not move.

Arion stood several steps away beneath the warm corridor lights, one hand still half raised from where he had been holding Dean’s waist. Confusion had replaced his earlier smile.

He had known Boreas for twenty-two years.

Arion had been eight when the enormous dog had entered his life, still young enough himself that Boreas had grown alongside him rather than simply becoming another animal kept within the imperial grounds.

Boreas had guarded him through childhood.

Slept outside his rooms.

Followed him through training grounds and gardens.

Ignored commands from half the palace when Arion was injured because apparently protecting him had outranked everyone else’s authority.

He had never growled at him.

Not once.

"Move," Arion said quietly.

Boreas normally obeyed that tone without hesitation.

Tonight, he stepped closer to Dean.

Dean looked down as the dog positioned his broad body directly across his legs.

"That’s definitely intentional."

Arion’s brows drew together.

He moved one step forward.

Boreas’s lips lifted.

Arion stopped.

Dean rested a hand carefully against the dog’s neck.

"Easy."

Boreas leaned subtly into his touch while continuing to watch Arion.

That made even less sense.

"He was perfectly fine with you before," Dean murmured.

"Obviously."

"I mean before Snake Island."

Arion’s gaze shifted to him.

Dean looked back at Boreas.

The pattern had been easy to dismiss the first time.

Boreas had reacted at the Veyran airfield after Arion came directly out of the residence carrying blood, antiseptic, clinic residue, and everything else that had contaminated his clothes. Once Arion showered and changed, the dog had calmed immediately.

At the time, that explanation had been sufficient.

Now Dean was not so sure.

"He started doing this after Snake Island."

Arion looked at Boreas again.

"He reacted to the smell on my clothes."

"Yes. At first."

Dean rubbed his thumb through the thick fur beneath Boreas’s ear.

"But he reacted most strongly after you got trapped in that pheromone cocktail."

Arion’s expression sharpened slightly.

"It was less than a minute."

"Long enough that you shoved me into the helicopter instead of letting me stand in it."

"Because we didn’t know what it was."

"And Boreas hated the smell of it."

"That disappeared after I showered."

Dean nodded.

"It did."

Boreas’s growl had stopped, but his posture remained guarded.

Arion took another careful step.

The growl returned immediately.

This time Arion looked genuinely unsettled.

Not frightened. Offended, perhaps. Mostly baffled.

"Boreas."

The dog knew his name.

His ears moved.

Still, he refused to yield the space between them.

Arion exhaled slowly.

"I had every test Seven, and the board could think of."

"I know."

"Blood work. Gland function. Pheromonal profile. Metabolic screening. They repeated half of it after Rohan."

Dean remembered.

He had watched Arion lose enough blood to laboratory tubes that complaining about his own pregnancy panels had become difficult.

"Everything was normal."

"Yes."

"No foreign compounds. No gland damage. No abnormal regulation."

Dean glanced up at him.

"You’re trying to convince yourself now."

Arion’s mouth tightened.

"I’m stating facts."

"They are good facts."

"They should also mean my dog does not suddenly consider me a threat to my husband."

Dean almost smiled at the phrasing.

His dog.

His husband.

Apparently pregnancy had made Arion territorial enough to claim the entire corridor.

Boreas shifted closer when Arion’s pheromones thickened.

Dean felt it too.

Vetiver had been present throughout the evening, warmer and heavier than usual after telling both families about the pregnancy. Arion had barely bothered containing it inside their private residence.

Dean looked at Boreas.

Then at Arion.

An idea formed.

"Stop your pheromones."

Arion frowned.

"What?"

"Pull them completely in."

"Dean—"

"Just try it."

Arion looked down at Boreas.

The dog remained braced between them.

Then Arion obeyed.

Dean felt the difference immediately.

Vetiver receded immediately.

Arion had extraordinary control when he chose to use it, and within seconds the dense warmth surrounding them disappeared until the corridor air held only the faint residual traces that no secondary gender could entirely eliminate.

Boreas’s reaction was immediate.

His ears lifted and the tension vanished from his shoulders.

Dean felt the dog’s weight shift away from his legs.

Boreas sniffed the air while he looked at Arion.

No growl.

Arion remained completely still.

Boreas took one step toward him.

Then another.

By the third, his tail had begun moving.

Dean stared.

"Well."

Boreas crossed the remaining space and shoved his enormous head directly into Arion’s stomach.

Arion looked down.

The dog leaned harder, demanding attention as though the previous minute had never happened.

Arion slowly placed one hand on his head.

Boreas’s tail struck the wall.

Once.

Twice.

Then he attempted to push farther beneath Arion’s hand until Arion finally scratched behind his ears properly.

Dean folded his arms.

"That answers something."

Arion looked at him over Boreas’s head.

"It answers nothing."

"It answers that he isn’t angry with you."

"I had not seriously considered a personal disagreement."

Dean smiled despite himself.

"It’s your pheromones."

Arion’s expression lost what little amusement had appeared.

Boreas remained pressed happily against his leg.

Dean stepped closer.

"What if he can smell something the tests aren’t showing?"

"The laboratory pheromone profile was normal."

"I know."

"And I have no symptoms beyond being tired after weeks without rest."

"I know that too."

Dean stopped in front of him.

Arion’s eyes looked dark beneath the corridor lighting, gold, certainly, but deeper than they had been months ago.

Dean had noticed before.

Then Seven’s results had come back clean, and exhaustion had explained everything else.

He touched Arion’s chest.

"I’m not saying something is wrong."

Arion covered Dean’s hand with his.

"But?"

"But Boreas has been reacting to infected-beast pheromones since before any of us knew what they were. Maybe his nose is better than our equipment at noticing whatever trace your glands picked up."

Arion considered that.

"If there were a trace, the board should have found it."

"Probably."

Dean glanced down.

Boreas had now sat on Arion’s foot, completely relaxed.

The contrast was difficult to ignore.

Dean looked back up.

"Turn them on again."

Arion did.

Only a little.

A controlled thread of vetiver slipped into the corridor.

Boreas’s head came up instantly.

His tail stopped.

A warning rumble began deep inside his chest.

Arion cut the pheromones off.

The dog relaxed.

Neither man spoke for several seconds.

Dean’s amusement was gone now.

Arion looked down at the animal he had trusted since childhood.

Boreas stared back, calm once more, then nudged his hand for another scratch.

Arion gave it to him automatically.

Dean moved beside him.

"Tomorrow."

Arion knew exactly what he meant.

"Seven."

"And the board."

Arion sighed.

Dean leaned against his arm.

"They’ll be thrilled. Another excuse for blood work."

That finally earned him a faint smile.

Boreas remained pressed against Arion’s leg, perfectly content as long as the vetiver stayed gone.

That, more than the growling, bothered Dean.