Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Chapter 355: Chapter 355: The Wrong Model

Dean pointed at the last two lines. "Why is that there? Nero is an enigma. He does not need stabilization like a dominant alpha or a sigma."

The room stilled.

Not because the concept was unfamiliar.

It was the opposite.

Everyone in that room knew stabilization.

Their families had lived inside the practical realities of secondary-gender biology for generations, not as temple doctrine, but as something felt in the body, managed in families, planned around in war rooms, and respected by anyone with enough sense to survive beast season.

Dominant alphas could destabilize under rut pressure, especially during prolonged conflict or pheromonal injury. Sigmas could be worse, because their systems did not follow ordinary dominant patterns and could turn violently without an anchor.

Which was exactly why the line on the projection was wrong.

Hendrik leaned closer, his pale gold annotations flickering over the file. His expression did not break into panic, but it changed in a way Dean trusted less. The exhaustion vanished. The commander of the sealed perimeter came forward, hard-eyed and precise.

"That is temple interpretation," Hendrik said.

Arion sighed like a man burdened by gods. "Great. We have visionaries who can see possible futures but somehow do not have the basics of our world?"

Dean glanced at him.

Arion pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let us say the temple does not know about enigmas. Nero, being one, is classified information. Fine. That part I can understand. But the rest?" His hand dropped, and his eyes sharpened on the projection. "The rest sounds like another doomsday conclusion from paranoid people."

"Not ancient," Hendrik said.

Arion looked at him.

Hendrik enlarged the source dates.

Dean’s stomach tightened.

The oldest vision was eleven months old.

The newest had been recorded three weeks before the wedding.

For a moment, no one spoke.

The room felt colder.

Dean stared at the dates, and something ugly crawled under his skin. He had been angry when he thought this was some inherited temple disaster, old fear passed down through custodians and rewritten until it became doctrine.

This had been happening while Sebastian laughed in gardens, while Nero waited in Saha, while Dean and Arion prepared for their wedding, while everyone pretended the world had the decency to line up its crises one at a time.

"These visionaries are alive," Dean said.

"Most likely," Hendrik replied.

"Most likely."

"Two are confirmed alive. One is under the temple’s medical supervision. One has no current location. Three gave testimony through intermediaries."

Dean’s expression hardened. "Through intermediaries."

"Yes."

Arion’s voice went very calm. "So we do not actually know what they saw."

Hendrik did not soften the answer. "We know what the temple says they reported."

"That is not the same thing," Otto said.

"No," Hendrik agreed. "It is not."

Dean leaned back slowly, anger sharpening into something colder and more useful. "So the problem is not dead custodians misreading old prophecies."

"No," Hendrik said. "The problem is recent visions entering a temple system before they reached the state."

"And then the temple-attached interpretation," Arion said.

"Yes."

"Using the wrong biological model."

"Yes."

"And possibly filtered the original wording."

Hendrik’s jaw tightened. "Possibly."

Dean looked at the projection again.

Golden throats silenced.

Command scent broken.

The beasts did not bite them. The beasts answered them.

Those phrases no longer felt ancient and poetic.

They felt like testimony cleaned by priests until panic became scripture.

Dean’s mouth twisted. "I want to know what they actually said."

"So do I," Hendrik replied.

Otto touched the table, and the source list opened wider. Names appeared, though several were partially sealed beneath temple confidentiality codes.

Dean stared at them. "They hid their names?"

"They protected them," Hendrik said.

"That is a prettier sentence."

"It may also be true," Otto said.

Dean looked at him.

Otto’s face was severe. "Not every temple official is malicious. Some visionaries suffer physically after major visions. Some are vulnerable to political pressure, family pressure, or exploitation. Confidentiality exists for a reason."

Dean’s eyes returned to the projection. "And now confidentiality is covering a possible lie."

"Yes," Otto said. "Both can be true."

Dean hated ruling sentences.

They were always annoyingly layered.

Arion leaned forward. "We need the originals. Not the summaries. Not temple analysis. Not whatever wording was approved after three committees frightened themselves into."

Hendrik nodded. "Agreed."

"Government temple agents," Otto said.

Dean blinked. "We have those?"

Otto looked at him.

Dean lifted one hand. "I am still learning what strange tools the state keeps in locked drawers."

"They are civil investigators attached to registered temple oversight," Otto said. "They have authority over prophetic claims that intersect national security, sealed witness procedures, relic archives, and temple medical custody."

Dean absorbed that.

"So temple auditors with legal weapons."

Hendrik’s mouth almost moved. "That is not the official title."

"It should be."

Otto ignored that with kingly discipline. "I will issue warrants tonight."

Arion’s gaze stayed on the dates. "No warning."

"No," Otto said. "No warning."

Hendrik began marking the files. "Three teams. One to secure the central temple registry where the vision submissions were first logged. One to Ilara’s temple, because her transfer is the version that reached us. One to the infirmary holding the visionary under medical supervision."

Dean’s eyes narrowed. "Holding?"

Hendrik looked at him. "That is the temple’s term."

"I hate their terms."

"So do I," Hendrik said, and there was enough steel in his voice that Dean believed him.

Arion’s hand touched the table. "And the missing one?"

"Fourth team," Hendrik said. "Quiet search. No temple involvement. If they left voluntarily, I do not want agents frightening them into running farther. If they were moved, I want to know by whom."

Otto nodded once. "Approved."

Dean looked from one man to the other. "And the intermediaries?"

"Identified and separated," Hendrik said. "No group interviews. No shared statements. No temple representative is present unless legally unavoidable, and if it is legally unavoidable, we change the legality before morning."

Dean stared at him.

Then decided Hendrik had just promoted himself again.

"Good."

Arion’s expression remained cold. "All original recordings, written notes, medical logs after the visions, and private witness statements are frozen."

Hendrik added the command.

"No purification," Dean said.

The three men looked at him.

Dean shrugged faintly. "That sounds like the kind of word they would use before burning inconvenient records."

Hendrik’s expression did not change, but he added the term to the order. "No purification rites. No destruction. No relocation. No doctrinal review."

"Add no prayerful correction," Dean said.