Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Chapter 383: Chapter 383: Extraction

Andrea screamed before Nero truly began.

That was how Sylvia knew it would be worse than she imagined.

Nero’s hand closed around Andrea’s throat, not choking him, not yet, but holding him in place with the calm cruelty of a prince who had decided mercy was no longer politically useful. His other hand rose toward Sylvia.

"Do not move," Nero said.

Sylvia wanted to say something brave, but nothing came out.

The air around them spiraled around Nero’s open hand.

Andrea’s scream sharpened into something raw and animal as Nero reached into whatever part of him had hidden beneath stabilization for years. His body arched off the floor, broken wrist jerking uselessly, heels scraping against blood-slick stone.

"No," Andrea gasped. "No—no, you cannot—"

Nero smiled, purple eyes almost black.

"I can."

The pressure snapped, and Sylvia felt it hit her chest like a fist.

She would have fallen if Thomas had not caught her wrist, wounded and shaking, his fingers slick with blood. He should not have moved. He did anyway.

"Sylvia," he rasped.

"I am here," she said, though she was not sure that was true.

Something was entering her.

It forced itself through skin, bone, blood, places her body had never made room for. Her veins went hot, then cold, then wrong. She felt Andrea’s power dragged across the space between them in tearing strands, ugly and resisting, like roots ripped from living soil.

Andrea screamed again.

This time, the beasts answered.

Outside the breach, the half-formed bodies shuddered.

One collapsed into black mud.

Another split open and dissolved into vapor, its teeth hitting the floor before the jaw vanished around them. False beasts flickered, screaming without lungs. Real ones staggered as if someone had cut invisible strings from their spines.

On the central command feed, Dean saw it.

His neutralization field hit the corridor at the same moment his understanding did.

"Nero," he whispered.

Arion heard. "What is happening?"

Dean’s eyes moved over the pheromone map. Andrea’s signature was dropping in violent chunks. Sylvia’s, previously invisible among dominant fields, had become a bright, unstable path of new pheromonal pressure.

"He is transferring it," Dean said.

Arion went silent.

Dean could have tried to stop it.

For one breath, he almost did.

Then three beast markers vanished from the first point. Two more went inert near the second corridor. A human-infected collapsed before reaching a medical team, its body convulsing as the command pheromone holding it together tore loose.

Dean swallowed the horror down.

"Medical teams," he snapped onto the open channel. "Begin decontamination at the first and second resistance routes. Anyone exposed to black fluid, isolate immediately. Do not wait for symptoms. Stabilization units to the injured soldiers. Pheromone filters to the maximum. Move!"

A captain answered, voice shaking. "Your Highness, the beasts—"

"Are losing command. Use it. Clean the line before they regain instinct."

Arion’s voice followed, colder, steadier. "All teams, obey Crown Consort’s command. Clear exposure first. Kill anything that stands second."

Dean’s field widened, not toward Sylvia, not yet. He did not dare touch whatever Nero was forcing into her. Instead, he cut panic from the soldiers, soothed dominant spikes, and held the corridor from becoming a second disaster.

Inside the first point, Sylvia screamed.

Thomas tried to stand.

His knees failed.

Nero did not look at him. His face had gone ghostly pale, violet eyes almost luminous, and mouth still curved in that terrible smile.

Andrea’s body twisted under his grip. Blood ran from his nose, his eyes, and the corners of his mouth. The veins in his throat turned black, then silver, then emptied of color as the power left him piece by piece.

"You are killing me," Andrea choked.

"Yes," Nero said.

Andrea sobbed with outrage.

"You cannot give it to her! She is nothing!" He raged, blood splatting everywhere around his mouth.

Sylvia’s head snapped up despite the pain.

Thomas made a sound so low the broken lights above them flickered.

Nero’s smile vanished.

For the first time, the mask cracked, and something ancient and furious looked out through his face.

"She is the person you chose to underestimate," Nero said. "That is much worse for you."

Then he pulled harder.

Andrea’s scream tore open.

The corridor answered with destruction.

Every beast still tied to him convulsed at once. Some burst apart, flesh separating from bone in wet sheets. Some dropped lifelessly where they stood. The projections vanished like smoke ripped by wind. The human-infected collapsed with them, finally released from the leash that had made their bodies obey after their souls had gone.

Sylvia felt the last strand enter her.

It hit low in her body, then rose through her spine like molten metal.

For one heartbeat, she felt everything.

Thomas’s pain.

His rage.

The ragged edge of berserk tearing at him.

His scent, dark and wounded and terrified for her.

And beneath it, a place where her new field could fit.

Sylvia reached for him with whatever Nero had carved into her marrow.

Thomas gasped.

His dominance slammed against hers like a storm meeting a door it had been waiting for without knowing.

Thomas’s eyes cleared by a fraction, bloody tears still spilling from his eyes.

He looked at Sylvia with horror, love, and something close to grief. Then he looked at Nero.

"You monster," Thomas said, voice wrecked.

Nero laughed. A bright, broken little sound that had no amusement in it at all.

Thomas’s anger faltered as he could see his state.

Nero was still standing, but barely.

One hand remained clamped around Andrea’s throat. The other trembled at his side, fingers curled like claws. Blood had begun to run from Nero’s nose in a thin line. His breath was ragged. His skin looked almost translucent under the emergency lights.

The transfer had hurt him so bad that only pride, training, and whatever terrifying thing Saha called royal blood kept him upright.

Nero smiled at Thomas through blood. "Accurate."

Andrea made one last sound beneath him.

Then his body went slack.

The field went silent.

For the first time since the breach, no beast screamed under Andrea Vale’s command.

Sylvia swayed.

Thomas caught her with his good arm, pulling her into him despite the blood, despite the wound, despite every medical rule on the continent.

Her hand pressed against his chest.

A faint, trembling stabilizing field answered.

Thomas closed his eyes.

Nero released Andrea.

The body hit the floor like something already discarded by history.

Hale stepped forward, face pale with fury and concern. "Your Highness."

Nero wiped the blood from under his nose with the back of his hand. "Do not fuss."

"You are bleeding."

"It is fashionable."

"It is brain damage."

"Only if I become boring."

Hale looked ready to commit treason for medical reasons.

Dean’s voice came through the corridor speakers, sharp with command and fear. "Nero. Sylvia. Thomas. Status."

Nero looked at Sylvia.

Sylvia was shaking violently, but her eyes were open. Thomas was bleeding badly, but his pheromones had stopped climbing toward berserk. Andrea was unconscious. The beasts were collapsing. The line was still standing.

Nero lifted his comm.

"Good news," he said, his voice too light. "Andrea Vale has finally stopped being disappointing."

"Nero," Arion warned.

Nero smiled, then staggered once.

Hale caught him before he hit the floor.

Sylvia, still pressed against Thomas, looked down at Andrea’s body and felt the stolen power pulse weakly under her skin.

It was horrible, but it was hers now.

Thomas’s arm tightened around her.

Outside, the second resistance point held.

For now, Roslew remained uninfected.