Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

The old alpha gave Dean exactly one opportunity to obey.

"This is a restricted zone!"

Dean remained where he was.

Thirty meters separated them, enough distance that the alpha’s pheromones still rolled freely through the forest, carrying the unmistakable command of a dominant who expected people to listen the first time.

Dean did not so much as shift his weight.

The man’s expression changed.

He stopped looking at Dean as if he were an inconvenient royal who had wandered away from the protected trail and started looking at him like an intruder who had chosen the wrong property.

His hand dropped to the knife at his hip.

Dean watched the blade come free.

That was better than the firearm Dean could now see beneath the back of the man’s coat. Gunfire would bring every guard around the residence toward them, and apparently the alpha had exactly the same concern.

The man started forward.

Not quite running at first, but the distance disappeared quickly under his longer stride. He moved with the balance of someone intimately familiar with the wet limestone and uneven ground, never hesitating when his boots crossed exposed roots or slick patches of moss.

Twenty meters.

Dean could feel the pheromonal pressure building.

There was something else woven through it, something that kept brushing against the edges of his field and failing to enter, but he had no intention of lowering the neutralization long enough to discover what the ability actually did.

The alpha accelerated.

Ten meters.

Dean still did not move.

The man’s gaze remained fixed completely on him.

At five meters, the alpha lunged.

Arion came out from behind the pine.

The old alpha barely had time to turn his head before Arion struck him from the side, shoulder driving into his ribs with enough force to knock him several steps off his intended path.

Dean stepped forward at the same moment.

The alpha crossed the one-meter boundary.

His pheromones vanished.

The abrupt absence was so complete that Dean felt the change like pressure releasing from his ears. Whatever ability had been reaching through the forest disappeared with it, leaving only a large, armed man staring at Arion with a flash of startled understanding.

Arion did not give him time to process it.

His knife went for the throat.

The alpha twisted and caught the blade with his own, steel grinding together for an instant before both men broke apart.

Then the fight became fast enough that Dean stopped thinking in ordinary distance.

He thought in centimeters.

Arion moved left, Dean moved with him.

The alpha drove forward, Dean circled behind Arion’s right shoulder.

Arion retreated half a step to avoid a slash aimed beneath his ribs, and Dean matched the movement precisely enough to keep the alpha trapped inside the field.

That was their fighting style for a while.

Dean could not stand far away and suppress him. One meter meant Dean had to remain close enough to be killed while keeping himself far enough from the alpha’s reach not to become the easiest target.

Arion was the answer to both problems.

Dean used his husband as moving cover.

The alpha slashed again, this time aiming higher, but Arion caught his wrist and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest. The impact forced him backward, and Dean advanced instantly so the field went with them.

The alpha recovered almost before his boots settled.

He was strong even without pheromones.

That was expected.

Dominant biology did not vanish simply because Dean neutralized the part that made it extraordinary, and years of training did not disappear with an ability.

The man came back at Arion with a short, efficient strike toward the abdomen.

Arion deflected it, turned inside his reach, and stabbed toward the ribs.

The alpha caught Arion’s wrist.

For a second they were locked together, forearms rigid, blades angled dangerously between them.

Dean could see the difference in raw strength.

Arion had it.

Not enough to simply crush him while his sigma abilities were suppressed alongside everything else inside Dean’s field, but enough that the alpha’s elbow began to bend.

Then the man’s gaze shifted over Arion’s shoulder, where Dean was.

Dean watched the realization arrive in the stranger’s eyes.

The alpha released Arion abruptly and tried to move around him.

Arion intercepted him immediately.

Dean moved in the opposite direction, keeping Arion squarely between them.

The alpha cursed.

"You."

Dean said nothing.

Talking meant giving part of his concentration somewhere it did not belong.

The man feinted left.

Dean anticipated it and moved right behind Arion before the alpha completed the turn.

The old alpha’s expression hardened as he understood that Dean was the reason none of his pheromones or abilities worked.

Arion was the obstacle he had to remove before he could reach Dean.

That made the next attack noticeably more violent.

The alpha’s knife came down toward Arion’s shoulder, forcing him to block high, then reversed immediately toward the thigh.

Arion turned just enough to avoid the edge and caught the man’s forearm.

The alpha drove his forehead into Arion’s face.

The crack of bone against bone made Dean flinch.

Arion’s head snapped back, and blood immediately ran from beneath his nose.

The alpha tore his arm free.

Dean saw a loose shard of limestone beside his boot and kicked it without thinking.

The stone struck the alpha’s ankle as he planted his next step.

Arion used the half-second of the alpha, fixing his imbalance.

His knife drove into the alpha’s side.

The man grunted and grabbed the front of Arion’s coat instead of retreating, dragging him closer while his other hand disappeared beneath the fabric.

Dean saw the second knife an instant before it moved.

"Arion."

Arion twisted.

The blade missed his ribs but sliced across his upper arm.

Blood spread immediately through the dark fabric.

Dean’s concentration broke for less than a second.

It was enough.

The alpha’s pheromones slammed back into the clearing with all the force they had been denied, carrying something sharp and invasive beneath the dominance that made Dean’s instincts recoil before his mind caught up.

The alpha felt it too.

His expression changed.

He thought he had found the weakness.

Dean forced the field back into place.

The pheromonal pressure vanished again.

So did the alpha’s satisfaction.

Arion struck him across the mouth with the heel of his palm.

The man reeled, blood appearing across his lower lip, but he did not go down.

Dean moved closer.

Less than a meter now.

"Back," Arion said.

"No."

Arion’s golden eyes flicked toward him, furious for reasons Dean fully intended to discuss later.

The alpha attacked again before either of them could continue.

This time he made no attempt to reach Dean directly.

He understood that Arion would never allow it.

So he tried to go through him.

Knife toward the throat.

Arion blocked.

An elbow drove into his ribs.

Arion absorbed it and answered with a knee to the alpha’s abdomen, then caught the back of his neck when the man folded and tried to force him downward.

They crashed into a pine hard enough to shake water from the branches overhead.

Dean followed immediately, nearly touching Arion’s back now because the tree had narrowed the available space.

His entire awareness contracted around the field.

Arion.

The alpha.

One meter.

Do not lose either of them.

The man slammed Arion against the trunk and tried to create enough room for his knife.

Arion gave him none.

Their bodies locked together, too close for clean strikes, boots tearing through wet leaves while each tried to control the other’s weapon hand.

Then Arion’s knife disappeared between them.

The alpha jerked.

Dean did not see where the blade entered, only the sudden dark spread of blood across the man’s coat when Arion pulled it free.

Still the alpha fought.

His knife rose again.

Arion caught his wrist with both hands and twisted.

The man looked over Arion’s shoulder at Dean, fury replacing everything else.

"You have no idea—"

Arion broke his wrist.

The knife dropped into the leaves.

The alpha made a strangled sound but tried one final time to force himself around Arion.

Dean moved automatically to keep the field centered.

Arion moved with him.

Exactly as they had planned.

The alpha could not reach Dean without crossing Arion first, and he could not escape the neutralizing radius without giving Arion his back.

He had run out of options.

Arion drove him against the tree and trapped him there, one forearm beneath his jaw while the knife pressed upward beneath his ribs.

Blood ran from Arion’s nose and down the torn sleeve of his coat, but his hand did not shake.

Dean stood directly behind him.

The alpha looked at Dean once more.

Then at Arion.

Something in his expression shifted as he finally understood what he was looking at.

"Sigma."

Arion drove the blade in.

The alpha’s body went rigid before the strength left it.

Arion caught him, lowering him into the wet leaves with controlled silence before checking the pulse at his throat.

Dean kept the field active while he listened.

Nothing.

No alarm from the villa.

No voices.

No movement rushing toward them.

Arion looked up.

"One down."

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