Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Amaru watched them enter without showing any obvious discomfort.

That alone reassured Dean more than most of the medical reports had.

Four days could not repair years of chemical suppression, and there was still something too lean about Amaru’s face and hands. The medical patches over his scent glands remained visible above the collar of his dark shirt, but his eyes were clear as they moved from Dean to Arion and finally Nero.

Arion took the chair opposite him rather than remaining standing over a man still attached to medical monitoring. Dean sat beside him, while Nero chose the end of the nearby sofa, one long leg stretched forward.

For several seconds, Amaru said nothing.

Then he looked toward the broad windows overlooking the winter gardens.

"How long?"

Dean understood what he meant.

"Four days since we brought you here."

Amaru’s gaze returned to him.

"No. Veyra."

Arion answered.

"Eight years."

Nothing in Amaru’s expression moved at first.

Dean watched his fingers tighten once against the arm of the chair before slowly releasing.

"Eight," Amaru repeated.

"Yes."

He looked down at his hands.

The silence lasted long enough for Dean to wonder whether they should have left that particular answer to the physicians, but when Amaru lifted his head again, there was no confusion in his eyes.

Only something much colder.

"I knew it had been years. I didn’t know how many."

Arion rested his forearms against his knees.

"What do you remember?"

"Enough to know I was not supposed to spend eight years there."

Dean’s attention sharpened.

"Your father exiled you."

"He believed he did."

Nero stopped idly turning one of the rings on his fingers.

Amaru noticed the shift in attention.

"I planned the exile."

Dean blinked.

That was not part of any version Eryx had given them.

"You wanted to go to Veyra?"

"I wanted to leave Draxil without looking as though I had chosen to leave."

Amaru settled farther into the chair, careful of the medical sensor attached beneath his collar.

"My father had discovered what I was, and by then there were enough officers willing to follow me that killing me carried consequences he did not want. Exile solved his problem."

"And yours," Arion said.

"Yes."

There was no embarrassment in the admission.

"My brothers were already collecting factions. My father was becoming increasingly unstable, but he still controlled enough of the military and ministries that moving against him directly would have forced me into a war before I was prepared for one."

Dean understood where this was going.

"You intended to return."

Amaru looked at him.

"I intended to take the throne."

Dean glanced at Arion.

That sounded considerably more like the man they needed than the passive exile Draxil had spent eight years pretending no longer mattered.

"What was the plan?" Arion asked.

"Distance. Privacy. Time." Amaru’s fingers tapped once against the chair arm. "Veyra protected political exiles aggressively enough that my father could not simply change his mind and send soldiers after me. I had contacts in the military who remained loyal. Others would have joined once his health deteriorated and my brothers began turning on each other."

"They did," Dean said.

Amaru’s eyes shifted toward him.

"Both?"

"Yes."

Something almost satisfied appeared in his expression before disappearing again.

"I expected that."

Nero leaned back. "So you intended to spend several years quietly building support and return when Draxil became sufficiently unstable."

"That was the simplified version."

"And instead you disappeared for eight years?"

"Yes."

Arion waited a moment.

"What changed?"

For the first time since they entered, Amaru looked uncomfortable.

"My father visited."

Dean straightened slightly.

"On Veyra?"

"Yes. Several months after I arrived."

"Was that expected?"

"No."

Amaru’s gaze moved toward the gardens without really seeing them.

"He came with a woman."

Nero’s expression changed before Dean could ask.

"Claudia."

Amaru looked at him sharply.

"You know the name."

"We know more about Claudia than we would like," Dean said.

Amaru was quiet for a moment.

"Then you understand why I remember that visit."

"Which Claudia?" Nero asked.

A faint line appeared between Amaru’s brows.

"At the time, I was unaware there could be more than one."

That answered enough.

The original Claudia.

Arion shifted slightly forward.

"What happened?"

"Dinner first."

Amaru closed his eyes briefly, reconstructing something nearly eight years old.

"My father was in an unusually good mood. Claudia asked questions he had no reason to permit. My secondary gender. My ruts. My ability. Whether suppression drugs affected my judgment or only my pheromonal output."

Dean’s jaw tightened.

"She knew exactly what you were."

"Yes."

"Did she examine you?"

"Not during dinner."

The phrasing made Dean dislike the answer before Amaru continued.

"There was a physician afterward. I remember refusing the examination."

"And?"

"I remember waking the next morning."

Amaru stopped.

Dean waited.

The monitor beside him continued displaying a steady pulse.

"That is where the sequence breaks."

Arion’s expression hardened.

"What is the next thing you remember?"

"A different room."

"How much later?"

"I don’t know."

Amaru rubbed his thumb slowly along the side of his palm.

"I thought it was the same week."

"Was it?"

"No."

He seemed certain of that much.

"There are episodes after the visit. Sometimes minutes. Sometimes longer. I remember sitting in a library. Eating dinner. Reading. Speaking with physicians. Claudia asking me questions."

Dean thought immediately of the false residence.

The comfortable rooms that had never existed.

"Did the environment ever seem wrong?"

Amaru’s eyes moved toward him.

"Yes."

That answer came faster.

"Doors moved. Corridors were longer when I returned through them. Sometimes I could see the garden outside and knew I had never walked into that part of the building. Other times everything looked perfectly normal."

The pheromonal illusion.

Amaru continued.

"There were moments when I knew something had been done to me and could think clearly enough to plan around it. Then I would wake somewhere else and not know whether hours or months had passed."

Dean sat back slowly.

Duncan had not lied when he said Amaru was functional.

He simply had never known how fragmented that functionality was.

"Do you remember Claudia changing?" Nero asked.

Amaru frowned.

"Changing?"

"Age. Appearance. Anything."

Amaru thought about it.

"I remember her face differently in some episodes."

Dean glanced toward Nero.

That might mean the illusion had distorted her.

Or it might mean Amaru had seen both Claudias without realizing they were different women.

"Did she ever tell you what she wanted?" Arion asked.

"Pieces."

Amaru’s expression became colder.

"She wanted information about my ability. She wanted to know how much control I retained while suppressed. Whether I could recognize people through pheromonal interference. Whether instinct could override what I consciously believed I was seeing."

Dean felt his skin crawl.

"My last clear memory before waking here," Amaru continued, "is Claudia telling me that Draxil would need me eventually."

"When?" Arion asked.

"I don’t know."

Amaru looked toward him.

"That is the problem. I have memories. I do not have a timeline."

For a while, nobody spoke.

Arion did not push further. They had enough to establish that Amaru remembered the beginning of his imprisonment and portions of what followed. Reconstructing eight years of manipulated consciousness would take physicians, records, and considerably more patience than a first conversation allowed.

Nero, however, had gone very still.

Dean recognized that particular concentration.

It usually meant Nero had found something interesting.

"One question," Nero said.

Dean looked at him. "You were remarkably quiet for almost ten minutes."

"I was listening."

"That is what worries me."

Amaru’s mouth shifted faintly.

Nero ignored Dean.

"Claudia asked repeatedly about your ability."

"Yes."

"She built a pheromonal mixture around your residence using traits taken from other dominants."

Amaru’s expression sharpened.

Nero continued.

"One of the men guarding you could alter perception of terrain, movement, and distance. We encountered a version of that ability in the system."

Amaru stared at him.

For the first time, genuine alarm crossed his face.

"They reproduced it?"

"At least partially."

Nero leaned forward.

"So I would very much like to know what Claudia spent eight years trying to understand."

His purple eyes settled on Amaru.

"What is your ability?"

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