Chapter 160: How To Handle Feral

"Maverick understood rejection. Feral only understood one thing: Mate."

~ Rebel Beast

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"I still don’t think you should go ahead with this. You have a fight against Rhydian tomorrow. What if it affects you?" Dimitri couldn’t help voicing his concern as he stared at the suppressor in his hand.

Maverick was lying on his bed, his left wrist secured to the metal frame with a restraint made from the same suppressive material. Even if Feral managed to surface, he shouldn’t be able to break free. Maverick considered it an extra precaution, one he hoped they wouldn’t actually need.

"Just do it before he gets an inkling of what I’m up to," Maverick said urgently.

"Fine, if you say so." Dimitri sighed before filling the syringe and pressing the needle into Maverick’s free upper arm.

Maverick grimaced as the suppressor entered his system. The effect came quickly, spreading through him until an unnatural emptiness settled where Feral’s presence had always been. The suppressor was both a blessing and a curse. The drug existed for beasts like Feral, wolves capable of overpowering their human halves and becoming dangerously uncontrollable, but Maverick had always believed something this powerful had no business being freely available.

Even his other father, Alaric Storm, whose Storm Enterprises was one of United Dorminia’s leading defense and biotechnology conglomerates, dealing in everything from weapons development and pharmaceuticals to genetics and advanced biological research, kept suppressors under strict control. The drug was useful when necessary, but prolonged use could become toxic, and in the wrong hands, it could easily become a weapon against shifters.

Had it not been for Maverick’s history with Feral and his family’s connections, getting his hands on a suppressor this quickly would have been considerably harder.

Eventually, the drug settled completely, and Maverick felt... fine. Yet there was an uncomfortable absence inside him that reminded him strangely of a phantom limb. Feral had been part of him for as long as he could remember, a constant presence somewhere in the back of his mind, and now Maverick could feel the space where his wolf should have been without being able to reach him.

"How do you feel?" Dimitri asked cautiously, peering down at him with narrowed eyes.

"It’s working—" Maverick was still speaking when something slammed against the barrier inside his mind with such force that his entire body tensed. A violent surge followed, and suddenly Feral was there, forcing his way forward with a vengeance that made the first dose feel almost useless.

Maverick looked at Dimitri, his gray eyes widening. "Give me a second dose. Now!"

"What?" Dimitri stared at him in disbelief. "No, I can’t—"

Maverick grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. "He’s here!"

One look into Maverick’s slitted gray eyes told Dimitri he wasn’t exaggerating. Whatever argument had been forming on his tongue vanished immediately as he reached for another syringe and filled it. He caught Maverick’s free arm and drove the needle toward his skin, only for the tip to strike the surface and refuse to penetrate.

Dimitri frowned, then noticed the faint shimmer spreading across Maverick’s skin beneath the light. His stomach dropped as realization hit him. A thin layer of ice had formed over Maverick’s arm, hardening his skin before Dimitri could inject the second dose.

Slowly, Dimitri lifted his head and froze.

The eyes staring back at him were still Maverick’s slitted gray, but whatever warmth and restraint had existed in them was gone. Cold amusement had taken its place enough to make Dimitri immediately understand that the man looking at him was no longer Maverick.

It was Feral.

"Bad Beta."

Those were the only words that left Maverick’s mouth before Feral struck.

One moment Dimitri was sitting on the edge of the bed, and the next he was hurled across the room with such force that his back crashed against the wall and the breath was knocked clean out of his lungs.

Dimitri groaned as pain spread through his body, but he forced himself back to his feet, intent on restraining Feral exactly as Maverick had asked him to.

Except when he straightened, his eyes immediately went to the bed. The metal frame where Maverick had secured his left wrist was broken, the restraint hanging uselessly from the twisted remains. Worse, there was no sign of Feral anywhere in the room.

"Damn it."

Dimitri rushed toward the balcony, searching the grounds below for any glimpse of him. But there was no movement, trail of ice, nor even a shadow disappearing into the distance. Feral had gotten out, and Dimitri didn’t need to waste time wondering where he’d gone.

There was only one person Maverick’s wolf was obsessed with.

His mate, Aria.

He had gone to her. There was no doubt about it.

Dimitri rushed back into the room, intending to call for support and have Feral restrained before things got out of hand. He had already lifted his phone when he suddenly stopped.

What was the point?

No matter how much Maverick worried about Aria, Feral would never intentionally hurt her. Protecting their mate was instinctive to wolves, even when the beast itself didn’t fully understand human emotions, boundaries, or the complicated social rules that came with courtship. Feral understood that Aria was his mate and that she belonged with him. What he didn’t understand was why she could feel the bond and still refuse him.

Moreover, sending people after Feral would only provoke him, and things could quickly get out of hand. It would also draw unnecessary attention to the bond between Aria and Maverick. Until Aria decided what she wanted and accepted Maverick of her own free will, the last thing either of them needed was the entire academy interfering in something that should remain between them.

So Dimitri slowly lowered the phone. It was all in Aria’s hands now. Hopefully, just as she’d managed to stand her ground against Maverick, she would know how to handle his wolf without pushing Feral to the breaking point too.