Chapter 478: Victor

Victor arrived through the private entrance shortly after eight.

No hospital corridor. No official consultation room. No appointment entered under Arion’s name, where administrative staff might notice that Alamina’s crown prince had suddenly requested the country’s foremost pheromone-corruption specialist.

That alone made Dean uneasy.

They had chosen one of the smaller sitting rooms inside their private suite, far enough from the main household corridors that only Hunter and two personally selected guards knew anyone had arrived. Heavy curtains covered the tall windows despite the morning light outside, and the doors to the adjoining rooms remained closed.

Boreas occupied most of the rug before the fireplace.

Arion sat beside Dean on the long charcoal sofa, dressed simply in black trousers and a dark sweater. He had suppressed his pheromones before Victor entered.

The difference was remarkable.

Boreas was currently lying with his enormous head across Arion’s boot.

Perfectly content.

Victor noticed immediately.

He was somewhere in his late fifties, lean rather than imposing, with short iron-grey hair and narrow features that made every expression look more severe than it probably was. His dark suit had been concealed beneath an ordinary winter coat when he entered the palace grounds, and he carried no medical case marked with any institutional insignia.

Dean had met physicians who inspired confidence.

Victor inspired the instinct to check whether one was dying.

There was a reason nobody wanted his name appearing anywhere near their medical file.

The man treated pheromonal corruption, engineered gland damage, neurological deterioration caused by synthetic exposure, and the sort of contamination cases that usually ended with sealed rooms and political investigations.

Seven stood beside him near the low table, tablet in hand.

"I gave him everything," Seven said.

Dean glanced at the screen.

"Everything?"

"Your reports from Veyra, Arion’s post-exposure panels, the repeated gland analysis, metabolic work, environmental samples, and Boreas’s documented reactions."

Victor removed his coat and handed it to Seven without looking away from Arion.

"And the childhood records."

Arion’s expression changed slightly.

Dean looked toward him.

"You had those?"

Seven nodded. "Anything potentially relevant."

Victor sat in the armchair opposite them.

"You were eight."

Arion’s hand settled over Dean’s knee.

"I remember."

Dean knew only fragments of that episode.

Illness in Saha. Corrupted pheromones. An induced rut earlier than anyone would normally allow because activating Arion’s dominant gene had been considered the only viable way to force his body through it.

Arion had recovered.

Completely, according to every record since.

Victor studied him for several seconds.

"You have no current symptoms beyond fatigue?"

"And one episode of feeling overwhelmed in a crowded reception," Arion said.

"Difficulty breathing?"

"Not physically. The pheromones became oppressive."

"Headaches?"

"No."

"Disorientation?"

"No."

"Changes in temperature regulation?"

"No."

"Sleep?"

"Poor because we have been busy."

Dean gave him a look.

Arion amended, "Better this week."

Victor’s gaze moved to Dean.

"And you noticed the eyes."

Dean blinked.

Seven had apparently been thorough.

"They look darker sometimes."

"How much?"

"Not enough that I was certain it wasn’t lighting."

Victor nodded once.

Then his attention shifted toward Boreas.

"You said the first reaction occurred after Veyra?"

Dean answered. "At the airfield. Arion still had contaminated clothing on. After he showered and changed, Boreas was fine."

"And later?"

"Yesterday was the first time he actually put himself between us."

Boreas remained asleep against Arion’s boot.

Victor leaned forward slightly.

"Release a small amount."

Arion looked at him.

"Now?"

"That is why the dog is here."

Dean reached down and rested one hand in Boreas’s thick fur.

Victor noticed.

"Do not restrain him unless necessary."

"I wasn’t planning to."

Arion glanced toward Dean before relaxing his control.

A faint trace of vetiver entered the room.

Boreas’s eyes opened.

His head lifted off Arion’s foot, and within seconds, the dog’s body changed.

His ears angled forward. Shoulders stiffened. Then he stood.

Dean remained still.

Boreas moved directly between him and Arion.

A warning growl rolled through his chest.

Victor’s expression did not change.

"Stop."

Arion suppressed everything.

The vetiver vanished.

Boreas stopped growling almost immediately.

He sniffed once toward Arion, then stepped around Dean and returned to him as though nothing had happened.

Arion stared down as Boreas pressed his head beneath his hand.

Victor looked toward Seven.

"Again."

Dean frowned. "You need another?"

"I need consistency."

Arion released another controlled thread of pheromones.

The reaction was faster this time.

Boreas withdrew from his touch, circled around Dean’s knees, and planted himself squarely between them.

Growl.

Arion cut the output.

Boreas relaxed.

Victor leaned back.

"That is consistent."

Dean folded his arms.

"With what?"

Victor did not answer immediately.

He looked down at the data Seven had opened on the tablet.

"With the dog detecting something specifically in expressed pheromonal output."

Arion’s brows drew together.

"My baseline profile was tested."

"Yes."

"And was normal."

"Yes."

"My active gland output was tested."

Victor finally looked at him.

"Under controlled clinical conditions."

Dean felt Arion’s hand settle against his leg again.

Victor continued.

"What you produce under stress, territorial instinct, mating response, aggression, protection, or prolonged dominant output is not necessarily chemically identical in every proportion to what a laboratory captures from resting glands."

Seven crossed his arms.

"You think the tests missed something because it isn’t consistently expressed."

"I think that is one possibility."

Dean looked toward Boreas.

The dog was now leaning happily against Arion again.

"And the other possibilities?"

"Residual conditioned response to something resembling the Veyran contamination. A minor synthetic alteration below current detection thresholds. Or the dog is detecting a compound we are not testing for because we do not know it exists."

None of those answers were reassuring.

Arion looked unimpressed.

"You’re telling me the most advanced testing available may not find something my dog can smell."

Victor’s mouth moved faintly.

"Your dog has several hundred million scent receptors and no obligation to understand what he detects. Medicine has considerably more bureaucracy."

Dean almost smiled.

Seven looked offended on behalf of medicine but did not disagree.

Victor reached for the tablet.

"I want active samples."

Arion’s expression sharpened.

"Under what conditions?"

"Several. Resting output. Protective response. Elevated dominant output. Something approaching combat intensity if we can reproduce it safely."

Dean stared.

"In our sitting room?"

"No."

Victor looked at him as though Dean had insulted his intelligence.

"I prefer keeping the palace intact."

That was reasonable.

Seven stepped closer to the table.

"We can use the isolated chamber beneath the private medical wing."

Victor nodded.

"No staff beyond those already cleared."

Arion looked toward Dean.

Dean knew what he was thinking.

The information could not leave this room.

If Draxil learned the crown prince of Alamina was being investigated for possible pheromonal corruption after exposure to Claudia’s work, the consequences would go far beyond Arion’s health.

If their own government learned before they had facts, there could be panic around succession, military readiness, and the dormant beasts.

Victor seemed to read the concern without being told.

"I am not diagnosing corruption."

Dean looked at him.

"Yet."

"I am telling you that the dog is reacting to something real enough to reproduce twice."

Victor’s gaze settled on Arion.

"And until I know what that something is, you keep your pheromones suppressed around him."

Arion looked down at Boreas.

The dog pushed his nose insistently beneath Arion’s hand, demanding another scratch.

Arion obliged.

Dean watched them.

Twenty-two years together, and Boreas loved him perfectly well.

Until Arion smelled like Arion.

That was the part Dean could not dismiss.