Chapter 492: Sit

The beasts wanted to attack.

Arion understood that before anyone moved.

It was in the way their bodies had arranged themselves around him, broad shoulders lowered and weight shifted forward, claws digging into damp earth as every head tracked Dax, Otto, Nero, and Hendrik. The animal nearest him had stopped looking like an overgrown dog asking for attention. Its lips had drawn back from its teeth, and the muscles beneath its corrupted hide tightened each time Otto shifted his stance.

They were waiting for permission.

The realization cut through some of the heaviness inside Arion’s head.

His thoughts still moved as though they had to push through syrup, slow enough that he could feel every decision being formed before his body reluctantly considered following it, but one thing came with disturbing clarity.

If he let this continue, someone would get hurt.

Nero’s hand remained beneath his coat.

Dax had moved slightly in front of Otto without appearing to do so.

Hendrik’s thumb hovered near the emergency command on his tablet.

Arion looked at the beast directly in front of him.

"Sit."

His voice came out rough.

The animal sat immediately.

Its hindquarters dropped heavily into the wet undergrowth while its enormous head remained turned toward Arion.

The second beast followed.

Then the third.

Across the clearing, one after another, the others lowered themselves too.

Within seconds, the defensive crescent that had looked ready to tear through four men became a collection of enormous corrupted animals sitting beneath the trees in complete silence.

Nero slowly withdrew his hand from his coat.

"Well."

Dax looked toward Arion.

Otto said nothing at all.

Arion stared at the beasts.

He could feel them. But not as thoughts, words, nor anything close to the kind of awareness another person would have through a bond. More like pressure at the edges of his senses.

Arion hated how natural it felt.

He shook his head sharply.

The movement made the world tilt for half a second.

"Wait."

His voice sounded more normal this time.

Dax took one careful step toward him.

"Arion?"

"Just... wait a minute."

He lifted one hand before anyone could come closer.

The beasts watched the movement.

So did everyone else.

Arion closed his eyes.

He needed to think.

That should not have been difficult.

His body was healthy. His pulse was elevated but not dangerously so. Nothing hurt except the burning channels beneath his skin, and even that was already becoming distant beneath the strange lethargy wrapping around his mind.

Yet every thought felt too loud and too slow at once.

Victor’s voice had stopped.

Thank God.

The sudden silence in his headset helped, but only slightly.

Arion concentrated on breathing.

The corrupted air still surrounded him, thick enough that the bitter undertone coated the back of his throat, but his body refused to treat it as foreign.

That was the part he could not understand.

He had spent most of his adult life knowing exactly where his pheromones ended and everything else began.

Now that boundary felt blurred.

One of the communication channels chimed.

Arion’s eyes opened.

The sound was different from Victor’s medical line or Hendrik’s tactical frequency.

The channel opened automatically before he could touch the earpiece.

Only a handful of people had authorization to override his communication settings.

One voice came through.

"Arion?"

Dean.

The effect was immediate.

One second Arion was standing inside a world that felt strangely distant, every thought dragging behind instinct, and the next Dean’s voice cut straight through it.

His mate was completely unaware that Arion was currently standing among infected beasts with black lines spread beneath his skin and eyes that no longer looked human.

Arion’s stomach dropped.

"Dean."

His voice changed on the name.

Nero noticed first.

Arion saw his head turn.

Dean continued through the earpiece, entirely oblivious.

"You said before dinner."

Arion looked toward the sky through the trees.

He had lost track of time.

"I know."

"You sound strange."

That sent cold clarity through him.

Sigmas could transmit pheromonal output through communication systems when the connection was direct enough.

Not physically in the same concentration as being present, but the encoded signal carried enough of the profile that bonded partners could register mood, stress, and instinctive output through a call.

Dean would feel him.

Dean, carrying their son.

Dean, whose body was already reacting strongly to Arion’s pheromones and using them to control nausea.

Absolutely not.

Arion pulled everything inward immediately.

The unfamiliar scent vanished from the clearing so abruptly that Hendrik looked up from the tablet.

Arion forced the vetiver back into place, familiar and controlled, then suppressed even that until only the faintest trace remained.

At the same moment, the burning beneath his skin changed.

The dark lines began retreating.

They withdrew from his hands first, thinning beneath the surface before disappearing completely from his fingers and wrists. The branching channels across his forearms faded next, black receding beneath his sleeves as if something were being pulled backward through the gland network.

Otto stared.

"Arion."

Arion ignored him.

Dean was still on the line.

"I’m fine."

There was a pause.

Dean knew him too well.

"That sounded suspicious."

Arion looked down at his hands.

Normal.

The yellow reflected faintly in Hendrik’s tablet was already changing too, the bright animal color darkening toward familiar gold.

"I’m with Hendrik."

"That is not reassuring."

Despite everything, Arion almost smiled.

"You said you didn’t want details."

"I didn’t. I still don’t. I’m calling because your son has spent the last twenty minutes kicking me every time I sit down, and I decided this is your fault."

That did it.

The remaining fog in Arion’s head broke. Not because the words mattered. Because they were Dean.

Complaining, pregnant, and safe at home.

Normal life waiting for him outside this forest.

Arion exhaled.

"Is he still moving?"

"Yes. Aggressively. I think he objects to the name list."

"You rejected all my suggestions."

"They were bad."

Nero turned his face away.

Arion suspected he was hiding a smile.

The nearest beast had lowered its head again.

Without the strange pheromonal surge filling the clearing, its posture had softened. The others remained seated, though their attention never left Arion.

Dean continued, "Are you coming home soon?"

"Yes."

That answer required no thought.

"I’ll be there before dinner."

"You promised that already."

"I know."

"Good. I’m hungry."

"I’ll bring something."

"Nothing with cherries."

Arion’s mouth finally curved.

"Never."

Dean ended the call after another thirty seconds.

The channel went silent.

Arion stood motionless for a moment.

Then he looked at the men around him.

Dax was watching him with narrowed eyes.

Otto looked caught between relief and the urge to drag Arion out of the forest personally.

Hendrik had stopped pretending the data on his tablet was more interesting than what had just happened.

Nero spoke first.

"Your mate called, and whatever that was disappeared."

Arion looked down at his arms.

Not a single black line remained.

His eyes, reflected faintly in the tablet screen, were gold again.

Behind him, the nearest corrupted beast lay back down.

Arion stared at it.

Then at the path leading toward the safe perimeter.

"We’re leaving."

This time, when he moved, his body obeyed.