Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 439: Close.

The last two still functional beasts moved like sprung traps, low and fast, with their ruined siblings trailing behind them like discarded components. One skittered across the debris on all fours, claws sparking against stone. The other stayed upright just long enough to gain speed before dropping, shoulders rolling, weight forward, as if it had discovered the most efficient way to reach flesh.

Rowan tracked them with the calm of a man who had learned to turn horror into angles.

Two shots.

One beast’s knee exploded sideways. It dropped hard, shrieking, but it didn’t stop. It crawled, teeth clicking, arms dragging it forward, leaving a wet smear of blood and grey fluid in its wake.

Otto moved without hesitation. He stepped into its path and ended it with a clean, brutal stomp that turned its skull into paste. The sound was wet. The body jerked once. Then it went slack.

The other beast was already past them.

It didn’t go for Dax.

It didn’t go for Otto.

It went for the weakest point in the line, like infection had instincts even when it had no mind.

Donald, the Alamina officer, had moved up too far.

He’d been brave. He’d been useful. He’d been trying to hold a sightline and coordinate the guards behind cover.

And the beast saw exposed living heat through the gaps.

It launched.

Donald had just enough time to turn his head, eyes widening behind his visor. before it slammed into him with a weight that knocked him off his feet.

He hit the stone hard, armor ringing.

The beast pinned him, claws digging for purchase in his chest plate, jaws opening wide enough to unhinge, teeth needles glistening with saliva that wasn’t saliva at all - something viscous and clear that looked like it wanted to sink into skin and become more.

Donald kicked, panicked, trying to shove it off.

It snapped at his throat anyway.

Rowan lifted his rifle—

But Otto was faster.

Otto crossed the distance in a blur, grabbed the beast by the shoulder and spine, and hauled it up like dead weight. The creature shrieked, legs flailing, claws scraping sparks off Otto’s armor as it tried to turn its mouth toward any exposed gap.

Otto didn’t give it the chance.

He slammed it into the stone so hard that its ribs cracked audibly.

It hissed, still alive, still trying.

It twisted in Otto’s grip, jaws snapping toward Donald again as if it could still finish the job from the air.

Dax moved.

He breathed in, and the room inside him, the place where dominance lived, opened.

His pheromones hit the plaza like a shockwave.

Not a seductive spill he used . Not the warm, enveloping kind that made crowds obedient.

This was a blunt, violent blast of apex dominance, focused into a single direction.

It struck the beast mid-thrash like it had been hit by a wall.

The creature was blown off Otto’s grip and hurled sideways, skidding across stone in a spray of blood and grey fluid. It hit the base of a shattered barricade hard enough to leave a smear, then twitched - legs kicking uselessly, spine bent wrong.

For a heartbeat, the whole plaza held still.

Even the guards behind cover froze, their bodies reacting to the sheer force of Dax’s presence like the instinct to kneel had been rewritten into the air.

Dax kept it leashed immediately.

He didn’t let it spread. He didn’t let it touch humans any more than it already had.

Just enough to save a life.

Donald was still on the ground, gasping, one hand pressed hard to his chest plate as if he could feel teeth through metal.

Otto crouched beside him, one gloved hand gripping Donald’s shoulder.

"Up," Otto ordered.

Donald tried. His arms shook. He pushed himself into a half-sit, eyes wide and glassy.

"I—" Donald rasped. "It—"

"It didn’t bite you," Otto cut in, voice flat. "Did it bite you?"

Donald swallowed hard, searching his own body like he didn’t trust his senses. "No. No, it—" He sucked in air. "It tried."

Rowan was already there, sweeping his rifle over the alley mouths, scanning rooftops, eyes cutting through the shadows like he expected the mutation to be watching.

"Donald," Rowan snapped, sharp. "Helmet seal. Now."

Donald’s shaking hands went to the edge of his visor. He checked the seal. He checked it again, slower, like he didn’t trust his own mind.

"Sealed," he said hoarsely.

Dax’s gaze never left the beast he’d blown across the stone.

It was still moving.

Trying.

Its limbs scrabbled, claws scraping, dragging its body inch by inch toward Donald again, as if whatever lived in it had only one instruction: living. closer. infect.

Dax’s eyes cooled.

He stepped forward.

Rowan’s rifle rose automatically, but Dax lifted two fingers in a quiet "no."

This one was close enough that bullets risked spatter. Risked fluid. Risking infection spreading by mistake.

Dax crouched by the beast and looked at it.

No intelligence.

No mercy.

Just hunger wearing a ruined human blueprint.

Dax didn’t speak.

He simply gathered the dampness pooled on the stone - the blood, the condensation, the grey fluid that was trying to become a new life - and compressed it into a single tight line.

Then he severed the creature’s throat with the same invisible blade he’d used earlier.

The cut was silent.

The head didn’t topple this time. It simply... slumped, jaw gaping, teeth still bared like it didn’t understand it had been denied.

The body kicked twice. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Then went still.

Dax stood and turned back.

Donald was on his feet now, aided by Otto’s grip. His breathing was uneven, the shock still bright in his eyes.

"You moved up," Dax observed, voice calm.

Donald swallowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"That was stupid," Dax said, still calm.

Donald nodded once, stiffly. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Otto’s mouth twitched - not quite amusement, but the closest he came. "He’ll remember it."

"He’d better," Rowan muttered, scanning the alley again. "Because that wasn’t the last one."

Dax looked toward the black throat between buildings.

The air was still thick with pheromone rot.

And deeper in the shadows, there was movement again - more scraping, more chittering, the faintest hiss of something finding the scent of blood and deciding it mattered.

Dax’s posture didn’t change.

He flexed his hand once.

"Rowan," he said.

Rowan answered without looking away. "Already ready."

Otto straightened, shoulders rolling. "We keep moving."

Donald steadied himself, his voice rough but determined. "My men can..."

"No," Dax cut in softly, and the softness made it worse. "Your men hold the perimeter. You live."

Donald went still, then nodded, swallowing pride like medicine. "Understood."

Dax turned toward the alley.

The next wave was coming.

And this time, they weren’t going to let anything get close enough to try to bite.