Caught by the Mad Alpha King-Chapter 437: Hunt

The officer flinched at Dax’s tone but didn’t retreat. He held the line with the stubbornness of someone who’d already watched too many people get hurt.

"We reinforced the eastern region, Your Majesty," he said. "But the concentration... it’s accelerating."

Dax’s gaze lifted from the map, sharp and predatory. "Accelerating how?"

Rowan leaned closer, his shadow falling over the marked perimeter like a warning. His voice dropped into something ugly and practical. "Like it’s not burning itself out, but multiplying." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The officer gave one stiff nod. "Yes. The beasts are changing. They are not only aggressive but also adapting to the perimeter. The mutation that possessed them is more intelligent than anyone anticipated."

Dax’s expression didn’t change, but the air around him tightened anyway.

"Mutation," Dax repeated, tasting the word like it offended him.

The officer swallowed, then continued, because fear didn’t help anyone if it wasn’t turned into information. "They don’t behave like predators. They don’t guard territory. They don’t retreat when threatened unless forced. They push until they find a living thing. Then they try to infect it."

Rowan’s jaw flexed. "So the ’coordination’ is just... a pattern."

"It’s contagion," the officer said. "A hunger with one goal."

Dax rose in one fluid motion, sudden enough that the guards at the door straightened instinctively. He had that calm that made other people remember what an apex alpha meant.

"So it doesn’t matter who started it," Dax said softly.

The officer hesitated, then shook his head. "Not anymore."

Rowan let out a quiet breath through his nose, something between a curse and a laugh. "That’s almost worse."

"It is worse," Otto’s voice cut in from the doorway.

The door opened without a knock, and Otto stepped inside like he’d been carved out of the same urgency as the city. He was already in field gear—dark, practical, stripped of anything ceremonial. His eyes scanned the map, the officer’s face, and the subtle shift in Dax’s posture.

He didn’t ask questions that didn’t matter.

"How long until the next push?" Otto asked.

The officer didn’t pretend certainty. "We can’t predict it the way we used to. The surges were rhythmic at first—night and early morning. Now it happens whenever the density builds enough. Or when it finds fresh air. Or fresh bodies."

Otto’s mouth tightened. "So it will push again."

"Yes."

Dax stepped closer to the table, eyes sweeping the markings.

"Then we don’t wait for it to choose the time," Dax said. "We go in and cut it down before it builds."

Rowan’s gaze snapped to the officer. "You said ’infect.’ Confirmed?"

The officer’s expression hardened, a man forced into saying the worst thing out loud. "Yes. Bites and scratches aren’t just trauma. They seed. Some victims die. Some don’t."

"And the ones who don’t—" Rowan started.

"Change," Otto finished, voice flat.

Silence hit the room for a beat because the horror of it didn’t need embellishment. There was no mastermind. No enemy to negotiate with. No person to blame and kill and be done.

Just an infection that wanted to become more of itself.

Dax’s eyes lifted calmly. "Time to go."

"Time to hunt," Otto corrected, already turning toward the corridor as if his body had been waiting for permission.

Dax didn’t argue the word this time. He simply turned to the Alamina officer.

"Your men hold the perimeter," Dax said, voice controlled. "They do not chase beyond the borders. They do not take risks to look brave. Their job is to keep the living from becoming more of that."

The officer’s jaw worked, pride and frustration wrestling with reality, and then he nodded. "Understood, Your Majesty."

Dax’s gaze flicked to Rowan. "With me."

Rowan didn’t answer. He was already moving.

They cut through the palace corridors, the city’s tension pressing closer the nearer they got to the outer exits. Outside, the air hit differently - thick with that sweet-sour taint that didn’t smell like a normal alpha at all. It smelled wrong. Chemical. Overripe. Like something had learned the shape of dominance without the soul behind it.

The outer districts were a ghost town. Doors barred. Windows shuttered. Streets cleared so thoroughly they looked staged.

Then came the sound.

A howl that sounded like appetite.

Otto slowed by instinct. "There."

They noticed them as they entered a large plaza filled with debris, overturned cars, and broken barricades.

Three.

Humanoid only in silhouette. Skin stretched over unnatural muscle. Jaws too wide. Teeth too fine. Their eyes didn’t look intelligent. They looked hungry.

They all turned their attention to the new scent in the air: living bodies.

The largest opened its mouth and bellowed, and the pressure was released - raw dominance without nuance, a psychic shove designed to freeze prey.

One of the Alamina guards behind them staggered, knees bending.

"Hold back," Rowan snapped, voice sharp enough to cut through the haze.

Otto stepped forward and met the wave with his own presence. The beast’s pressure splintered against it like water against stone.

It shrieked again, frustrated, and lunged.

Dax didn’t flinch.

"Otto," Dax said, calm, "left one."

Otto moved like violence wearing discipline. He closed the distance in a few strides and met the smaller beast head-on. It swiped; Otto caught the wrist, twisted, and there was a wet crack. He didn’t stop. He drove forward, slammed it down, and finished it with brutal efficiency before it could bite or seed.

The other two surged.

Rowan fired controlled shots, not for the spectacle of death, but for function: joints, tendons, glands, or anything that limited movement and output. The goal wasn’t winning, but containment and erasure.

Dax stepped in only when needed.

One clean motion. A compact injector. A chemical inhibitor that enters the creature’s system and disables the pheromone distortion, much like cutting a wire. The beast collapsed hard, twitching, jaws snapping uselessly.

The final beast - larger and stronger - thrashed and roared, claws scraping stone, attempting to force its way through sheer aggression.

Otto hit it from one side like a battering ram. Rowan kept it pinned in place with disciplined fire.

Dax watched for a gap and striked again.