The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 735

Varan offered a cold, dead-eyed smile.

"Here’s the deal," he said. "Get on your knees. Right there, in front of the lens. Confess to murdering my brother, beg for forgiveness, and hit the floor in a ten-count kowtow."

"And then?"

"Then it's quick. One clean cut on your neck. You won't feel it." He shrugged.

"And if I don't?"

Varan's voice didn't change at all.

"Then I start with your fingers," he said. "One at a time. Then your hands. Then your arms. And I keep going until you confess. Until you beg. Until you try to kneel and find out you don't have knees anymore."

Behind him, three hundred soldiers stood and listened.

Six hundred thousand people watched at home.

Alex looked at him. He looked almost bored.

"You'll die in one move," Alex said. "Why would I kneel to a dead man?"

The whole factory went still.

Varan let out a dry laugh. "You have no idea who you're dealing with—or the nightmare waiting for you."

"Quiet," Alex said flatly. "You get one warning, and this is it. Clear out of here. I'd rather not end a whole family line over a meaningless grudge."

The smirk vanished from Varan's face. The shift went beyond anger—something colder, far more venomous, took its place.

"How dare you." His voice rose for the first time all morning. "Kill—"

He never finished the word.

...

Alex flicked his hand.

That was all. Most of the room never saw anything leave it.

A needle. Thin as a hair.

It went through the front of Varan's skull and out the back.

He didn't stagger. He didn't grab his head. His mouth stayed open on the word he was still trying to say.

Then he fell.

Nobody moved.

Three hundred men had come to watch an execution.

They had just watched their commander die before he finished a sentence.

...

Alex looked up at them.

Three hundred soldiers. Three hundred beasts. Nobody breathing.

"Your commander is dead," he said.

Nobody answered.

"I know why you came. He brought you here for his brother. Not for the Line. Not for the Dominion. For a man in a coffin." He let that sit. "That was personal. It was never yours."

Still nothing.

"So here's what happens now. If any of you want revenge, come. I won't stop you. I won't run."

He looked down at the body.

"You'll go the same way he did."

Somewhere in the ranks, a man swallowed.

"But if you came here as soldiers." Alex's voice stayed level. "If you stand on that wall so the rest of us can sleep at night. Then this was never your business."

He nodded at the doors.

"Go home. Nobody stops you."

Three hundred men looked at each other.

Nobody moved. Nobody gave an order.

There was nobody left to give one.

...

Then something came through the ranks.

The soldiers got out of its way fast.

It was a lion. But calling it a lion was like calling a house a room. Its shoulder was higher than a man's head. Its mane was grey at the edges. Old scars ran down its side in lines.

A King Lion.

Varan's bond. Twenty years on the border, side by side.

It walked to the body first.

It lowered its huge head and pushed at him, gently, the way you'd nudge someone who overslept.

Varan didn't move.

The lion lifted its head and roared.

The sound hit the walls and came back. Men flinched. Beasts backed up.

Then it charged.

Alex didn't draw anything.

He just let it out.

His aura.

There was no sound to it. Nothing to see. But every animal in that building felt it at once, and the King Lion felt it most.

The charge died halfway.

The fangs closed. The head dropped. The huge body slowed from a run to a walk to a crawl.

It came the last few steps like a housecat.

It pushed its skull against Alex's waist.

Then it rolled over and showed him its belly.

Three hundred handlers stood there with their mouths open.

Every one of them had spent his life around bonded beasts.

Not one of them had ever seen anything like that.

...

Nobody tried to stop Alex after that. They just stood there and watched him walk.

He crossed the floor. He reached the gantry bar.

He cut Wren down and caught her against his chest.

She weighed nothing. Her head rolled onto his shoulder.

"You came," she said. It came out cracked and small and not much like her at all.

"I came."

"I didn't call you." Her hand curled in his coat. "I didn't call you. I didn't—"

"I know."

...

"THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!"

A man appeared in the doorway. He didn't make any noise coming in.

"Head Tower."

"Twenty magicians. The best we have. Not the loudest — the best."

"Where are they going, sir?"

The old man turned the screen around so Jasper could see the face on it.

"The Dominion of Beasts," he said. "Find this man. Kill him."

"Yes, Head Tower."

...

At the same time, in New Avalon, capital of the Arcanum State, a very expensive man was having a very bad week.

The chairman of Ferrowgate Company sat in a glass office and watched his own share price fall for the ninth day straight.

A new product had done it. One product.

It had come out of the Regent Group.

That was the part he couldn't get past.

Six months ago, Regent had been half a step from the coffin. Everyone in New Avalon knew it. People had been circling the body waiting for it to stop twitching.

Then somebody breathed into its mouth.

"Find out who," he said. "Somebody put money into that company. I want a name."

...

Three floors up, in Regent's own building, the shouting could be heard through the door.

Beatrix Hargrove didn't stand up.

"Regent stock is ten times what it was," Cornelius said. "Ten times! That's ten times what we sold that man!"

"I told you," Beatrix said.

"You—"

"I told you Regent had a new product." She said it slowly, the way you'd talk to a child. "I told you not to sell. I told you twice, in writing. You didn't believe me."

"Beatrix—"

"The price goes up ten times, and now it's my fault." She almost smiled. "Do you hear yourself?"

Cornelius went red.

"You tell that man to give the shares back," he said. "Or something bad is going to happen."

Beatrix looked at him for a second.

Then she laughed.

"Something bad like what?" she said. "Go on. I'm waiting."

He didn't answer.

She pressed a button on her desk.

"Security. Get these people out of my office."

...

The next morning, in Willowmere, Alex's phone buzzed on the table.

The number wasn't attached to anything. No name. No location.

He opened it.

Return the Regent Group shares if you want Beatrix to stay alive.