Page 32 of Savage Surrender

One loses her place and laughs softly. Her sister reaches over to find the line for her. One of the children tugs at a skirt and is gathered close without irritation. When Montgomery rests a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, she leans into it.

I watch for a glance toward the guards, a held breath when Montgomery moves behind them, any private fracture in the praise. Nothing.

They trust him.

“As most of you know, I am a beta. Beta inheritance is remarkably persistent across generations, which made my own biology the most neutral starting point available.” A restrained ripple of laughter moves through the room. He waits for it to fade. “Before conception, I treated both contributors: the maternal environment and my own paternal material. The resulting children were no longer confined to the designation outcomes our biology ordinarily favored. Omega expression increased.” He opens one hand toward the women beside him. “My daughters are the proof.”

The spotlight swings toward our table.

“And now,” Montgomery says, and I feel the pressure drop before the storm, “the reason we are gathered on this particular night. Everyone, please welcome the very first. Bianca. Omega Protocol Subject One.”

A laugh tears out of Bianca. Short. Wild. Entirely involuntary.

Her hand flies over her mouth. Then her eyes move from us to the guards ringing the ballroom, waiting to see if they’ll respond to her outburst.

Montgomery extends his hand and Owen surges out of his chair.

Guards peel from the walls in unison, hands dropping toward their belts.

Bianca catches their movement and fixes him with a look that could stop the devil in his tracks, shaking her head once.

Slowly, and at enormous cost, he sits. His hands come down flat on the cloth and the silverware jumps.

She rises and smooths the blue silk over her hips. Chin high, she walks eleven steps to the stage and places her hand in her enemy’s while a hundred strangers applaud.

The ten-foot screen behind them wakes.

I immediately recognize it as footage from the refuge.

The first clip is similar to one I watched with Tristan. Bianca at the treeline in dawn light, resetting a snare with her bare hands.

The montage moves on. She practices with her bow. The drone must’ve been deadly quiet and farther away than it appears, because nothing in her posture says she knew she was being watched. In one clip, she takes down a large buck, strips it right there in the woods without help, and carries it back to camp.

I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t impressive. The men in the room are in awe of her too.

A murmur ripples throughout.

Bianca is seeing all of it beneath a spotlight. Her anxiety strikes the bond hard enough to tighten my lungs until it’s hard to breathe.

My hands close into fists beneath the table.

“Bianca and her sisters were designed for the same outcome,” Montgomery says over the images. “All three underwent developmental suppression. All three carry its benefits. The distinction lies in what followed.” He turns toward her, almost fond. “My other daughters demonstrate what the protocol produces under protected conditions. Subject One introduced an unanticipated variable through which the protocol’s full scope could be measured. When Bianca’s life moved beyond controlled conditions, observation continued. Deprivation. Injury. Isolation. Sustained physiological stress. Her survival established the limits of the work.”

The murmur sharpens.

“Consider the developing omega. From the onset of maturation, her biology devotes enormous resources to cycles, heats, and reproductive structures that may remain dormant for years. The expenditure is substantial, the benefit deferred, and the resulting physiology unnecessarily fragile. Suppress omega presentation throughout development⁠—”

He opens one hand as though releasing a bird.

“—and those resources are reinvested. Greater bone density. Stronger cardiovascular architecture. Superior tolerance for physical and hormonal stress. My other daughters demonstrate those advantages under protected conditions. Bianca proved they persist under sustained adversity. When presentation is finally permitted, each omega awakens mature and fortified, with reproductive capacity her untreated peers cannot approach. Suppression was never deprivation.”

He looks at Bianca, and the naked pride I find there is the worst thing I have seen tonight.

Applause swallows the ballroom.

I hear only the ocean in my ears and, beneath it, the ledger of her life recalculating itself. He took her girlhood as capital. Now he stands onstage collecting the dividend.

Movement near the stage draws my attention.