“Yes,” Zolkos said without hesitation. “We only obtained a small heat phase slick sample, taken while the omega was in an induced coma. Combined with her blood and saliva samples, I believe we have finally formulated a viable compound.”
“Show me,” I barked. “Now.”
He turned and led the way from the dormitory toward the science lab.
How had I missed it?
The resemblance had been there from the beginning. Ofcourse, I had noticed it. That's the reason I asked Zolkos to take the omega's samples in the first place. Her copper hair, blue eyes, and the same striking contrast that had once defined Isabel. I hadn’t ignored it. I had questioned it.
And Zolkos had given me an answer.
He assured me the similarities were nothing more than the fire shifter gene expressing itself. Just as all shifters shared the same yellow eyes, it was assumed fire shifters often carried visible markers. Red hair. Blue eyes. Physical traits tied to the gene, not to lineage.
I had accepted that explanation without hesitation.
It never occurred to me that the resemblance wasn’t genetic coincidence at all. That it wasn’t the fire shifter gene shaping her appearance, but inheritance. Blood.
Isabel’s blood.
Isabel was dead. All of them were. That was the truth I had lived with for years. There were no survivors.
And Rowan wasn’t even a shifter, not in the way her mother had been.
So I never would have imagined it.
Never would have considered that the omega standing under my authority could be Isabel’s daughter.
Isabel... she was so beautiful.
Not fragile or soft. Beautiful in a wild way that made men want to tame her.
Perhaps that same quality is what my sons found so alluring in her daughter. Perhaps that's why Cade seemed so keen to break her.
When Command selected me to breed her mother, Itried to be patient. Civil. I had made overtures, framed them as romance, as opportunity. Offered her comfort, status, protection. I had wanted her to be willing before I took what I was owed. It was easier that way.
She rejected every one of my overtures, coldly and openly, as if I were beneath her.
But Dr. Russell… what she saw in him was beyond me. He lacked strength, lacked dominance. The man was soft-spoken and unassuming, barely qualifying as an alpha, choosing a medical career over combat. Yet somehow he held her attention.
I had been eager to rut her, eager to produce elite shifter offspring.
But she was venomous toward me.
Saving all her soft affection for the good doctor.
They must have colluded together. Planned the fire to smuggle out the pup.
Isabel's death was certain. I had seen her charred body, belly still round after giving birth so recently. The rest of the bodies were unrecognizable. We had used their dog tags and IDs to identify them, classifying them as deceased.
I never would have put it together.
Yet somehow my sons had.
My traitorous offspring, determined to dismantle everything I had built. Was this how they repaid me? After everything I had given them? All they had, the training, the promotions and the careers, was because of me!
Ungrateful disappointments.
We would see how defiant they felt rotting in deserter cells, or shipped off to the colonies for a few years.
