The rumor about a child was a seed. It grew thorns overnight.
By morning, the political gossip sites were lush with speculation. "Omega Priorities: Family or Policy?" "Sterling Heir Looms Over Committee Work." The insinuation was a slow poison: She will be distracted. She will step down. Her ambition is conditional.
Elara read the headlines over coffee in the D.C. hotel suite. Her hand was steady. Her scent was flint.
"They want to reduce me to my biology," she said, her voice flat. "To make my womb a topic of public debate. It's the oldest trick in the book."
Victor stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. He could feel the rage simmering under her skin. It matched his own. "We cut the story off. Not by denying it. By making it irrelevant."
"How?"
"We give them a bigger story."
He had already been working. While she slept, he had Marcus compile a list. Not of enemies. Of potential allies. Young, progressive politicians, mostly Betas and a few unconventional Alphas and Omegas, who had run on platforms of reform. Many were struggling, outspent by old-guard backing.
"The Sterling-Whitethorn Public Service Fellowship," Victor said, pulling up the proposal on his tablet. "Full funding for five exceptional candidates in the next election cycle. A mentorship program. A publicly announced, transparent political action committee. We don't hide our influence. We brand it."
Elara scanned the list. Her eyes lit on a name. "Maya Rios. She's running for the state house in the district next to the Warrens. She's a Beta. A community lawyer. She's brilliant and she's losing by twenty points because the old money is flooding her opponent's campaign."
"Then she's our first fellow," Victor said.
"It's a declaration of war. On the entire political funding system."
"Good."
They launched it at noon. Not with a press release. With a speech.
They chose the steps of the Sterling-Whitethorn Initiative site. The steel frame rose behind them, a symbol of tangible progress. The press, still hungry from the hearing, flocked there.
Elara stood at the microphone alone. Victor watched from the side, a silent pillar of support.
"Yesterday, I was asked about my family planning in a public forum," she began, her voice clear and carrying. "Today, I am here to talk about a different kind of family. The family of this city. The family that needs jobs, dignity, and representation."
She paused, letting the words hang.
"For too long, the future of Neo-Aethelburg has been shaped in closed rooms by the same few dynasties. That ends now. Today, the Sterling-Whitethorn Foundation is launching the Public Service Fellowship. We will find, fund, and mentor the next generation of leaders. Leaders who look like the people they serve. Who come from the communities they fight for."
She announced Maya Rios as the first fellow. She outlined the transparent funding. The ethics pledge. It was a direct challenge to the shadowy consortiums that had backed Vance and Davison.
The questions came fast.
"Isn't this just you buying political influence?"
"How is this different from what Alexander Vance did?"
"Is this a response to the Senate committee?"
Elara handled each one. "Influence is not inherently corrupt. Secrecy is. Our books will be open. Our goals are public. We are not buying votes. We are funding voices that have been silenced."
It was a masterstroke. It changed the conversation. The headlines the next morning were different: "WHITETHORN FIGHTS BACK WITH 'FELLOWSHIP' FOR NEW BLOOD." The child rumor was buried on page six.
But the war wasn't won. It had just shifted to a new, more complex battlefield.
The first counter-punch came from the opposition. Maya Rios's opponent, an Alpha incumbent named Gerald Pratt, held a press conference.
"This is coastal elitism at its worst," he thundered. "A billionaire Alpha and his Omega mate, playing puppet masters. They want to import their radical values into our district. I stand for traditional, local values."
It was a potent message. Simple. Fear-based.
Victor and Elara watched the clip in the penthouse that evening.
"He's making it about us," Elara said. "Not about policy. About the scary, powerful outsiders."
"Then we make it local," Victor replied. He called Jax. "I need a deep background on Gerald Pratt. Every property deal. Every vote for a developer. Every donation from a liquor license applicant. I want his 'local values' quantified."
The dossier arrived by morning. Pratt was, predictably, corrupt. He had voted for zoning changes that benefited a developer who was also his brother-in-law. He had taken "consulting fees" from a waste management company with a terrible environmental record.
It was standard, grubby politics. And it was ammunition.
But Elara didn't want to just fire it. "If we leak this, we're just playing the same dirty game. We become the shadowy manipulators."
"So what's the play?" Victor asked.
"We give it to Maya. And we teach her how to use it. Not as a bomb. As a tool."
They invited Maya Rios to the penthouse. She was in her thirties, sharp-eyed, with a tired but determined energy. She smelled of ink, coffee, and unwavering resolve—a true Beta's pragmatic scent.
Elara handed her the dossier. "This is your opponent's record. Not rumors. Public records, poorly hidden."
Maya flipped through it, her lips pressed thin. "This is gold. But if I just attack with it, I look like a negative campaigner. A puppet using your research."
"So don't attack," Elara said. "Build. Use each point of his corruption to present your own, better policy. When he voted for the polluting waste company, what would you have voted for? Lay out the clean alternative. Make it a choice between his backroom deals and your public vision."
It was a more sophisticated strategy. It required discipline. Maya understood instantly.
"You're not just funding me," she said, looking between them. "You're trying to change how the game is played."
"The game is broken," Victor stated. "We're providing new rules."
Maya left, armed with information and strategy. The next week, her campaign transformed. She was no longer just the underdog. She was the reformer with a plan.
Pratt, feeling the pressure, made a mistake. He went back to the well. At a town hall, he sneered, "My opponent is funded by the Sterling-Whitethorn machine. She answers to them, not to you."
A reporter asked, "Do you have evidence Ms. Rios's policies are dictated by her donors?"
Pratt, flustered, shot back, "Look at who she is! A Beta, funded by an Omega with radical ideas about designation roles! It's unnatural!"
The room went quiet. The comment, caught on camera, wasn't just political. It was deeply prejudiced. It insulted Betas, Omegas, and implied their bond was deviant.
It was the opening.
Maya didn't need the dossier for this. She stood before the cameras the next day, calm and fierce.
"My opponent has shown you who he is. He believes your value is determined by your designation. He believes partnership across designations is 'unnatural.' I believe in a district where what you do matters more than what you are. I am proud to be a Beta. I am proud to be supported by people who believe in that future. The question isn't who funds me. It's who I fight for. And I will always fight for you."
The clip went viral. Pratt's polling numbers began a slow, steady collapse.
They were winning. But the effort was all-consuming. The fellowship, managing the fallout from the hearing, defending their existing empire—it was a three-front war of attention.
Victor felt the strain in the bond. A constant, low-grade tension. They were together, but they were ships passing in the night, coordinating battles.
He found Elara one night in her home office, asleep at her desk, her head on a spreadsheet of fellowship applicants.
He didn't wake her. He simply lifted her into his arms. She stirred, murmuring, "I just need to finish the prioritization…"
"Sleep," he commanded softly.
He carried her to bed. She curled into his side, her scent softening into weary jasmine. He held her, watching the city lights, feeling the bond slowly settle from a hum of anxiety to a rhythm of rest.
This was the cost of building a new world. It left no room for the quiet they had fought for.
The election for Maya Rios's district was in two weeks. They poured everything into the final push. Victor hosted a virtual fundraiser from Sterling Tower, leveraging his corporate network. Elara walked the district with Maya, door-knocking, her security detail a discreet shadow.
Election night, they gathered in the penthouse. Just the two of them. Maya was at her own campaign headquarters.
The results trickled in. It was closer than the polls predicted. Pratt's old-guard machine was fighting hard.
At 11 PM, the decisive precincts came in. The Warrens. The working-class neighborhoods. They broke for Maya in a landslide.
The screen flashed: RIOS DEFEATS PRATT.
A victory. Clean. Public. A validation of their new strategy.
Elara let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for months. She leaned into Victor. "It worked."
"One battle," he said, but he felt the same fierce satisfaction. They had planted a flag.
His phone buzzed. It was Jax.
"We have a problem." Jax's voice was grave. "Pratt isn't conceding. He's giving a speech. Tune in."
Victor switched the screen. Gerald Pratt, red-faced and sweating, stood before his supporters.
"This isn't over!" he shouted. "We have evidence of irregularities! Of outside interference! This is a coup by the Sterling-Whitethorn machine, and we will not stand for it! We are filing suits! We are demanding state and federal investigations!"
It was the last, desperate gasp of a cornered animal. But dangerous.
"He'll tie the election up in courts for months," Elara said, the joy draining from her face. "He'll smear the victory. He'll call everything into question."
Victor watched the screen, his mind cold and clear. Pratt wasn't just a sore loser. He was a weapon being aimed by the remnants of the Old Guard. A way to keep them mired in conflict, to drain their resources and credibility.
The war wasn't about money or vaults anymore. It was about legitimacy. About who got to define reality.
He looked at Elara. He saw the exhaustion, the defiance, the unwavering fire.
They had won the election. Now they had to win the aftermath.
And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that this was only the beginning. The political front was open, and it was infinitely muddier than a boardroom or a Swiss bank.
He pulled her closer. The bond thrummed with shared resolve.
"Let him file his suits," Victor said, his voice low. "We'll bury him in motions. We'll countersue for defamation. We'll make his legal fight so expensive and public, he'll wish he'd just conceded."
He kissed her temple.
"We changed the game. Now we have to play it all the way to the end."