She kicked, fought to trip her guards’ and swore vengeance.
To no avail.
“Bastards!” she shrieked. “They’ll come for you. My father and his father and those who have gone before. They will visit you in the dead of night and your blood will flow.” Her voice ragged and savage, 107 had never heard such a sound from any creature’s throat, even those of the Breeds tortured on a regular basis.
His nostrils flared as her scent reach him.
From the corner of his eye he could glimpse her as they strapped her down to the autopsy table in the center of the operating room. Once they inserted the IV and the paralytic’s slow drip reached her system, then she would be unable to move, unable to fight anything they did.
It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect. Her body went slack, and as she wept in pain and horror, the lab techs slowly released the straps holding her to the table.
Breed number 107 couldn’t see their eyes, but he caught a hint of human fear and compassion, of silent horror and desperation that didn’t belong to Morningstar.
It was the first time she had been injected with the paralyzing drug that it wasn’t to take a child from her body. The first time she had been placed on a table in the center of that room that she wasn’t to be inseminated.
She was to die and she knew it.
Her children knew it.
Breed number 107 forced himself to close his eyes once again. To concentrate on the scents of the humans and the Coyotes who were a part of this demonic practice.
Because one day he would be free, he vowed. One day, he would find them, each of them, and he would ensure they paid for the hell they created within these labs.
Until then, he could do nothing but force back the emotions churning, burning, ripping through his soul. He could do nothing but lock them away, place them so deep inside his spirit that there was no chance they would ever surface again.
His chest was tight as he fought to contain them. His eyes were damp. Breeds didn’t cry. They didn’t feel sorrow.
Or so they were taught.
They weren’t named; they weren’t cuddled, cherished or loved.
They didn’t go outside to play as young, nor were they allowed sleepovers as human children were.
Because they weren’t human.
They were animals that walked on two legs and who dressed, spoke and acted like humans.
But they weren’t human.
The knowledge that they weren’t human, that they weren’t born they were created, was one of their first memories. One of the first lessons they were taught.
“Nothing will change your deaths.” His mother’s wails were filled with tears. And fear. “Nothing can save you!”
And nothing could save his mother.
The scientists wouldn’t be punished. There were no laws to protect the Breeds or the helpless women kidnapped to give birth to them. There would be no justice for the creations brought to life within these steel walls. Or those sent to their deaths on the table beyond.
Panic filled Morningstar’s screams as the cold steel of the scalpel touched her flesh.
It was a sound of horror, of hysteria.
Her scent became stronger. He recognized the unique, fresh fragrance, mixed with the dark fear, and he knew he would always remember it as that of the only creature that had ever shown him kindness.
There was another smell mixing with it, though.
Elder’s scent was there and a scent of something deeper, stronger, one he had always associated with a deep, unnamed emotion. An emotion he had only scented when shared between two humans. Humans who carried a bond he had never understood.
It was a scent he had only caught a wisp of when taken out on missions in the past year. One he had come to associate with what the soldiers had sneeringly called love. A mix of lust and summer warmth, of comfort and contentment overlapped with a hint of adrenaline and excitement. And when mixed together, it was a fragrance that had called so strongly to him that it had been all he could do to maintain his composure.
And now it had regret welling inside him as he fought to hold back his rage.
Pushing it back, pushing it down took every ounce of strength he possessed. His brother, 108, was feeling the same rage, forcing back his own fury.
No reaction.
Those who existed within this lab had watched far too many littermates die from the inability to hold back their fury, their pain, the fact that they knew emotion and couldn’t hide it. That they knew honor and refused to ignore it.
They weren’t allowed to pretend to be human. Only humans had emotions and they were animals. Those with the arrogance to believe they could be human too were killed instantly.
Breeds weren’t allowed emotion, honor, loyalty to anything or anyone outside their creators, and they sure as hell were not allowed to form any bonds with each other or their dams. Those bonds, any bonds, were the basis for instant death.
“Please, God, kill me now . . . !”
She was begging now.
His mother. Her name was Morningstar and she was the daughter of a Navajo medicine man.
On his last mission the week before, 107 had mailed her father pictures, a map, a letter requesting his help, asking that he come and save the woman he had known as his daughter.
No one had arrived.
And now Morningstar was dying.
He didn’t flinch as the sound of her howls became sharper, filled with a horrendous agony, and the scent of her blood and horror began to fill the room.
His gaze slid to that of his brother, 108.
His twin.
They shared another bond as well that so far they had not revealed to the soldiers, scientists or other Breeds they shared the cells with. A bond and a knowledge of each other that they could be killed for, if it were ever discovered. They shared that bond with their mother as well, and he knew 108 was sharing her agony as well.