Defy the Dawn (Midnight Breed #14) - Lara Adrian Page 0,52
besides being a daywalker, she’s…like you?”
“More monster than Breed? No.” Brynne chuckled humorlessly, having heard the hope in his careful voice. “She doesn’t know anything about what I am. As far as I know, I’m the only one whose DNA recipe got fucked up. Too much Ancient in my Petri dish and not enough humanity. I should’ve never made it out of the lab. I was a mistake. Dragos should’ve put me down. He seemed to enjoy trying, once he realized what he’d created. But it’s not easy to kill a monster, even one that’s only a child. Pain subsides. Wounds heal. He made a game out of it, trying to test my limits, seeing what I could withstand while he kept me drugged and restrained. The things he did to me…” She let the thought trail off, unwilling to revisit the worst of her imprisonment and abuse in the lab. “When I grew too old and too strong for his games, he put me in confinement and left me there.”
Zael’s growl sounded more than menacing, but his touch was achingly light on her face. “How long?”
She shrugged. “Years. I didn’t find my way out until after the Order had killed him and the Minions guarding the lab died too.”
“Minions he’d made,” Zael guessed. “And when their maker died, so did they.”
“Yes. Many of Dragos’s prisoners escaped that day. I broke out of my cell and I ran. I just kept running. Eventually, I landed in London. I started a new life there.”
“What about Tavia? Was she a prisoner with you?”
Brynne shook her head. “She told me she was sent to live with a Minion handler from the time she was a child. She was lied to, told nothing of what she was. Dragos ensured her Breed metabolism was suppressed with medications and her handler made her believe she needed the treatments because she was ill.”
“Does she know what happened to you in the lab?”
“No.” God, just the thought made her cringe with humiliation. “I let her think that I was in the same program she was. It seemed easier that way. Easier for me to keep living the lie I chose, not the one Dragos forced on me.”
Zael studied her soberly. “Sooner or later, don’t you think you’ll have to tell her the truth?”
“And watch her shrink away from me in fear for herself and everyone she cares about?” Brynne couldn’t bite back the strangled sound of anguish that bubbled in the back of her throat. “She would hate me for lying to her all this time, Zael. But not before I see her pity for what Dragos made me. He would’ve done me a favor if he had just taken my head and finally ended me.”
“Don’t say that,” Zael whispered fiercely. “Don’t even think it.”
“It’s true. You saw for yourself tonight. I’m a monster, Zael.” She astonished herself by how evenly she was able to say the words to him. Words she’d never spoken before. Not to anyone. Not ever. “Every time I feed, I lose a part of who I am. And if I don’t feed, if I delay it because I can’t stand what I become, then it’s only worse when I finally do give in. If I feel threatened, or if I’m overcome with anger, it’s the same thing. I can’t control it.”
“What if you took a mate? One from the Breed.”
Her head snapped up at that. To hear him suggest it pricked at her, even if it was a reasonable question.
“Never,” she said, appalled by the very idea. “How could I expect someone to share my life when I can’t be certain I won’t end up hurting them? Or worse?”
He ran his fingers down the side of her arm, his eyes searching hers. “Wouldn’t a blood bond with a Breed male help you cope? I’m no expert on that, but I understand the bond strengthens both of the individuals it connects.”
“And if it doesn’t in my case? The blood bond didn’t make the Ancients less monstrous. It didn’t keep some of the worst of their kind from killing their mates.” She vehemently shook her head. “I tried to tell you, Zael. I’m alone for a reason. By my own choice.”
His hand came up to cup her cheek. “You didn’t hurt me tonight.”
She gave him a wry look. “Only because you hit me with a dose of Atlantean electric shock treatment before I had the chance.”