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.
Breed number 107 knew his brother as he knew no other. A knowledge that allowed them to sense and glimpse into the emotions and into the heart of each other.
He had to inhale slowly, deeply as the scent of her blood became stronger and her screams sharper with agony, with the horrific knowledge of what was being done to her.
A vivisection. The dissection of a living body.
And he had to ignore it. He had to remain outwardly unaffected.
He had to pretend to be uncaring that his mother was being cruelly tortured for the scent Elder left on her. In her. The scent he recognized on a primal level as one that marked her as belonging to Elder. It was a scent he had never known, never smelled before.
The animal senses that were so much a part of him knew it on a primal level. That knowledge was transmitted to the man, and though it confused the man, he still knew it for what it was—a mark of belonging that pierced to the soul and refused to be denied. And in this place, in the horror of the life they were born into, it was a death sentence.
This was the pain of belonging to a Breed? The horrific nightmare of a vivisection because of a change within her body? A change that every Breed would know marked her as belonging to a Breed, if she had had the chance to live? A scent that marked her as belonging only to Elder.
This was how Elder had been caught. This was why he had been unable to rescue the woman he had bound himself to, because another Breed had detected the mark and reported it. Because one of Morningstar’s ‘get’ had betrayed the strongest of them all.
The Elder.
107 could have understood if it had been another Coyote who had turned the Coyote commander and that scent in to his masters. He could have understood it if it had been a human.
But it hadn’t been. It had been a Breed. It had been one of the Breed whelps who had been sheltered, nurtured and protected within her body until the scientists had cut it free.
It was a Breed that would die, 107 promised himself. He would kill the bastard and he would ensure that the Breed suffered.
That traitor would suffer to the very pits of hell, just as Morningstar Martinez now suffered. Just as her mate, the Coyote Elder, had suffered in his attempt to save her. Her and the Breeds she had given birth to.