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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.
