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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.
The vow marked his soul as the screams became even more tortured, as they knifed into his soul and nearly broke his control.
His guts tightened as he pushed back all emotion. It was the only way to hide it. The only way to hide the rage.
The muscles of his thighs were steel hard, his back clenched and unclenched painfully. He couldn’t let anyone know the agony tearing through him. An agony that couldn’t compare to his mother’s. His screams could never match hers in pain, agony and defeat.
And the only way to save his brother, to ensure 108 didn’t suffer for his mistake of showing his rage, was to bury it. To bury it so deep inside his soul that it wouldn’t exist, so that he could function amid it.
To wipe away that final vein of grief, loyalty and the need to call some emotion his own, a need to feel and to howl in rage.
All that remained now was the need to be free, a need to taste, touch and hold freedom. To know justice, to understand the laws he followed.
The need to have a name.
He sat still and silent, showing none of the rage, the agony or the slow burial of the hungers that had begun to ride him in the past year.
All that remained was that need for freedom, that hunger for justice and the overpowering, enraged hunger for vengeance.
He wanted rules, a law to follow, and in that moment he realized there was nothing, no one, he could follow but himself.
He needed justice, but if he didn’t take it himself, then he would never know it, never taste or feel it.
He would become his own law.
He would become his own justice.
And in that moment, 107 found a name.
