The Breed Read Online Free PDF Page A

fingers. “They have oval eyes like a
cat’s—usually a metallic color like gold or silver or copper. They
have retractable claws instead of fingernails. Oh—and all of them
have a Breed mark located right…here.” Standing, he unbuckled his
belt and began to push down his tailored slacks.
    “Lukas, what are you doing? Stop!” I
implored, really alarmed now.
    He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Don’t
worry, Lexie, I’m not going to show you my cock. Not yet, anyway.
Just look here.” He lowered his pants slightly and raised his crisp
white shirt, giving me a glimpse of his corded abdomen. There, just
above the neatly clipped edge of his pubic hair, I saw a small
white scar.
    I sucked in my breath before I could stop
myself. “My God, I—” I stopped myself abruptly but Lukas already
knew what I was going to say.
    “You’ve got one too, don’t you? Right there .” He nodded at my lower abdomen.
    I placed a hand over my belly protectively.
“What does it mean?”
    “The Breed mark—the mark each Breeder child
is born with that identifies him or her as a member of a specific
tribe—the same mark which tells who their mate is destined to be—is
gone. Surgically removed from both of us.” Lukas pulled up his
pants and re-tucked his shirt before sitting back down.
    I stared at him blankly. “So you’re
saying…?”
    “That we’re adopted. Both of us. And both of
us, my dear little sister, are of the Breed.”

Chapter Four
     
    I couldn’t believe it. I just sat there and
stared at him for a good two minutes. Lukas stared mutely back and
as I looked into his coal black eyes I realized something.
    “You’re wrong,” I said triumphantly, feeling
a deep sense of relief. “We can’t be, Breeders. You just got
finished saying that all Breeders have metallic colored eyes.”
    “Surgically and permanently dyed,” he
answered promptly. “And since the only color that will cover such a
bright metallic is black, that’s what we both got. By the way, you
may remember, sister dear, that Mom and Dad both had blue
eyes.”
    “But…but…” My mind scrambled for reasons it
couldn’t be true. “The claws—you said they had retractable
claws.”
    “Gene therapy. It’s horribly expensive but
then, money never was an object when Mom wanted something, was it?
And just about the time she got us, she wanted some
children—badly.”
    “But why?” I said desperately. “Why
wouldn’t dad just…just buy her a human baby on the black
market?”
    He smirked. “Not very up on your history, are
you? Did you forget that around the time you were ‘born’ the whole
planet was going through a fertility crisis? Remember the B
virus?”
    I realized he was right. The B virus—or
Barren virus as it came to be called—had been created in a lab
somewhere in China to control their burgeoning population
explosion. It was supposed to be tailored to only affect people of
Asian ancestry. But then the virus had gotten out of control. It
swept the planet, mutating so fast it was impossible to check,
infecting every culture and race. In a matter of years the Earth
was down to a birth rate of almost zero and it was looking like
humans might go the way of the dinosaurs.
    Luckily a cure was found at the eleventh hour
but Lukas was right—at the time genuine, viable human babies had
been incredibly hard to come by. Even if you were the owner of a
multi-billion dollar company as Dad had been.
    I looked up at Lukas, feeling dazed. “So
we’re saying we’re adopted? That we’re not really related at
all?”
    “Adopted? Hell, we were stolen ,” Lukas
growled softly. “Snatched away from our true parents and raised
here on Earth. ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ changed everything they could but
they still couldn’t quite make us fit in.”
    I thought of how I’d never felt quite right
around other girls. About how Sylvia, who was as cold and logical
as I was, was my only real friend. Could it really be? Could what
Lukas was