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Zev gave a strangled laugh. "I\'m supposed to be the one not scaring you!" he whispered, and his eyes looked so pained, so tortured, she couldn\'t think of anything to do except kiss him and show him how much she still loved him.

Their lips met and both of them sucked in a breath. But Sasha was tense. Dunken was watching…

Sasha pulled back to meet his eyes. "Whatever it is, we\'ll face it together. Tell me."

Zev blew out a long breath and shook his head. But then he spoke the words as if they pained him to say.

"I think they\'re killing all the females—but not meaning to. I think they thought if they controlled their minds, the wasting away wouldn\'t happen. But I think they\'ve just sped up the process. I think… I think their panic about needing to breed more and have more offspring wasn\'t faked. I think they\'ve accidentally killed the females off and they don\'t want to admit it. I think they\'re fooling Xar—or maybe controlling him, who knows. But that first female? She was a test and it failed. I think they\'d already mated her and sent her back here to have the pregnancy to see if it would work. But it didn\'t. She died, so her mate died. So they had to find another plan—but whatever the plan is… it\'s not working.

"You have to understand," Zev said, his teeth clenched like he was stopping them from chattering. "When they brought the females to me, every single one consented. They were attracted to me. They never… there was never… I never forced anyone except myself!" he spat.

Dunken\'s brows rose higher. Sasha clung to him.

Zev made a strange noise in his throat, then let go of Sasha to claw both hands into his hair and blow out a deep breath.

"They were all sick. I didn\'t want to see it for the first year, but after that it was impossible to ignore. Even my wolf was alarmed. But what could I do? There was something wrong, but they wanted to have babies. I think… I think maybe they got told as soon as they got pregnant they could come back here. So they went along with it."

Sasha\'s mouth dropped open at the horror of what he was describing, but his eyes pleaded with her to understand. "The Team told me that the females were volunteers—and whenever I asked any of them, they always said they wanted it. Said that having a baby was the biggest desire of their lives. Then the Team would tell me that I was helping them, and I believed them. I was so stupid!" he snarled. "I believed them for so long and I was so stupid to believe anything that came out of their fucking mouths!"

*****

~ ZEV ~

Sasha didn\'t get it. Not really. She wasn\'t Chimera. She couldn\'t. It wasn\'t her fault. But whatever she did understand horrified her. She gaped at him, her eyes wide and terrified.

But it was Dunken that stalked over to stand at Zev\'s feet and stare down at him, his hands clenched to fists. "You think… you think the humans are trying to breed them. And it\'s killing them?"

He didn\'t know another way to do it, so he showed his friend the images from his mind. Just flashes. Dunken\'s eyes glazed as Zev buried his face in his hands and let the scene flicker through his head—and into Dunken\'s.

A small, pale Chimera, hair near-white and eyes deeply blue. Her cheeks had high, pink spots and her eyes were slightly glazed. But her speech was clear and she was mature, if young looking for her age.

Zev had thoughtlessly walked into the breeding arena as himself, not the wolf like he had last time—a quick, perfunctory joining that made him throw up afterward—so this time she recognized him. And she wept with happiness. She\'d been so grateful. So grateful.

"You\'re alive!" she gasped and ran to throw herself into his chest. It was the first time he\'d held another Chimera in over a year, and something inside him broke open. As they shared scents he began to shake.

"You\'re back," he said quietly, frustrated with himself that he couldn\'t remember her name.

She looked up at him with shining eyes—so happy—and put a hand to his face. "It didn\'t work last time, but I don\'t mind," she breathed, rubbing herself against him, encouraging him to display.

But there was something off about all of it. Something… feverish in her eyes. Her joy at seeing him had an edge to it—a desperation that he didn\'t understand.

He\'d shifted into his wolf just to separate himself from her hands—she followed him a heartbeat later, her wolf near-white with blue eyes, and her once-beautiful coat dull and thin.

She whined and flashed her tail at him.

He wanted to say no. He always wanted to say no—but Nick had been clear. If he didn\'t carry the program forward, it would be ended by those in the highest realms of power. The Chimera would be killed. Executed. And Sasha…

They had hands on Sasha, ways to hurt her whether she knew it or not.

So he let instinct take over. Let his wolf body respond to the female\'s scent, and her increasing desperation.

Wrong. Wrong. It was all wrong. But when he looked up to the mirrored glass above them where he knew Nick and many of the others stood, watching, he knew there was no other choice.

Sickened and shaking, even inside his wolf, as he mounted her, he turned elsewhere in his mind.

This was not right. It was not happening. He was not there.

But his body knew.

His body knew…