"What you are, Tavia, is Breed. Human folklore would call us vampires, but those stories exaggerate the truth. Like me, like the rest of the Breed, you are a living, breathing, very powerful being. Those of our kind live for a long time, centuries at least. Some of us have lived for more than a thousand years. And yes, we subsist by drinking human blood from an open vein."
"No," she interjected. "That's not right. Not me. For twenty-seven years, I've eaten normal food. I drink normal things, like any other human being. I've never even tasted a drop of blood, let alone drank it from someone's vein. Until ..."
He watched her face go a little red. "Until you fed from me earlier today. And that was after your body had a chance to purge some of the drugs that were keeping the part of you that isn't human - the part of you that's Breed - on some kind of medically induced leash."
"I'm not like you. I can't be." She moved away from him, taking several paces across the room and giving him her back. "I don't want to be part of this ... this nightmare."
"It's reality, Tavia." He walked up behind her and brought his hands down lightly on her shoulders. She didn't resist when he turned her around to face him. "You don't have the choice to be part of this or not. Like it or not, you're living it now."
"Well, I don't like it." He could see her struggling to accept all that she was hearing. Her bright green eyes were still moist from unshed tears, but not a single one fell. She radiated a steely strength, chin held rigid and high, staring at him with a stubborn, unbreakable look that was more Breed than she would care to admit. "I don't like it at all, but if this is the truth, then I'm not going to run from it."
He nodded once, acknowledgment of her courage. "I won't lie to you. That much I can promise."
He didn't tell her there was little else of worth he had to give. If she spent any more time near him, she'd figure that out soon enough on her own.
"Tell me about Dragos." Her gaze was unflinching as it held his. "At the police station that night, you said Senator Clarence belonged to him. That Dragos owned him."
"Yes," Chase said. "The senator was one of Dragos's Minions. The cop in your hotel suite was also Minion. As were your aunt and doctor. They all belonged to Dragos. We can't be sure how many more mind slaves he has under his command. After all the years he's been at it, there could be thousands."
Tavia frowned. "So, where do I fit into this? Aunt Sarah said he owns me too. That he's owned me from the beginning - that's how she phrased it. I'm not one of his Minions."
"No," Chase said. "But based on what you are, there's no question that Dragos is involved. Until you, Tavia, there has never been a female Breed. Not one, not ever. Our race began thousands of years ago, when a ship carrying a group of biologically advanced otherworlders crash-landed on this planet. They killed and they raped, and sometimes they left certain females - genetically unique females known as Breedmates - pregnant with their young."
He couldn't read her expression now. It seemed one part quiet understanding, one part bald skepticism. "You're telling me that aliens and humans mated thousands of years ago and produced vampire babies?" She scoffed. "That's ridiculous. Do you know how crazy that makes you sound?"
"You should know by now that I'm not crazy." When she tried to look away from him, he steered her gaze back with his fingertips under her stubborn chin. He told her he wouldn't lie to her, so he decided to give her the unvarnished truth. "Our Ancient forefathers were not of this world, that's true. They were blood-drinking warrior savages who slaughtered entire civilizations at a time. The Ancients are all dead now, but until just a few weeks ago, one remained. Dragos kept him contained in his labs for decades, until the Ancient escaped to Alaska and the Order eventually killed him. But until then, Dragos used this captive Ancient for various genetic experimentations and to create an army of Breed assassins, the most powerful army this planet will ever know. If Dragos decides to unleash them, there's no telling how much havoc he can wreak."
"And me?" Tavia asked now. "I don't understand what any of this has to do with me." "Don't you?" Chase paused, letting her sharp mind consider the possibilities.
"Dragos created me," she said after a moment. "I was one of his genetic experiments."
Chase's answering nod was grim. "There's no other way to explain the fact that you exist, Tavia. You're obviously Breed, but you're female - something we've never seen. And you can walk in daylight without burning. That's been an impossibility for our kind too. Until now. Until you."
"So, if I was fathered by a creature in Dragos's laboratory, what about my mother?"
"A Breedmate, I'm sure," Chase said. "Dragos kept dozens imprisoned in his labs over decades of time. If I'm right, you probably have a small red birthmark somewhere on your body. It would be in the shape of a teardrop and crescent moon."
Tavia stared at him in stunned silence. "On my lower back. I've always believed it was just part of my scars. Nothing I believed before was true, was it? It was all lies." She backed away, clutching her arms over her midsection as though she might be sick. She wheeled a stricken look on him, her green eyes throwing off amber sparks. "Why would he do this to me? What could Dragos possibly stand to gain by creating me like some kind of Frankenstein's monster?" "You're not a monster," Chase assured her.
"I'm a f**king abomination!" she cried. The glyphs peeking over the edge of her high- collared sweater were alive with color and churning from one dark hue to another in her mounting distress. The sharp points of her fangs were just visible beneath the dusky edge of her upper lip.