Page 104 of Labor of Love

“We’d have five or eight breedables and only one of them would be male,” Senn says. “To our numbers, we’d add one to three female breeders.”

“Good. Last question before we break. How does this difference make you feel? When you look around and know thatour breedable population is so small, that we’re on the brink of losing it entirely—how does that make you feel?”

My question is met with silence. My breeders stare at their breedable classmates, troubled. Sad.

“Scared,” Lum says. “We could lose them entirely if we don’t find a way to let them conceive more easily. That’s terrifying.”

The entire class nods their heads.

It is terrifying. I could be one of the last generations of breedable males, and my body is part of the problem.

3

IRI

Ireally love my class. I love teaching. I love talking about the history of our species and how we were born—or created, depending on how you look at it—out of a test tube, and that we overrode what had once been.

Some things in the world haven’t changed. All of history talks about the trafficking of omegas. It was rampant, violent, and absolutely deplorable. It became even scarier at its height when they began trafficking genetically altered betas, thetas, and drugged alphas.

History was—and is still—terrifying.

But history isn’t lost. The breeders aren’t trafficked, to my knowledge, but the breedables are. It’s a pandemic that’s running out of control. There’s a prediction that if it’s not gotten under control, in as little as fifteen years, which is within my lifetime, there will be more breedables on the black market for purchase than there are breedables born into the world.

On the one hand, it was people in these darker underbellies of society that created the theta, and because of them, their entire species was made extinct within a couple hundred years as the theta gene took over.

Maybe these underbellies will unlock the key to easier male breedable conception.

Or maybe they’ll accidentally create another new species that will send our species to extinction, just like our ancient ancestors before us. It’s terrifying to think about.

I step outside and immediately see Luken waiting for me. My heart flutters as I head for him. He’s had this effect on me since the moment our eyes met as children. I knew he was mine. Everything inside me knew he was mine.

Everything except my goddamn uterus or whatever.

He wraps me in his arms, and my feet leave the ground. I sigh, closing my eyes to breathe him in. I love his deep, earthy scent and the way it floods my system. Everything in me relaxes. Everything saysmine.

“Have you a good day, precious?” Luken asks.

I nod. He shifts me and swings my legs up, catching his arm under my knees. I laugh, keeping a tight grip on him. He’d never drop me, but that feeling ofmaybe I’m going to fallstill makes me grip him as if I’m going to.

Luken turns and starts down the sidewalk with me in his arms. I press my forehead to the side of his face and watch the people pass by. I love how… peaceful Alyra is. It smells like flowers, and there are smiles everywhere.

I’ve seen pictures of other cities, and they evenlookscary. There’s less greenery there, and even through pictures, I can feel how they’re less happy. There are always people looking over their shoulders.

The streets are filled almost exclusively with breeders because being a breedable means you’re a target. The thought never ceases to make me shiver.

Right here, with Luken, I’m happy and safe.

If I can conceive his baby, I can keep him. It’s a sick feeling that grows daily. Made worse every morning when that test isnegative. I can’t live a life without him. I can’t. I won’t. But what does that mean? Alyra and the family cities are created for the breeding program. A very important program that I want to contribute to.

But the thought of a life with someone else?

I close my eyes and pretend it’s not a thing. If we’d focused on creating a pack, it might be different right now. Maybe there would be someone within the pack that I’m genetically breedable with. Then it wouldn’t matter.

That’s not what we did, though. We’ve talked about a pack a lot. It’s something we both want. But… I don’t know. I guess maybe we wanted this time alone first. A pack would come.

Though maybe now it’s too late.

“We can stop at the flower shop on the way home and bring your parents some flowers,” Luken says.

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