He gave a nod.
She picked up the delicate metal, turning it around, spotting iron underneath the silver and gold lines.
“The chain is unbreakable.” Jackson stood, but didn’t interfere.
“I don’t need to break it.” She twisted the metal, drawing closer for a better view when her nose filled with the smell of woods. Wild. Untamed. Tempting her to touch and take. The energy around her core sputtered. The animals stretched as if awakening, urging her to get closer to all that warmth.
She pulled back, a flush of heat stinging her cheeks. God, what was she thinking? Taggert was under her protection. She coaxed out a current, relieved when the animals seem to roll over and go back to sleep as she locked the cage door holding them back.
When the men didn’t appear to notice, she released a painful breath. In the time she’d spent in Jackson and Taggert’s company, her animals had reacted more times than they had in the last five months. Their waking frightened her. She couldn’t allow that. Shifting to an animal form would kill her.
She cleared her throat, uncertain how to broach the subject, uncertain if she really wanted to know the answers. But to help Taggert, she took the plunge.
“Tell me what you’ve learned about me since you’ve been here.” She had to be more cautious about using her power around them. Before she jumped into the fire so to speak, she needed to learn how much they knew. She had to ensure her secrets remained safe.
Taggert’s gaze caressed her face. He didn’t hesitate to answer. “You’re not human.”
She jerked a little at the charge, surprised by the bite of pain. As if he sensed her retreat, he hurried to continue.
“You’re not a shifter, and you’re not a vampire. You have the strength of a human, but you threw someone across the room without breaking a sweat.” A smile came and went. “You always wear gloves. You tried and nearly succeeded to eliminate your scent, unheard of for anyone, normal or not. You have no last name.”
“My name is Raven.” Nothing more existed for her except a few vague memories of when she’d been sold to the labs; the records had been destroyed before she ever laid eyes on them. Everyone who’d known about her past had long since been eliminated. He hesitated, and a chill encased her heart. There was more. “And?”
“You healed me.” His breath brushed her cheek, and she pulled away, uncomfortable at the attention, and cursing the small part of her that relished it. “You called the wolf in me. I felt him.”
Her brows knitted at the awe in his voice. “Healers and pack leaders can call your wolf. I don’t understand.”
“Myths.” Jackson broke into the conversation with one word guaranteed to capture her attention.
Raven shook her head. “But I’ve read the books. I’ve talked to people who told me of the old tales.”
“Wives tales. Sure, a powerful enough alpha can call the wolf to the surface, but there are no such thing as healers.”
“That’s not possible.” Shaken at the bald truth Jackson so casually offered, Raven retreated, perched at the edge of the bed, frantically shoring up the walls between them that somehow had thinned when she hadn’t been paying attention.
“They say every few generations a healer is born, but the last hundred years or so, no one has been found. They’re myths.” Jackson leaned against the wall, a stillness to him that warned he was watching her closely. Too closely.
Hunting.
“But Taggert said he was born with a special gift.”
Jackson nodded. “Some believe they’re the offspring of those people.”
“But you can’t have it both ways. They’re either a myth or they’re real.”
“It’s an old legend. I believe Taggert’s gift is a genetic mutation. An adaptation. He can’t shift, so he’s given an extra sense of smell for protection. It happens to the real old shifters as well sometimes. They adapt to their surroundings, learn a little something extra to help them survive. It’s rare for the young ones.”
If true, that meant she revealed more of herself than she’d intended. She felt their gazes on her, probing, questioning. The lab had believed those old tales and trained her in accordance to them, demanded the impossible if she wanted to save herself and others the pain of failure. A wild urge to laugh bubbled up in her throat. After everything she’d endured, it had all been a lie.
Jackson sat at the opposite edge of the bed, Taggert lying between them, a certain gleam in his expression that didn’t bode well for her. “What do you say we play a little game of tit for tat?”