“How long has it been this way?”
Raven looked away, wishing she could crawl in a hole and hide. If only they’d stayed away. When she didn’t say anything, he drew closer.
“Weeks? Months?”
“Months. Maybe longer.” She faced Dominic and flinched to see him within touching distance. He gazed at her like she was one of his wild animals to trap and lock away if he thought it necessary to keep them safe.
“Why didn’t you call me? I could’ve–”
“What?” Raven shook her head, meeting his gaze squarely, resisting the instinct to bolt if he took another step. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. You deal with the rest of the team. You have enough on your plate.”
He shook his head, lines bracketing his mouth. “I could stand beside you for support.”
Raven swallowed painfully at his words. What she wouldn’t give for the opportunity to pour out her fears to someone. But she couldn’t burden him that way, not when there was nothing either of them could do. She had plans in place for when she finally lost control. “I’m working on a way to ground myself.”
“It’s not helping?”
“No.”
Jackson crouched and rubbed a hand along the floor. “The wax is burned clear away. The wood isn’t just stained, it’s seared into the maple.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, strong enough to rock the house. His eyebrows shot up. Heat filled her cheeks as she fumbled through an explanation. “Wood can only hold so much before the charge seeps back through the air. The extra charge will wreak havoc on the brewing storm.”
Everyone around her acted so fricken normal. She was a freak, but they treated what she could do like a fascinating discovery.
A wave of dizziness smashed through her at holding so much current and releasing it all in one big rush. In seconds, Taggert was at her side. She recoiled from his touch, afraid everything that happened in the closet would come rushing back.
Her knee-jerk response drew him up short. “You need to relax. I’ll fix some tea.”
She swallowed down a wild laugh. As if tea would fix everything. When she would’ve protested and escaped like a coward, Dominic narrowed his eyes. “And while you compose yourself, we’ll explain a few things about pack.”
The muscles of Jackson’s back tensed, and he purposely kept his face averted so she couldn’t read him. She hesitated, desperate to know at least some of their secrets when so many of hers lay exposed.
No one moved until she gave a hesitant nod. She suspected her agreement was only a formality. Once in the kitchen, Taggert seated her and went about preparing her a cup of tea. She watched his hands, unable to face him after what happened.
“Don’t worry about me.” Raven waved him off, hating to be waited on by anyone.
He didn’t bother to turn around. “The tea will help calm you.”
A nervous laugh bubbled up from her chest. “What you have to tell me can’t be worse than what you’ve just seen me do.” The slight hitch in his smooth movements made her swallow hard.
She ignored Jackson as he sulked across from her and stared at Dominic, seated to her left at the head of the table. He gazed at his hands, so silent, as if dredging up the past was a physical ache.
“I was part of a pack for a few months before the labs. From what I remember, there are two ways to induct members into a pack. The most common is by gaining council approval. Though hardly used anymore, the other is by mating. Mating or breeding had always been survival of the fittest until the last hundred years. Things grew lax. Technology, the fear of human discovery, and the Paranormal conflict ten years ago–”
Jackson snorted. “You mean the slaughter.”
Dominic continued as if not interrupted, his intense gaze fastened on her. “–the population of the paranormal community began to suffer. Low birth rates. Hard pregnancies. Infertility. Pack members unable to shift. So the council took over. Mating became political for some and survival for others.
“Shifters now must have approval from their alpha to breed. Alphas are the exception, required to mate with as many as they choose in the hopes of producing the best and strongest shifters.”
Some of the information wasn’t anything new. “I’ve read about the decline, but hadn’t realized the extent.”
“Try living it every damn day, watching your pack crumble as fewer offspring are born each year.”
A knot of anxiety formed in her chest. She flicked a glance at Jackson’s stern face, not liking where this was going.
“What have you read?”
She blinked, caught off guard at Dominic’s simple question. “Just what you said. The males in the community are having trouble finding a mate. It’s worse for some breeds. They’re dying out because they can’t find compatible females that can carry to term.”