“And the single animal shifters aren’t immortal.”
“Exactly, and some of the first warriors grew jealous of their children. They hauled their Royal offspring before the gods and the goddesses and demanded immortality too or they’d behead the Royals. The deities refused. Luckily, not all single shifters agreed with the ones demanding to be given eternal life and saved those first Royal children.”
He took a deep breath and went on. “Time passed and the animosity between the Royals and single shifters rose and fell over the centuries, but we endured. That’s changed in the last two centuries. Now, the Royals are facing extinction.”
“What’s changed?”
He skimmed a finger down the length of her neck. “The humans.”
“Humans learned of your existence?”
“Not exactly. There have always been some humans who knew about us. I even had a human nanny, but as with the single shifters, some resented us for our immortality. As civilization advanced, they began to look for ways to steal it.”
Images of the warehouse she’d escaped flashed before her eyes. “They experimented on Royals.”
“Yes, and the risk to our women and children grew to a point where only seclusion saved us. We lived in the shadows, hiding from even our single shifter brethren until a group of shifters approached the human government and demanded protection and rights for all shifters—singles and Royals alike. Laws were established that both benefited and hurt us, but for the most part, it allowed the Royals to rebuild our numbers.”
She closed her eyes. Images of men and women in cages, the echoes of screams, and the pitiful moans of other humans swamped her. Five years she’d had to deal with the memories of the few hours she’d spent in the experimental center. It wasn’t enough.
“There is still testing being done on shifters, Rafe. I know. I’ve seen it.”
The muscles under her palms tensed, and Rafe’s fingers pressed into her skin. Finally, he blew out a slow breath, and his grip eased. “How do you know this?”
Jazz swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Because I spent several hours inside an experimental center. I was to be the prize given to the winner of some big cage fight, but I escaped with…with Seth and Levi.”
She met Rafe’s glowing feline eyes—all gold, no white. He stared at her, along with his cats. Her heart raced the longer he watched her with his unblinking cat eyes. She pressed her lips together and fought to keep her fear contained. Rafe wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that, but murder hovered in his eyes. The enraged man inches from her didn’t match the loving, respectful one she thought she knew.
“He likes to fight just as much as the rest of us. Maybe more so. He’s got a lot of anger built up inside him. He’s only putting on a good face for you so he doesn’t frighten you away.” Xander’s words repeated in Jazz’s head, and the truth behind them struck her.
She didn’t know the man who claimed to be her true mate, not really. While she didn’t believe Rafe would hurt her, she couldn’t say the same applied to others. He would kill if he deemed it necessary. Actually, he probably already had ended lives.
Did that bother her? She let the question hover in her heart, and inwardly sighed. If Rafe had killed in self-defense or while protecting someone, she wouldn’t judge him for it. The gray area left her uneasy. He decided who was deemed a threat, but sometimes emotions altered perception and made it too easy to justify one’s actions.
Rafe squeezed his eyelids shut. His pent-up breath rushed out. The tense moment passed.
“Do not be afraid of me, my Jasmine.”
“I’m not.”
“But I have heard accounts of these places. What happens to women.” He worked his jaw back and forth. “The thought of you violated makes me—”
“Stop.” She held his face in her hands as he had done to her. “They hurt me, but I wasn’t raped. I was supposed to be a prize, remember. That got me tossed into a cell next to Seth and Levi’s mom. After the guards left, I started working on picking the lock. I’d decided I was going to try to escape or die. No way was I staying there.”
“You picked a lock?” The disbelief in Rafe’s voice matched his expression.
She grinned, trying to lighten the mood. “My pappy taught me. He said it was something everyone should know. I can’t say I ever used the skill much other than when he’d insisted I practice, but I was lucky. I was put in…” She grimaced. “It was more of a crate than a cell. It didn’t have a heavy-duty fancy lock on it. I guess they didn’t consider me a threat.”
Rafe watched her intently but didn’t respond. She dragged in another steadying breath and went on. “Anyway, after I got it open, I went to work on the door to the cell where Seth and Levi were being held with their mom. It took longer to get it unlocked. There were several chains and different locks, but I focused on each one until I got them open.”
“And you weren’t worried a guard would spot you?”
“Well, yes. But what was I supposed to do? Leave her there with two babies? She kept telling me to run too, but I wouldn’t.”
“If she’d been in there a while, she probably wasn’t used to kindness.”
“I imagine not, but she trusted me. I guess because I unlocked her.”
Rafe pulled her into his embrace. “Or because she sensed what I did when I first saw you, that you’re special.”
Jazz grinned and rested her cheek against his chest. “The moment she was out of the cell, she passed over both babies to me and made me swear I’d protect them with my life. I agreed, and we snuck out through the basement. I never would’ve found my way without running into those bear shifters who ran the place.”
“Bear shifters?” Rafe cursed. “Did you get any
