Page 116 of Healer's Call

I shake my head, not offering any more than that. “Are you and your wolves responsible somehow for the strychnine poisoning?”

He gives me a cool look. “While we were in our wolf form?”

Okay, yeah that was a dumb question. “Do you know who’s responsible?”

He shakes his head, and I feel a headache coming on. “I don’t, but I would be willing to help you find out.” For a price.He doesn’t say the words, but we pick up on his unspoken words. He leans forward. “Heal the rest of my pack, and we’ll help you.” Mav’s arms tighten around mine, but he stays quiet.

“Okay.” I say the word quickly before anybody in this room can disagree.

“Do we have your word?” I ask. Jackson nods. I ponder my next question carefully. “Do you know why somebody would come after the Orlando pack and try to kill them off?”

“My bet would be on the vampires,” he says, leaning back in his chair.

“Why?” I ask.

He makes a point of looking around the room. “The vampire site is less than two hours from here.” His words make me flinch. “Everything here is opulent. Vampires love shiny, expensive things. Why wouldn’t they want this property that’s completely private, miles away from civilization? Why not just kill off the pack and take it over?”

“All of that is conjecture,” Cade points out. Jackson just shrugs.

I ask a question that I've been dying to ask. “If you’re rogue wolves, how did you even form a pack?”

“I got free." He doesn’t explain how, and I’m not sure if I really want to know. “There were twenty-one other wolves in that facility besides me. We all got out. Seven didn’t survive. There are fifteen of us here now.”

His words have no emotion in them, and yet I can’t imagine what he’s thinking and feeling.Seven wolves. I feel like I’m going to be sick. My head pain intensifies. Mav reaches up and puts his hand around the back of my neck, squeezing and massaging the muscles there. I blink back the tears as I look Jackson in the eye once again. “I’m sorry for your losses.”

“How is it even possible, what they’re doing?” Cade asks in a low voice. “And why?”

Jackson turns his gaze to the alpha. “You struck a fatal blow with the war, but they’re still out there. Did you think they were just going to sit back and be content with fading out of existence?”

“Kinda hoped,” I say softly.

“How do the wolves help their cause? Why would they try to turn wolves into vampires?” Cade asks the question we’ve all been thinking.

Jackson sits back in his chair. “That part I can’t figure out.”

“Why her?” Mav says in a low voice.

Jackson stills. “What?”

“Why were you trying to get to my mate? The kid said you wanted her?” The room goes eerily still, and I hold my breath.

“Thekid’sname is Jesse,” Jackson bites out. “And he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Yes, I wanted the healer.” A fierce growl explodes from Maverick’s chest. “To heal us,” he adds determinedly. “Nothing more. When we escaped, I knew we had to find a healer.”

“How did you know to come here?” Cade asks intensely.

Jackson glances over at him, and I shudder at the look in his eyes. This is a man that doesn’t have a lot to lose. “You have a pack member by the name of Jacob?” Mav goes predatorily still next to me, and my breath catches in my lungs. Jackson looks around the room.

“What about him?” It’s Eli that asks.

“He was working with them.”

And with those words, I can feel the physical impact it has on the men in this room. “How do you know?” Mav’s words are like ice.

Jackson gives him a look. “Just because I was in wolf form doesn’t mean that I wasn’t fully conscious of everything going on. This Jacob guy came and went enough times that I figured out he was from this pack. That’s also how I figured out you had healers here. I knew when we got free that this was where we needed to go.”

“Why would Jacob work with them?” I ask when nobody else does.

Jackson shrugs. “They’re very convincing, especially their leader. He could have promised money; they could have gotten in his head and controlled him.”

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