BirthStone (17 page)

He stepped back and took Jasmine’s hand.

“It’s time to eat,” Jasmine said. They
stepped back while waiting for Mark to assist Victoria. Tyrone and
Rose stood. Tyrese would bring up the rear. When they stepped into
the hall, Cameron and Lilly were there waiting for them.

“Hi Cameron, Lilly,” Jasmine said as she
disengaged from Silas to wrap Lilly and then Cameron in a hug.
Silas tugged on his black trousers to give his hard erection some
ease. It didn’t help much. He caught Mark’s commiserating glance
and nodded. The man wasn’t in much better shape as he stood behind
Victoria for cover. Her wide smile directed over her shoulder was
obviously her approval to her lover.

After greetings and introductions were done,
they moved to the large formal dining room. They took their seats
and prepared for what Jasmine told him would be a home-cooked meal.
Over the past year, Jasmine had changed the taste and variety of
meals served from Silas’ kitchen. The chef embraced her love of
soul food, often surprising her with added touches. He smiled at
her constant attempts to domesticate him, to teach him about family
living. He glanced around the table at his godson speaking softly
with his mate. Rose and Tyrone chatted with Mark, while his mate
sat at his right hand, speaking with her mother. Tyrese watched his
Nana silently. Silas gave his mate high marks for the effort she
put into turning his compound into a home.

“So Silas, what is it that you do?” Victoria
asked.

Jasmine frowned. “
I told her you were a
corporate tycoon, owning a lot of businesses. Why is she so
forgetful? This isn’t like her
.” He picked up on her concern
that her mother might be ill.

He rubbed her hand to soothe her. “I own a
company that buys, sells, and manages other companies. Jasmine
should have told you this.” He wanted to see Victoria’s
response.

“I did. Don’t you remember, Mom?” Her voice
rose at the end.

“
Careful sweet. You don’t want to offend
her
,” he cautioned.

Victoria frowned. “I don’t know what’s going
on with me. Seems I'm forgetting a lot of things, not the most
important stuff…” She gazed at Mark, obviously not realizing she
had just inferred the things she discussed with her daughters were
not that important. Silas took Jasmine’s hand as the hurt flowed
through their link.

Mark reddened. “Sometimes things slip her
mind. But that doesn’t happen often,” he rushed to say. “When we
met, she talked about her grandsons all the time. She said you both
joined the military and did really well.” He looked between
Victoria and the twins. Silas thought better of the man for
protecting his woman. He hadn’t been able to get as good a read on
Mark as he would have liked. Scanning humans was hit and miss
sometimes.

Tyrone glanced at Jasmine before answering.
“Yes, we did. It was an interesting experience. I got out last
year. What about you? Where are you from?”

Mark smiled and Silas noticed it reached his
eyes, another good thing in the man’s favor. “I’m from Miami, but
my family is from Egypt. My parents came to America before I was
born, and lived in Homestead, that’s closer to Key West than Miami.
They were farmers until we sold the land twenty years ago. It’s now
a large subdivision.” He chuckled.

“You met Nana in Miami?” Tyrone asked. Silas
wasn’t sure if the young wolf was interested or just stepping
forward to do the interrogation. Hands down, Tyrone excelled at
that particular skill.

“We met online and then she came for a
visit.” The man smiled so wide it was no wonder he missed the
horror that flashed across Jasmine’s face.

“Mom said the two of you met on a cruise,”
Jasmine said, slowly watching her mother.

Victoria’s brow furrowed. “We did. I took a
cruise with my girlfriend Cathy to Mexico. That’s where I met you,
Mark. On the ship.”

His smile dimmed. “That wasn’t me, Victoria.
The only cruise I have ever been on was the one we took together
last month.”

The room went silent.

“Well that’s awkward,” Victoria murmured,
although her eyes flashed with what Silas recognized as fear. It
bothered her to get her facts wrong on something she deemed
important.

Mark held her hand but remained silent.
Silas had no doubt the younger man was thinking about the mental
capacity of his older lover. According to Arianna, breeders
remained young. But in the end she had gone off the deep end,
attacking his Alphas and using his godson as cannon fodder. There
was still a lot he didn’t know about breeders.

Jasmine squeezed his hand. “
She’s
embarrassed, what should I do?”

Silas slid back in his chair, there was only
so much family drama he could stomach. He had met his quota for
today. “Cameron, I need to talk to you and the twins. Follow
me.”

He felt his mate’s glare on his back as he
and the men, minus Mark, escaped.

Chapter 14

“Well, that was embarrassing,” Victoria said
to Jasmine, Lilly, and Rose as she poured some lotion on her hands
and massaged them. Mark had excused himself a few moments after
Silas escaped with the boys. One of Silas’ security team members
escorted him to the room he and her mom would be sharing for the
next few days.

“How long has this been going on? You
forgetting things?” Jasmine asked. Was this another unknown hiccup
with breeders? Thinking back, neither Siseria nor Julie suffered
memory lapses. If anything, their memories were
too
good.
They'd played their roles to perfection until they were caught on
the cams. Afterward, Jasmine had Siseria sent to the basement to
keep her from corrupting Julie with her ideas. The plan backfired
once they discovered Siseria was locked and loaded with an internal
bomb. She'd died on the operating table when they tried to diffuse
the device. Julie had sunk into depression and barely ate or spoke
these days.

“I guess before I met Mark.” She shook her
head. “Strange, some things are perfectly clear, like you, Renee,
the twins, Mark, even the exes. But my short-term memory acts up on
me at times.” Her gaze slid over Lilly and Rose before landing on
Jasmine. “Have you heard anything about that happening?”

Jasmine picked up the reference to their
previous conversation almost a year ago in which she had told her
mom the twins had learned something about breeders. That was the
first time her mother had admitted to being raped as well as being
a breeder.

“No. Nothing like that,” she said. “But I’ll
check into it.” She would talk to Julie, maybe the woman would
rouse herself from her self-induced stupor for another breeder.

Silas and the other men entered the room. He
winked.

She shook her head at his antics. He was a
handful but she wouldn’t have him any other way.

“Mark left?”

Jasmine gave him credit for acting as if he
cared when she knew he didn’t.

“Yes, he was…tired and went to lie down.
I’ll be joining him shortly.” Victoria stood, looked at everyone
and spoke. “It was nice seeing you boys again, we’ll spend more
time together before I leave.” She nodded at Tyrone and Tyrese, who
tried unsuccessfully to hide their winces at being called boys.

Jasmine, Rose, and Lilly grinned at their
discomfort.

“Night, Nana,” Tyrese said, placing a kiss
on her cheek. Tyrone and Rose followed suit. Cameron and Lilly
remained seated on the sofa holding hands in a rare show of
solidarity.

Victoria stepped forward, placed a kiss on
Jasmine’s cheek. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, when I’m more
rested.”

Jasmine nodded. “Okay. Renee gets in before
ten tomorrow morning. We can get together for lunch and catch up,
if that’s good for you.”

Victoria nodded, although her gaze slid up,
watching Silas. “That’s fine. Silas, thanks for your hospitality
and for making my baby happy. That last man gave her two sons and
left her heart-broken. I don’t see that trait in you. Something
tells me you are exactly the man she needs, and that makes
me
happy.”

Jasmine felt Silas preen and knew he would
repeat her mother’s words in the near future.

“You are right. I am the only man for
Jasmine.”

Jasmine rolled her eyes while everyone else
coughed to cover their laughs.

“I think my daughter agrees with you.” She
patted his cheek, and glanced at Cameron and Lilly.
“Congratulations you two. You make a lovely couple.” She looked at
each one of them again with a large smile. “This is a wonderful
family you have, Jasmine. Just wonderful.” With that declaration
she turned and left the room.

“Hold up, Nana. I need to show you where
you’re staying,” Tyrese said, moving quickly to catch up to his
grandmother. Once he left the living room, Silas slid into the seat
next to Jasmine and pulled her close. Inhaling, she relaxed against
him while waiting for his verdict. She didn’t have to wait
long.

“I couldn’t get a good read on Mark or your
mother either. Sometimes it’s like that with humans. He seems to
care deeply for her.” She gazed up at him and relaxed. That
declaration was about as good as she was gonna get from him.

“He acted like he was really into her,”
Tyrone said, frowning. “But I don’t understand why she’s forgetting
stuff. Arianna was crazy at the end, but she when we met her in
Mexico she had perfect recall. I verified most of her information
and she had been on the money.”

“That bothers me that she’s forgetting
stuff,” Jasmine said, concerned.

Silas pulled her close. “I’ll ask Matt if he
heard anything about that and you can ask Julie. She’s been
refusing to speak, but maybe she’ll tell you something.”

“Why are you keeping her around?” Cameron
asked, gazing at Silas. “I mean she refuses to cooperate, she’s
mean and nasty to Jasmine.” He glanced at Jasmine as if to confirm,
and then back to Silas. “I’m just curious why you continue to take
care of her when she is no longer an asset.”

“You think they should release her?” Lilly
asked from her perched position next to him on the sofa.

Cameron blinked and then smiled. His large
grin made him appear more boyish instead of the fifty-year-old man
Jasmine knew him to be. “Yeah. Maybe we can turn the tables on
them. Install a bug up her…somewhere on her,” he amended, grinning
sheepishly at Jasmine.

Silas nodded slowly. She could hear the
wheels turning in her mate’s head. “That might work.”

“It could at least lead us to the local
contacts. Maybe even the people behind the deal with Jennings,”
Tyrone said, his voice softening at the end. Every wolf in the
compound who'd met Jennings while he trained at the complex had
felt the impact of his demise intensely. Jasmine had sensed the
increased testosterone levels all day. The wolves wanted to fight,
someone, anyone, over the situation. Not only did Silas deal with
the humans today, but he had to combat the natural aggression of a
lot of wolves.

Silas’ grin turned feral. She saw his wolf
behind his eyes and exhaled. It was going to be a long night.
Vengeance took careful planning. Jasmine tried to feel sorry for
Julie and simply could not. The woman had rebuffed her numerous
times, and had resorted to offensive name calling. She'd even spat
in Jasmine’s direction once. That had been her final trip to the
cell. “Should I ask about the memory thing first?”

No one spoke for a moment or two. Rose broke
the silence. “I think so. I mean she is probably ready to hear a
voice right about now after all this time in solitary.”

Silas had wanted to kill Julie when he heard
she had spit at Jasmine and she didn’t doubt he would have if the
woman had made her target. Jasmine had pleaded long and hard for
Julie’s life. Silas didn’t kill the woman, but he'd stripped her of
every comfort, including light and company. The only thing she
received was a weekly shower and two meals a day. It was the most
Silas would give and Jasmine had been glad another death had not
been added to her conscience.

Silas looked down at her, no doubt
remembering what happened on her last trip. “You and I will go and
ask her tomorrow. If she does not respond, I will ransack her
memories to see if there is an answer to your questions.” The look
he gave said 'I won’t be too gentle either.'

“Okay, tomorrow.” Jasmine knew when to drop
a subject and Julie was one. The older woman was on her mate’s shit
list.

“I’ll talk to Passen to get his take on
this.” Silas rubbed his hands together, obviously pleased with the
idea.

Jasmine squeezed her thighs together to
quell the ache that had been on a slow burn since her mate arrived
earlier that evening. She glanced at the clock and was surprised
how late it had become. Standing, she tried to control her
irritation of being left alone again tonight while Silas took care
of Patron business. She hated her conflicting emotions. A part of
her was uber proud of her mate’s status of being the top man. The
other part, her more womanly side, wanted all of his attention on
just the two of them. Finding a balance was becoming harder and
harder because he spent so much time at work.