BirthStone Page 20

  Silas glanced at the woman again, hoping she could provide them with some answers. “Bring her out of it and let me know when she is lucid.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Silas and the twins stepped out of the bunker and headed to a secure room in a nearby section. After the door closed, Tyrese shared what'd happened when he picked up Griggs.

  Silas snorted as he took a seat. “There is a freaked out pup who swears you were going to kill him and the Ma’am as well. He probably wet himself when he talked to Hank.” Silas chuckled. “Good work by the way, the cops are all over that house and have a warrant for Griggs' arrest. They’re looking for her son as well. Alfred’s gone underground but he’ll surface soon.”

  “Leon and I played it okay,” Tyrese said in acknowledgment of the compliment.

  Silas glanced at him. “When she wakes up, let’s see if we can find out the root of this thing. Maybe she can explain how humans and wolves started mixing? Even though I’m experiencing it with my pups, I’m still baffled how it happened in the first place. It shouldn’t.” He glanced at them.

  “Okay.” Tyrese shrugged.

  “Rone, you got point on this,” Silas said. “I might kill her before we get any answers. I sent a list of questions to you. Get through as many of these as you can. We’ll be recording so we can go over her responses again and again.”

  Tyrone looked at the file on his tablet and nodded. “Yes, Sir.” He whistled. “You want to tie her and Arianna together?” He looked at Silas.

  “Not unless they are somehow connected. Those questions are to close holes and fill in blanks. I need closure on some things, plus I want to know what she has planned.”

  Tyrese stood and stretched. “She knows she is going to die, she may not answer.”

  “I’ve got something to motivate her,” Silas said as he typed on the keyboard. The young pup appeared on the screen. “This is her youngest son. Her legacy. She planned for him to take over, to rule by her side.”

  “Wonder what big brother Alfred thinks about that?” Tyrone said, chuckling.

  “You think she’ll cooperate to save his life?” Tyrese asked.

  Silas shrugged. “I hope so. Leon said she caved when he brought this one into the room.”

  Tyrese nodded. “I had forgotten about that. He’s right.”

  “Asia doesn’t think Griggs is from the warehouse but I want you to take this…” Silas handed Tyrese the dress Griggs had been wearing, “...to her. Let her smell it, just in case.”

  Tyrese stared at him a moment before taking the material. “What’s up?”

  Silas respected Tyrese too much to mix words. “She’s lonely and needs more contact with pack. There’s no one else I trust to send. This way I accomplish both.”

  “You pimping him out?” Tyrone asked softly from across the table.

  Silas met his serious gaze. “No. I’m sending him to complete a task. Allow her to scent the material. She needs pack other than the doctor and myself. Tyrese has already been intimate with her and understands. What he does is up to him.”

  No one spoke.

  Tyrese fingered the material before he spoke. “Asia… being with her intimately feels wrong. It’s like I’d betrayed the trust of someone important and I don’t know who. I am attracted to her, who wouldn’t… but she’s mated and I know that person or will know them.”

  Silas sat forward. “Who is he?”

  Tyrese shook his head and then shrugged. “I don’t know specifically, just…it’s a strong feeling that she’s off limits. Can’t explain it any other way.”

  Silas thought for a moment and then sat back. “Tell her that then, maybe it’ll give her something to hold onto. I promised her freedom when this is over, she didn’t seem too excited. But knowing there is someone looking for her might be just the thing.”

  “Okay. I’ll be back.” Tyrese left the room.

  “Jacques thinks we can move on the warehouse in another week. He found more invoices for supplies delivered to the same place. Satellite surveillance showed vapor releases from areas within a five mile radius of the delivery point connecting to the abandoned warehouse. Alpha Samuel sent scouts to do a preliminary search. Everybody’s anxious to shut that group down.”

  Silas nodded his agreement. “I don’t think they are in one location…but we will hit them as we find them. That’s one of the things Griggs can help us with if she actually split with them a while back. I wonder what happened to make her hate us?”

  “Huh?” Tyrone looked up from his tablet.

  “Think about it. She’s been doing this for decades… she never had any pups until now. What is this really all about?” He tapped the desk with his fingertip.

  “You don’t have those questions on here, want me to add them?”

  “See if you can work it in the conversation. I’d like to know the ‘why’ of all this. Granted it’s not as important as what she has planned and how…but if you can find that out, I’d like to know.”

  “Will do.”

  The intercom beeped. “She’s out of it, Sir, a bit dazed but she’s alert.”

  “Thanks.” Silas stood and reached out to Tyrese. “Griggs is up, Rone and I are headed over. Meet me in the observation room when you can.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Silas glanced at Tyrone as he opened the door. “Let’s go.” Dr. Passen and Matt met them in the corridor.

  “I’d like to sit in on the questioning, Sir,” Matt asked.

  “So would I,” Dr. Passen added.

  “Okay,” Silas agreed and continued to the small room next to the bunker. He grabbed a chair and sat near the two-way glass before giving Tyrone the go ahead.

  For someone who had been under, Griggs appeared remarkably alert. Which served as a reminder that there was still so much to learn about breeders and their physiology.

  “Hello, Ma’am,” Tyrone said as he bowed his head in a formal greeting.

  “Oh hell. Is this good cop versus bad cop? You’re supposed to be the nice one who gets me to talk?” She snorted. “Hell, send in the other one, at least I knew he didn’t give a damn. No games with that one.”

  Tyrone chuckled as he took a seat. “I won’t play games either, but my mama raised me to be polite to my elders. If that bothers you, you’ll have to blame her.”

  She eyed him with suspicion. “You Jasmine Bennett’s other twin, eh? Two boys, so different.”

  “Not really all that different,” Silas murmured.

  Tyrone shrugged. “Your son is here.”

  “Alfred?”

  “No. Tomas.”

  Her skin whitened. “He’s not my son.”

  “Careful, he can hear you,” Tyrone said kindly.

  She swallowed hard while searching the room. “I don’t believe you.”

  Tyrone shrugged. “That’s within your rights. However, La Patron has instructed me to tell you the young man is here and the future of his mental health depends on you. We can mute the sound or keep it on. If you want your son to hear everything…”

  “You mean my death?”

  “No. I meant what I said. You have to understand, I’m fascinated with your history.” Tyrone went on to repeat everything he had learned about her to this point. “You are a formidable woman, yet Tomas is the first breed you gave birth to since you killed the twins. Why?”

  She met his eyes with gleaming pride. “One of the girls still lives, somewhere. The servant didn’t kill her. Or she wouldn’t die. I saw her once, or at least I think that was her. Anyway, it was time to meet my obligations. How could I be a part of the breed nation with human sons?” Her one hand, not in cuffs, rose and fell. “Optics. It was all about optics.”

  Silas was glad Tyrone didn’t buy that.

  “So you don’t care about Tomas? It’s okay if La Patron reprograms his wolf like he did Jennings?”

  Visibly, she stiffened. Her face reddened. “No. Hell no, it is not okay. I don’t want that bastard anywhere near my…Tomas.
You keep that pedophile away from that boy. Silas Knight cannot be trusted,” she screamed.

  Stunned by the accusation, Silas leaned forward with his elbows on his knees as he searched his mind for anything that might have been mistaken for what she claimed. He came up empty. “Ask her why or who I approached,” he told Tyrone

  “That’s a serious accusation, Ma’am. Can you prove La Patron is a pedophile? I mean who did he violate?”

  “What difference does it make? You won’t believe me.”

  “Try me,” Tyrone said in a strong tone. “I have younger siblings, so if you have proof that he violates young children I’d appreciate hearing it. And so you know, I have this weird gift of being able to detect lies.”

  Silas ignored the stares from the doctors and focused on the answer to Tyrone’s question.

  “My girlfriend, Pammie Lee, was ten. One summer day I met her in groves midway between our plantations. We had just climbed the tree and settled down when she told me she met this man, only he wasn’t a man. She swore he could change into animals, she’d seen him do it. I didn’t believe her of course and she swore me to secrecy. I thought that was the end of it until I came across the biggest, blackest wolf I’d ever seen. His eyes were emerald green and he stared at me for a moment, sniffed, and then walked off. That’s when I remembered Pammie Lee’s description of her wolf. Pammie Lee was pregnant before she turned eleven and died during childbirth. I heard she had a son, but of course he died too.”

  “You assume that wolf was La Patron?”

  Her eyes flashed as her chin tightened. “I know that bastard raped and impregnated my friend, and she was only ten, had just become a woman if you know what I mean.”

  Silas understood the inference. The woman had spoken the truth, as she knew it, regarding the incident. But he knew with certainty the green-eyed wolf wasn’t him. When she lived in Virginia, he had been in the mid-west preparing for expansion. Plus, this had nothing to do with her rape, or did it? Had the green eyed wolf raped Corrina and not her friend? Is that why she had such recall? Was she hiding her own experiences behind an impenetrable wall of misery so that she could deal with her nightmare? Or was she just as crazy as Arianna had been? He didn’t know and grew weary chasing shadows for answers.

  “It wasn’t me. Move on with the questions,” he told Tyrone.

  Tyrese stepped into the room and sat in the chair next to Silas. “She vaguely recognized the scent but said it was old. She’s going to think on it.”

  Silas nodded but kept his gaze on Tyrone and Griggs. For the next hour and a half, Tyrone had an in-depth conversation with the woman, in which they laughed and chatted like old friends. Tyrone called her out on her lies three times before she settled into the cordial interrogation.

  “Hungry?” Tyrone asked Griggs when he turned his tablet over.

  She snorted. “My last meal?” There was a resigned note in her voice.

  Tyrone shrugged. “You did try to kill La Patron. But I think he could forgive that if his mate and babies hadn’t been nearby. That was poorly done, Ma’am.”

  “The bomb was for the caves. Jasmine refused to leave, that’s the only reason Siseria didn’t detonate then. Jasmine Bennett should never have been in danger. When she was, Julie’s life was forfeit. She should have disposed of Siseria before the woman was taken.”

  “They were both knocked out, so that couldn’t have happened,” Tyrone said in a dry tone, he had carried the unconscious women back to the complex and knew they'd had no chance to do as this woman suggested.

  Silas sat in disbelief at such poor planning. Lives had been lost unnecessarily because of miscommunication.

  “Oh… too many mistakes, plus they never reported that.” She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment before looking at Tyrone. “I think I’ll pass on the meal.”

  Silas sensed Jasmine’s presence just as she entered the bunker and faced Griggs.

  “What the hell?” he murmured as he shot to his feet.

  “Back down Silas, I got this,” she said through their link as she walked to the bed and sat at the foot.

  “I’m Jasmine.”

  The woman’s face brightened as a smile appeared on her face. “Hello Jasmine Bennett. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “I have a question, well two, actually. First, my mom is a sixty-year-old breeder who seems to be forgetting things like she has Alzheimer’s or something. Have you ever seen or heard of anything like this before?”

  “Jasmine, do not discuss the pups with her, I have information regarding their illness that I will share with you. I do not know who is privy to her conversation,” Silas said, struggling with his wolf to grant her request and not go racing into the room to protect her.

  Griggs’ brow furrowed. “No, I haven’t. That’s really odd because we get better with age as you will discover. I’m sorry to hear that about her, it’s a first.”

  “Second, why do you think my babies will play a role in leading the wolves?”

  Silas was surprised he had not thought to ask that question and waited for the answer.

  “I don’t think it. I know it. All of your pups will be special and probably already display aspects of their talents. Whatever they are now will be magnified tenfold. But one of them will have a bit of each and will rise to lead both full-bloods and breeds one day. He will be wise beyond his years; along with his mate, he will take the wolf nation into the next century.”

  “And you know this how?” Jasmine asked.

  Griggs stared at his mate. “I was told this by the Goddess.”

  Chapter 24

  “She’s lying,” Matt said.

  “She wasn’t lying,” Tyrone said.

  Silas agreed. “She believed everything she said.”

  Jasmine looked at the men in the room before speaking. “Tell me what you found out about my babies.”

  Silas nodded to Matt.

  Jasmine listened in growing disbelief at the prospect that her children were deliberately poisoned by someone she'd allowed into the compound. Her head spun at the implication. Blindly she reached for a chair and sat down hard holding her forehead in her palm while struggling to bring the nausea rising in her throat under control. Silas had told her, had asked her to put off the christening, but she hadn’t listened.

  Heat filled her belly, chasing away the cold. Impotent rage at the circumstances whipped through her. Why would anyone hurt her babies? Her temper escalated, her sense of reasoning faltered beneath the onslaught of guilt.

  “Jasmine.”

  She heard her name through a tunnel of sound but her focus, her intent, was on finding the perpetrators who'd harmed her children. Moving through the fog, she shook off the hand that would hold her back.

  “Jasmine, you are hurting Rese and Rone. Stop this.”

  Rese? Rone? The words ricocheted through her mind before settling. “What?” she whispered, her throat bristly dry.

  “Tamp down your anger, you’ve got everyone else in this room pinned to the wall. They cannot move and I suspect breathing is also a problem.”

  Exhaling, she counted to ten as she attempted to diffuse the flame in her core. It went down a notch, but still burned.

  “Your eyes are translucent gold,” Silas whispered near her ear as he wrapped his arms around her. His heat touched off a spark in her belly. She shuddered at the contact.

  “Mom?” Tyrese said, standing a short distance.

  She turned.

  Tyrone stood next to Tyrese. They both wore stunned expressions. Matt and Dr. Passen remained near the wall. Silas dismissed both men before Jasmine spoke to her sons.

  “Someone hurt my babies on purpose,” she said. “I cannot allow that.”

  “Yeah, we got that, but when did you start…doing Silas?” Tyrone asked.

  “Your energy was his but different,” Tyrese said, gazing down at her as if he didn’t recognize who she was.

  “I don’t know. It’s been happening for a while, I’ve been
working to control my anger but it just flares at times. And the only reason for it being like his… is because we’re mates.” She turned in his arms and held him tight. “I’m sorry. I should’ve listened.” She placed a kiss on his chest before resting her head against him. The solid thump of his heartbeat helped calm the red flames of anger leaping inside her.

  “We will discuss that later. In private.” He sent her images of the things he intended to do to her. She shivered at the picture of him taking her over his lap and spanking her.

  “Mmmm, okay.”

  “Well, now that mom’s not on a killing rampage, what about the Goddess?” Tyrone asked. “Is she playing both sides against each other?”

  “No. She is honorable and would not warn me against her own actions,” Silas said.

  “If history is any indication, she would do that in a heartbeat,” Tyrone argued.

  The discussion went back and forth for a few minutes until Jasmine spoke up from her chair. “How many Goddesses are there?”

  Silas looked at her in surprise.

  Tyrese pursed his lips in consideration.

  Tyrone nodded as if he had come to that same conclusion.

  “One?” Silas said with uncertain hesitation. “At least I have only heard of one.”

  “Ask Jacques,” Jasmine suggested. “I bet we are talking about two or more gods here.”

  “That would certainly explain matters,” Silas said.

  Tyrese sat in the chair next to her. “You okay?”

  She stroked his face and smiled. “I’m fine, sweetie. Just got to get a handle on this energy boost. Silas is going to work with me on it. Don’t worry.” It bothered her to see the concern in his eyes, and now she understood how he'd felt when she came to him after he had been altered.

  “Mom, you and Silas didn’t feel it. It happened so fast, I hit that wall so hard, if I wasn’t a breed it would’a killed me. You were like Silas on steroids. Your eyes changed and you looked like you were walking on air. I mean you were on the ground but the wind tunnel around you made it look… I was scared for you.” He grinned. “And proud at the same time. My mama can kick some serious ass. Knowing that changes how we’ll handle your security. Let me know when you want to go shopping, I’ll make it happen.” He winked.