BirthStone

by Sydney Addae

  “I wasn’t leaving you,” she huffed. “I was leaving the bedroom so I could think. It's too hard to gather my thoughts together with you in the same room as the bed.”

  The arrogant man grinned. “Really?” He pulled her down and kissed her. She forgot the conversation, the war, everything disappeared beneath the fire of his touch. Melting into his embrace, she relished in his possession.

  Within seconds he was bare. Their lips broke apart and she sucked down air as she pulled off her tank top.

  “Never compare me with your ex again. I am your mate and there are things I can never do, neglect you is one of them. Never mention your time with him in that manner again. I don’t like it. My wolf hates it.” He paused while searching her eyes. “I promised Matt his mate would be safe here. Don’t make me renege on my word and destroy him.”

  The change in atmosphere caught her offguard. How did he do that? Go from fucking hot to a somber serious moment. Her insides were still quivering from the promise in his kiss. She nodded, deciding silence was her friend because her only point of reference had been her time with Davian. The purpose of the comment was so he understood her feelings, not for Silas to hurt her ex-husband.

  His eyes never left hers as his fingertip rubbed and then pinched her pebbled nipple. Fire raced through her stomach as her head fell back. Ridiculous… the effect this man had on her libido was f'ing ridiculous and she loved it.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. Her eyes flew open, searching for his. She met his searing gaze and softened. Her mate was arrogance personified, tough as nails and in some instances, unmercifully brutal. Right now the love and commitment shining brightly from his eyes shoved all of that aside. It spoke to another side of him. The side that was mate, father, and lover. Her lower regions tightened in anticipation.

  “Silas,” she whispered, her wits evaporating beneath the power of his gaze.

  “I love you.” He didn’t pretty it up with anything extra, that was not his way. Her man saw things in black and white, and this time she approved.

  “I love you,” she said, feeling the coolness of the sheets beneath her as he flipped her over. Her fingertips traced his jaw, loving the stubble on his chin.

  “Show me,” he whispered.

  Smiling she reached low and guided him in. Perfection. That word captured her mind as he slid forward, stretching, claiming, and filling her completely.

  “Silas,” she said breathily as he placed a kiss on her forehead while holding her tight. Heat from his body set hers aflame. His hardness pulsed inside her like a live wire sending waves of anticipation through her. Need rose with a demand of fulfillment. Lifting slightly, she widened her legs and he slid a bit further in.

  “Mmm,” he moaned as she rolled her hips beneath him, pushing him closer to the edge.

  “You like that?” she whispered, watching him, the tightness of his jaw, the tenseness of her biceps and the slow dance of his pecs.

  “Yesssss,” he hissed, and then he moved.

  Jasmine thought she was prepared, she really did. But when he pulled out to the tip and slid back in so slow, she lost her mind. With each hard inch filling her at such an incredibly slow pace, everything inside her tensed in preparation for her climax. Grabbing his butt cheeks, she lifted her hips off the bed and ground into him as hard as she could. If she could climb into his body to ease the itch he created, she would.

  He chuckled. “Sweet bitch,” he said softly into her ear just before he pulled out and slammed back into her. On edge already, her walls welcomed his thrusts and tightened with each subsequent penetration.

  “So good…” she moaned as he continued hitting her spot, taking her higher until she flew over the rainbow. Her body shook beneath the earthquake of her emotions. “Silas,” she called, opening their link so he could enjoy her experience.

  “Arghhh,” he groaned as he followed her in orgasmic bliss. She took in large breaths while rubbing his back as he continued to shake and shudder. Moments later he rolled over and pulled her close. She kissed a salty patch of his sweat laden chest and then ran her tongue across the spot.

  “Ummm,” he moaned. “Such a demanding bitch.”

  Grinning, she bit his nipple and then laved the abused nub. “Okay, now that you’ve apologized appropriately, let me show you how much I missed you.” She slid down, grabbing his rising wood. He had promised her this night and she intended to take him up on it.

  Chapter 10

  Jennings blinked against the light as he tried to make sense of where he was. He tried to move and discovered he couldn’t. He was strapped to a bed and his head hurt. Inhaling, he refused to panic and tapped into his wolf just as Froggy taught him.

  His wolf whined but there wasn’t much else. At least his beast was still with him and according to his former instructor that made all the difference.

  “How are you feeling, Detective?” A deep feminine voice asked from somewhere in the room.

  “I think…water, please.”A long straw in a cup was held against his lips. He sucked long draws, savoring the liquid as it coated and saturated the dryness in his mouth and throat. “Thank you.” He tried to see more of the person but in the dimness of the room he could not.

  “Your mother, Marsha, was a good woman. She would be proud to see you today.”

  At the mention of his mother, Jennings stiffened. “What are you talking about?” His mother died his freshman year of high school.

  “Marsha was a breeder, as was her mother. She fell in love with a wolf, although she didn’t know it at the time. They had sex. He left town, not realizing she was one of the few human females who could breed from wolves. She never saw him again, didn’t remember his name either. By the time I met her, you were around four, five…tops. She needed help and moved into one of the sanctuaries we have set up around the country for breeders. We offer protection against those who would harm these women, and train them to survive in the world.”

  Jennings frowned. “I don’t remember any of that.” He tried to move his arms, but the cuffs were locked tight.

  “Of course you don’t. But that’s another issue. When Marsha left to move out west to be with her new husband, she took an oath to continue your treatment. It pleases me that she was faithful in that task.”

  “What are you talking about? Oath to who? For what?” His mind cleared at a miniscule rate while he struggled to break free of the bonds.

  “Stop struggling, you’re only going to hurt yourself, and then how will you drive home?”

  He stopped. They were going to allow him to leave? He took a deep breath. “Where am I? How long have I been here?”

  “You are in one of our sanctuaries, and you have been here overnight.”

  “Overnight?” He tried to remember but his mind blanked.

  “Who are you?” Quietly he called upon his wolf and was met with silence.

  “Corrina Griggs, I'm founder of the sanctuaries. I knew Marsha personally. She was a sweet woman, so idealistic. I was at her funeral, stood in the back. You probably don’t remember, but we sent a large bouquet of pink and yellow flowers. They were her favorite colors.”

  Jennings swallowed hard. I’m trapped with a crazy bitch. “You’re a breeder?”

  “Yes. I do believe I was one of the first, although I cannot prove that.”

  He reached out to Froggy through his link and heard static. Fighting down the panic that threatened to choke him, he spoke. “You have pups?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t know what to say after that.

  “I killed them.”

  Jennings stilled and then gazed toward the shadowy outline the voice emananted from. “What?” He couldn’t wrap his mind around her blatant confession.

  She tittered. “Aw, come now Lieutenant, the pups were colored. I lived in the south during that time and they would have been slaves. I could not present either of those little colored girls as mine. I had them drowned by my servant. Since then I have been very
particular over my male choices.”

  He tried to relax so he could remember everything she said. He didn’t think La Patron was aware of the sanctuaries or this woman.

  “Sounds like you have been around for a while.” Since slavery days, that’d place her over a hundred. Knowing La Patron was over three hundred made her declaration easier to believe.

  “I have. We have. It has been a long journey but we are near the end. Soon the world will see the beauty and the power of the half-breed nation. Wolf and human, working and living together side by side. Our numbers have finally reached the pinnacle, we are the majority over full-bloods.”

  He blinked. “Majority of what?” His mind must still be muddled because there were a lot of half-breeds like he had been, totally out of sync with their wolf. In order to be an effective breed, you had to embrace your wolf or die.

  “There are now more half-breeds in the nation than full-bloods,” she repeated slowly, as if he were incapable of understanding those words the first time she uttered them.

  He latched onto a crummy thought. “What about the shots, the ones I’ve been taking for years. It kills the wolf and eventually the breed.”

  “Of course it does,” she snapped. “We have the antidote to reverse it. So as we take our place –”

  “You’ll control thousands of wolves by having the medication or solution to them living longer.”

  “Don’t ever interrupt me again,” she snarled.

  “I apologize.” If they were going to allow him to leave, he wanted to take as much information as she would share with him.

  After a brief silence she spoke. “It’s millions, not thousands.”

  He frowned but remained silent. Millions what?

  She must have read the confusion on his face. “Millions of half-breeds have been documented as receiving this shot for a period of five years or more. All it takes is twelve months of steady consumption and the wolf begins to deteriorate. It’s slow, which suits our purpose. But now…now we are at the precipice of change. Things are in place.”

  “Place?”

  “Pity they killed Robbie. To be fair, he was supposed to kill La Patron, to get him out of the way…” She sighed as though it hurt to think of her deceased relative.

  “He was your son?”

  “Yes. Alfred as well. But their father is human.”

  Alfred? Why did that name sound familiar?

  He heard the scraping of the chair. “I just wanted to talk to Marsha’s boy, I always liked her. She had a good heart and believed in the cause. She kept her oath and I believe she would be proud of you.”

  Jennings swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought of his mother in years. She hadn’t been a nurturing parent, but she’d done her best he supposed. “Thank you,” he said into the silence.

  “Mother, are you ready?”

  Jennings froze. He knew that voice. He hated the fogginess still muffling his senses.

  “Yes, dear.” She paused and he knew she was looking at him. “It was nice seeing you again after so many years.”

  He didn’t respond as he heard the steps grow distant. Who was her son? He focused on that mystery instead of wondering why she sounded as if she would never see him again. He lay in the dim room for what seemed like hours. Muted clicking sounds and the release of pressure on his legs and wrists signaled he could move his limbs. Slowly he drew his legs up and his arms down. Tingles of pain filled him as circulation returned.

  Rolling to his side, he stopped himself from falling off the narrow cot with his hand and pushed up. Pain sliced into his skull as the room swam before him. He remained still and counted to ten. Inching forward, his head pounded ferociously, so he counted to ten again. This time slower. He placed his bare foot on the floor. It was cold and hard, like concrete. He placed the other foot next to the first and scooted forward, testing his weight. His knees buckled. He grabbed the bed and waited a few moments. When he stood the next time, his body cooperated and he walked in the direction he had heard the footsteps leave.

  It took a while, but eventually he tumbled outside into the scorching mid-day heat. Leaning against the wall he sucked in gulps of air to clear his head and calm his heated body. Fire burned in his chest from his heart slamming repeatedly against it. Something was wrong with him but he had no idea what. Again he reached for his wolf. Internal sounds of whimpering and a weak whine was the response. Jennings gritted his teeth in frustration; those bastards had done something to his wolf.

  Blurry eyed, he gazed out at the area in front of him. A white Volvo sat off to the side beneath a tree. He shook his head and stared at the vehicle. It took a few minutes for it to dawn on him that the Volvo was his car. Pushing off the wall, he moved slowly to the automobile, opened the door and sat down, the keys were in the ignition. A thousand things were wrong with this picture, this entire situation in fact. But sitting in the driver’s seat of his car helped him return to a normalcy that he desperately needed.

  He sought his wolf and felt his beast stir. “Thank you, Goddess,” he whispered. He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel and breathed. His wolf was going crazy, growling and snapping. He knew he needed to drive away while he could, but the urge to be one with his wolf pushed him to shift.

  Opening the car door, the interior light illuminated the folder on his front seat and that’s when it came rushing back to him. “Merriweather, that son of a bitch,” he murmured. That was the voice that sounded so familiar. The Merriweathers were at the root of tampering with breeds to displace La Patron and all full-bloods. He shook his head and closed the door, searching the car for his phone.

  When he couldn’t find it, he inhaled deeply, trusting his wolf to alert him to any additional danger. He started the car, and drove down the broken path away from the house. When he reached the main road, he stopped and got out of the car to look around for some type of marker so he could return with La Patron’s security to investigate the house. Without his phone, he couldn’t take a picture. Even with his enhanced vision there was nothing to distinguish this dirt road from any other. Unzipping his pants, he pissed on the bushes of both sides of the entrance knowing he could find his scent. Finished, he returned to the car and drove off. Five minutes later and a few miles down the road, a loud explosion tore through the silence of the day.

  Jennings pulled over to the side and stared back at the burning building. In his gut he knew it was the place where he had been held captive. It seems he didn’t need to mark the location after all. He called out to Froggy through their link and this time he received an answer.

  “Where’ve you been?" the gruff voice asked without a salutation. Jennings told him what happened. That information he wanted to tell La Patron.

  “You headed home?"

  “Yeah. I need to clean up and then I’ll report in."

  “Station or here?"

  “Wherever La Patron wants me for debriefing. The old woman, Griggs, she’s planning a takeover with half-breeds. Something about having the antidote for them to live. It’s kind of foggy but I’ll tell him what I remember. You’ll tell him what happened, right?"

  “Yes. Be safe."

  “Will do. Changed my mind, I’m on my way to the station to check in with the Captain. I can’t find my phone. After that, I’ll be heading home to shower, grab a bite to eat, and then head back to work."

  “Expect La Patron to contact you, he was worried when he got word you were missing last night."

  Knowing somebody was concerned watered the dry areas in his life. He had always lived alone and never seriously dated. Being part of a pack completed him. “I look forward to it." Traffic into town was backed up due to road work crews. After taking a few detours, he pulled into a parking spot in the back of the police station, turned the car off, and headed into the building to report in. He hoped the captain was in his office and in a good mood, because once he explained what happened, Jennings intended to arrest Merriweather and his mother.

  “One moment,�
�� the security guard said as Jennings entered the building. “We have a new procedure and I need you to walk through this device.”

  Jennings nodded. “This is pretty far from the main building is there a reason for that?”

  “Yes.” The man didn’t elaborate and Jennings didn’t care enough to push. He placed the contents of his pocket into a small container for separate scanning and stepped into the small gateway. Immediately red lights flashed, the bars in front and behind him lowered, trapping him.

  He gazed at the security guards, who backed up, and two men wearing hazmat suits headed in his direction. A siren went off, hurting his ears.

  “Remain still, we are going to try to shrink it.” The men pressed some buttons, there was a whirring sound. The sirens were loud in the background, making him dizzy. He placed his palms over his ears.

  “Sir, return your arms your side and remain still,” one of the men said as the other backed off.

  “Jennings?" Silas called out to him.

  The background noise was so loud he could barely hear him. “Sir…it hurts. The noise hurts."

  “I know. Listen to me." There was a pause. “Jennings?"

  Jennings closed his eyes to stop the pain. It got worse. He lurched forward and threw up. The sirens seemed closer, as if they were in his skull.

  “Jennings?" Someone yelled his name.

  “Hurts," he murmured, squeezing his eyes tight.

  “Listen to my voice…it’ll make it easier for you. Just listen to my voice…"

  Jennings tilted his head to follow the calm sound. There was an audible clicking inside his head, and then nothing.

  Chapter 11

  Silas yelled Jennings name again as he heard the explosion in his head. The following silence cut into him like a sharp knife. Disbelief that someone had gotten to Jennings that quickly ripped through him. How was that possible? Stumped, Silas sat on the step leading into the gym. He couldn’t believe or accept Jennings had just exploded at the police station.