Page 57 of Bad Blood Wolf

The door was open, and a pretty, curvy young woman was greeting Brody with obvious pleasure. Jasmin saw him give her a small, elaborately wrapped box, and they laughed over something.

And then he stepped inside.

Hot jealousy stabbed at her. Was this woman a girlfriend? Or an ex? Her jaguar growled softly.

But why would he call Jasmin his mate, if he were with someone else? Did he have a child? But why would it be raised in secret when Brody belonged to one of the most powerful packs in the country? None of this made sense.

Quietly, on cat feet, Jasmin stole around to the side of the trailer. It looked out on an empty space, and the curtains hadn’t yet been pulled for the night.

She peeked inside, into the living room. There was an older woman with a crumpled face sitting in a plaid easy chair, with a brightly-colored afghan over her legs. Her long stringy hair was mouse-brown, heavily streaked with gray, and her eyes looked vacant. Her hands were plucking at the knitted flowers on the afghan, her mouth working.

At first Jasmin thought she was in her seventies or eighties, but as she looked more closely at the woman’s face, she saw that she was probably not more than fifty-five or sixty. It was the gray hair and the crumpled, vacant look that made her seem older.

“Yolanda?” the woman called in a querulous voice. Then, looking frightened, she called again, “Yolanda?”

Jasmin could hear her clearly—the walls of the trailer were thin, and the windows poorly sealed.

The young woman hurried into the room. “I’m here, Adele,” she said soothingly. “And look who I have with me.”

Brody stepped inside the room, still carrying a gaily wrapped box. “Hey, Ma,” he said gently. “Merry Christmas.”