Midnight Matings 13 Splash and Elegance (12 page)

“I can’t tell you how much I regret that. I can’t change it, but I can make it up to you.”

Whitley shook his head again and backed away. “No you can’t.

Don’t follow me this time.”

“What am I supposed to do? Just tell me what to do.” His mate glanced over his shoulder and gave Jude a sad look.

“Break the bond because I never want to see you again.”

Chapter Eleven

“You’re just going to let him go?”

Jude didn’t even turn around as he answered Carter’s question.

“You heard what he said. He hates me.”

“That’s not what he said at all. He’s hurt. I only heard part of the conversation, but I’d say he has a damn good reason for it, too.”

“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” Jude said, changing the subject. If his world wasn’t crumbling around him, he’d have offered his brother a lot more enthusiasm. The kid had finally emerged into the land of the living once more. It was cause for celebration, but Jude didn’t much feel like celebrating.

“Yeah, I’ve been feeling it coming for a couple of days now. Then I heard you arguing from the water, and I was afraid there might be trouble. I didn’t even think about it. After all you’ve done for me, I couldn’t let anyone hurt you. The next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees in the sand, panting for breath after I shifted.” Was everyone out to make Jude feel like the world’s biggest piece of shit? He’d helped Carter because they were family and he was just a kid. He didn’t see that he’d done anything to warrant that kind of loyalty, though. “Are your memories coming back?”

“Stop it,” Carter growled. “I appreciate what you did for me, but this is about you and that guy I am assuming is your mate. You fucked up.”

Jude spun around with a growl of his own. “You think I don’t know that? You think I wouldn’t give anything to take it back?”

“Then why are you just standing there?” Carter challenged. “Go get him!”
“He doesn’t want me, and I don’t fucking blame him. He deserves a hell of lot better than me. Whitley is everything I wish I was, and all the things I can never be.”

“Do you love him?”

“I’ve known him for eight days.” Jude eyed his brother and rolled his eyes before reaching into the pickup for his bag and pulling out a change of clothes. “Put these on,” he ordered, tossing them toward Carter.

“I didn’t ask you how long you’ve known him.” Carter tugged on the jeans and huffed when they fell right off his hips. Pulling them up again, he held them in place and looked into Jude’s eyes. “Do you love him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? How do you know something like that after only a few days?”

“I’m eighteen, Jude, not eight. I might not know much about relationships, but love doesn’t sound like something you have to guess about. Either you feel or you don’t.” The kid was far too intuitive for Jude’s liking. He’d told the truth, though. His emotions were all over the map. While he had strong feelings for Whitley, he didn’t know if he’d call them love. When Whitley had walked away from him, it was probably the most painful thing he’d ever endured. That didn’t necessarily mean he loved the man, though. The sting of rejection was bound to hurt.

Then there was the mating bond. He’d yet to figure out what all that entailed, but there was a chance that his emotional tie to Whitley had everything to do with their mating. If that was the case, how did he know what was real and what was fabricated? And could he even trust his feelings?

“You are seriously overthinking this,” Carter said with obvious exasperation. “If you don’t want him, I’ll take him. He’s fucking hot.” A possessive growl rumbled in Jude’s chest and up through his lips before he could cut it off. “He’s mine!”
Carter just smirked at him. “That’s what I thought. Now, are you going to go get him or not?”

Jude didn’t even have time to answer in the affirmative before he heard footsteps pounding across the pavement and coming toward him fast. “Jude!” Whitley screamed. “Run! They’re coming!” Headlights flared at the other end of the parking lot, and panic lodged itself in Jude’s chest. Whitley had risked everything to come back and warn them. Now he would pay for it, and there wasn’t a damn thing Jude could do to stop it.

Darting around his truck, he sprinted toward his mate, but he knew he wouldn’t make it. Before he’d even traveled half the distance between them, a dark luxury sedan screeched to a stop between him and Whitley. The back door flew open, Whitley was jerked inside, and the tires squealed against the asphalt as the vehicle sped away.

“Fuck!” Jude shouted, fisting both hands in his hair. Hurrying back to his pickup, he was damn glad to find Carter already in the passenger seat glaring after the car that had taken his mate.

“Was that Reginald?”

“My guess would be yes.” Jude peeled out of the parking space and floored the accelerator as he took off in pursuit. “Keep your eyes on them.”

His cell phone began to ring, vibrating against his thigh inside his pocket. He dug it out with one hand, growled at the display screen, and connected the call. “I swear if you fucking hurt him…” Jude trailed off, leaving the threat open ended.

“You’ll do what exactly?” his father taunted him. “Why couldn’t you just do as you were told? None of this had to happen, Jude.”

“What do you want?” He’d give anything to get Whitley back unharmed.

“I want the boy. Melody already mucked up the mating I had planned for you.” Reginald growled at this, but didn’t say anything further on the subject.
Of course his father would demand the one thing that Jude wasn’t willing to negotiate. “How did you find us?” Reginald laughed harshly. “I’ve been watching you for days. I had to make sure you still had that bastard son of mine with you, though.

Now, we can do this the easy way, and you can give me what I want.

Or…”

“Or?” Jude prodded, knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Or your mate can have a little accident. If he dies, you die, right?

Then there’s nothing standing between me and the kid. I don’t want to do that, Jude, but I will if you force me.” Whitley’s loud, pain-filled scream pierced Jude’s eardrum, and he almost swerved off the road.

“Don’t hurt him!”

“It’s your choice, son.” There was a moment of silence before Whitley screamed again. “What’s it going to be?” Whitley’s next scream ended on choking gurgle, and Jude couldn’t take any more.

“Fine,” he agreed. “Whatever you want, just stop hurting him.”

“I knew you’d see things my way.”

“Jude, he’s lying!” Whitley yelled over the line. “You know he’s lying. Don’t do i—” His words were cut off and replaced by another gut-wrenching scream.

“I’ll meet you at home,” Reginald said calmly. “You have one hour.” Then the line went dead.

It took all of Jude’s self-control not to launch his phone across the cab, or worse, out the window. “I’m taking you somewhere safe, and then I’m going to get my mate.”

“I’m coming with you,” Carter argued. “Whitley wouldn’t be in this mess at all if it wasn’t for me. I want to help get him back.”

“Whitley is in this because of
me
. I’m not taking you back there.”

“Cut the bullshit, Jude. I can help, and you’re going to need all of it you can get. Now shut the fuck up and drive faster.” Jude was too worried about the task ahead of him to argue with the kid. They needed a plan, and more importantly, they needed a miracle. His dad was just coldhearted enough to murder Whitley
without blinking to get what he wanted. Jude didn’t fear death, but he couldn’t let his mate die for his mistakes.

Punching in numbers on his cell phone, Jude pressed the phone to his ear and waited for an answer. It was his last sliver of hope, and he prayed to every deity he knew of that it would work. When his call was finally picked up on the other end, he didn’t even bother with a greeting. “They have Whitley, and I need your help.”

* * * *

“Hello, Mother.” Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cell, and without a scrap of clothing on, Whitley stared up at his captors.

He didn’t have a clue why they wanted him naked. Apparently, they thought he would be able to fasten some kind of weapon out of denim and cotton.

Maybe they were just trying to humiliate him. If that was the case, it wasn’t working. Whitley could care less about being nude. What he was really worried about were the open wounds across his chest and arms where they’d cut him. The lacerations throbbed painfully, and blood still continued to seep from them.

“He should have been here by now,” Elaina Turner said, pacing the floor and checking her watch repeatedly. “Where is he, Reggie?” Jude’s father leaned calmly against the wall, staring holes into Whitley. “He’ll be here. Jude seems to have formed an attachment to this one. He’ll bring the boy.”

“Well, I certainly hope so. I don’t know why I even need to be here at all. I suppose if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

Whitley didn’t know why it surprised him that his mother was the brains behind it all. His father couldn’t string two thoughts together without tripping over them. They were barking up the wrong tree, though. After everything Jude had done to rescue his brother, there was no way he would just turn him over with a pretty little bow—not
even for Whitley. They were probably halfway down the coast by now.

“Oh, relax, Lainey. Jude is my son, but he’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s scared, and he doesn’t have a clue who to trust. As far as he’s concerned, I have the entire Council in my pocket. He won’t go to the elders.”

“He wasn’t supposed to escape!” Whitley’s mother exploded.

“You swore you’d hold him until he’d gone feral, then you’d release him to Gamble for execution. That’s how it was supposed to go. Do you know what they’ll do to us if we can’t fix this?”

“They who?” Reginald asked with an arched eyebrow. “UPAC?

The elders? No one is going to touch us. Gamble isn’t going to do anything that might possibly tarnish his precious Isa’s reputation. No one even knows we’ve separated.”

“I just don’t know how you could have done that to your own son.”

Reginald blinked twice and threw his head back, bursting into laughter. Whitley kind of felt like laughing himself. Who the hell did his mother think she was kidding with that bit?

“You do realize that you just stabbed
your
son and then tossed him into a cell
he
created for him to bleed out. I wouldn’t go casting stones, Lainey.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” Whitley asked quietly. It was a question he’d wanted to ask for years, but he’d never had the balls.

Since there was a high probability that he wouldn’t live through this, he had nothing to lose by seeking answers now.

His mother turned an icy glare on him. “I don’t hate you, Whitley.

I don’t care enough to even feel that much for you. You’re a smart boy. Surely you’ve figured it out by now.”

“I know I was an accident.”

“You were a mistake!” his mother screeched at him. “You were never supposed to be born. We had Ashley and that’s all we needed. I was next in line to be elder. Did you know that?”
She didn’t sound as though she really wanted an answer, so Whitley kept his mouth closed and folded his hands in his lap as he listened to her rant.

“Then I wind up pregnant with you. The doctor thought we’d both die during delivery. You were such a puny, sickly little thing. If I shunted you to the side and took the elder position, how do you think people would have looked at me? So I gave it all up for you, and what a disappointment that turned out to be.” By the time she’d wound down, Whitley was struggling to swallow past the lump in his throat. It wasn’t a shocking revelation, but it still hurt like hell to have all of his suspicions confirmed. His family really did hate him, and they only tolerated him to keep up appearances. If that wasn’t a kick in the nuts, he didn’t know what was.

“Sir,” a tiny woman with blonde hair done up in a bun announced as she hurried into the room. “Jude has arrived with the boy.” She cast a sympathetic look at Whitley before returning her attention to Jude’s father.

“Thank you, Cara. He knows where we are.” She bowed her head respectfully, though she cast another glance at Whitley from the corner of her eye, and then hurried out the door again.

Whitley wasn’t sure whether to sing or weep at the fact that Jude had come for him. He still didn’t believe that his mate would sell Carter out like that. So, what was the man up to? He hoped like hell that Jude had a plan, because he was fresh out of ideas.

Two sets of footsteps, one a muffled thump and the other more like a shuffle, grew louder as they came toward the open door. Then Jude was there, leading Carter by a rope. He didn’t even spare a glance for Whitley, but stared his father right in the eyes.

Carter stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and unseeing, as he rocked back and forth and mumbled under his breath. The mumbles
turned to growls, and copious amounts of drool spilled through his lips and dripped down his chin.

Whitley didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he was in no position to question it. Jude had told him Carter was getting better.

Had he lied? Was it all a game? If it was all an act, he failed to see how it was going to help any of them.

“It’s time,” Jude said evenly. “This is what you wanted. There’s no chance that he’s ever coming back. I don’t want to see him this way, and once he’s gone, all your problems are solved.” Reginald prowled around Carter, eyeing him intently. He jumped back when Carter turned and snapped at him, loud snarls rumbling up from his chest.

“Call Elder Gamble,” Jude demanded. “It’s time to end this.”

“I’m here,” another man announced as he stepped in through the door. “I have a vested interest in seeing this whole mess put behind us.”

Whitley tilted his head to the side and smirked. Elder Gamble was a waif of a man, probably no more than five-five. His long blond hair flowed over his shoulders, making him look extremely young. Why was everyone so damn scared of him? He was a shark shifter, but what on earth could he do to them out of the water?