Midnight Matings 13 Splash and Elegance (13 page)

Reginald crossed his arms over his chest and frowned, looking so much like Jude, Whitley had to look away. Maybe his mate had lied to him and manipulated him, but that didn’t mean he was as underhanded as his father. Jude wasn’t cruel. He’d just wanted to save his brother.

When he looked at it that way, Whitley didn’t take it quite so personally. Jude hadn’t deliberately meant to hurt him. It could have been anyone, as long as they had what he needed to help Carter escape. Hell, it could have been Ashley.

Following that train of thought, Whitley realized that Jude had never actually lied to him. He’d withheld a shitload of information, yes. He’d used Whitley to get what he needed, but he’d never been
malicious about it. Maybe he was having a hard time understanding because he’d never cared for anyone like Jude cared for his brother.

Or maybe it was because he’d never had anyone need him or depend on him.

Seeing his mate there, prepared to watch his brother die so that Whitley could go free, shifted something inside his heart, allowing a small ray of light to peek through the darkness. It was possible that Jude had purely selfish motivations for his actions. If Whitley died, Jude would as well.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Jude had never come across as the type of man to worry about his own well-being. Everything he did was for those he cared about, and just maybe, Whitley was one of those people.

Chapter Twelve

He couldn’t look at Whitley. If he did, he’d ruin everything. Jude could smell the blood, and he’d caught a flash of bare skin inside the cell when he’d entered the room, but he couldn’t look. If it was anywhere near as bad as he imagined in his head, he’d lose it and slaughter them all for what they’d done to his mate.

“Make the phone call,” his dad said to the elder. “We all want this over with so that we can move on.”

Jude didn’t know what Whitley’s mother had to do with any of it, but he assumed it all came down to money. He wasn’t too interested in the particulars. When the time came, the snooty brunette could go down with the rest of them.

He especially enjoyed how they were talking about Carter as though he was the bad guy, and they were all gathered to dish out a rightly deserved justice. If everything went as planned, they were all in for a very rude awakening.

“Very well,” Elder Gamble said as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket. “We can’t involve UPAC, though. It would be detrimental to my career and reputation if they were to find out about this.”

“You’re not suggesting The Allegiance,” Whitley’s mother gasped. She fisted her dainty hands on her hips and growled.

“Seymour has made a fine mess of this. I should never have trusted him with something so important.”

“Yes, well, The Allegiance is discreet, and they never talk.” Elder Gamble began dialing as he spoke. “Not to worry, Elaina. You’ll still have your seat on the Council.”
Jude kept his face impassive, but inwardly, he was grinning a mile wide. More pieces were falling into place about the reason for Elaina Turner’s involvement. He assumed Whitley could fill him in on the details later. He was also more than a little pleased that Gamble was going to The Allegiance without needing to be prodded in that direction. So far, things were working perfectly.

“We have a feral shifter here,” Gamble said into his phone a moment later. “It’s a delicate situation. UPAC cannot be involved.

Yes, that’s right. Mr. Reginald Chambers’ residence.” He rambled off the address, inquired as to how quickly someone would be there, and disconnected the call as calmly as if he was ordering a pizza.

“Someone will be here before sunrise.” Reginald and Elaina gaped. “You can’t be serious!” Elaina exclaimed. “What are we supposed to do until then?” Gamble shrugged. “They’re not going anywhere, my dear. Let’s go have a drink while we wait.”

Apparently, neither of them had a good argument against this, because they simply nodded and followed the elder out of the room, locking it behind them. The lock didn’t mean anything to Jude. He had no intentions of trying to escape.

“Jude, what’s going on?” Whitley asked in a loud whisper.

Shaking his head, Jude held a finger to his lips, and pressed his ear against the door, listening until the footsteps had faded away. Once he was sure their captors were gone, he rushed across the room and knelt in front of the door to the cage, but didn’t touch it.

Whitley scrambled across the floor and stopped just on the other side of the bars. “You came back for me.” Jude wanted to reach out and touch Whitley in the worst way.

“Did you have any doubt?” The look on his mate’s face said that he’d had many of them. “Everything is going to be fine. I need you to hang on for just a little longer.”

Three long gashes across Whitley’s chest oozed blood, and one arm looked mangled with puncture marks. Jude couldn’t stop the
growl that burst from his lips, and he was glad he hadn’t chanced a look at his mate earlier. No way could he have remained passive after seeing something like that.

“How bad does it hurt, Whit?”

Whitley shrugged. “It’s not so bad anymore.” Jude looked around his lover, eyeing the blood smeared over the floor of the cell. Just how much blood had Whitley lost? How much more before it was too much? If they could get him out of the cell, he could shift and heal himself, but until that happened, they didn’t have many options.

Whitley rattled off some numbers to him and jerked his head toward the back corner of the cell. “That’s the code to shut it down.” Before Jude could move, Carter was across the room and punching numbers into the keypad on the box. “Done,” he said with a bright smile. “This rope itches, Jude.” Whipping his shirt over his head, Jude threaded it through the bars. “Put pressure on the worst of the wounds. Help is coming, baby.

Just hang on for a little longer.” Then he turned to his brother. “Same goes for you. We have to keep this up for a little longer.”

“Turn the cell back on,” Whitley said as he took the shirt and pressed it to one of the cuts on his chest. “I don’t know what you have up your sleeve, but we need this to look as real as possible.”

“Shift first,” Jude ordered. “Shift and heal yourself before we reactivate it.”

Whitley shook his head. “They’ll know something is up if they come back and I’m healed. We need everything to be the same as it was when they left.” He reached through the bars with a trembling hand and rested his fingertips on Jude’s forearm. “I’m going to be fine.”

The strain in his voice and flush of his skin said otherwise. Jude’s arm burned where his mate touched him, and it suddenly dawned on him that once again, they’d exceeded their twenty-four-hour time limit. “I am really horrible at this mating shit.”
Whitley chuckled and shook his head. “Well, I wouldn’t give you a gold star, but you had no way of knowing this would happen. I’ll make you pay when we get out of here.” Then he pulled his arm back through the bars and nodded to Carter to activate the cell.

If Whitley wanted to make him suffer, Jude would accept anything the guy had to dish out. “I never meant for this to happen.

I’m so sorry for everything.”

“You can make it up to me later.” Whitley gave him a crooked grin and sat back on his heels. “I’m not saying I forgive you, and I’m not saying I trust you. I don’t hate you anymore, though, so I guess that’s a place to start.”

“You won’t be sorry,” Jude vowed, overwhelmed that after everything he’d done, Whitley was willing to give him a second chance. “It’s going to be perfect this time.” Whitley gave him a disbelieving look but bobbed his head. “I hope so, Jude.”

Carter wandered back over to the door and sat down in front of it, pressing his ear to the wood. Satisfied that his brother would let them know if anyone was coming, Jude plopped down on his butt and folded his legs beneath him.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Umm, green?” The inflection in Whitley’s voice made his answer sound like a question. Jude found it kind of cute.

“Mine’s orange. What about hobbies? What do you like to do for fun?”

Whitley gave him a soft smile, apparently catching on to his game. “Anything to do with computers, I guess.” Jude bobbed his head, committing it all to memory. “What about books? Do you like to read?”

“I like the classics. What about you?”

“I don’t read much.” Jude shrugged. He wasn’t illiterate. Reading just wasn’t something he enjoyed doing for pleasure. “Tell me a secret about you.”
“You first,” Whitley countered.

That seemed fair enough. “Though I’m a water shifter, I can’t swim unless I shift.”

Whitley slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter.

“Seriously?” he whispered. He laughed some more when Jude nodded before getting himself under control. “I can’t fly. Well, I guess technically, I
can
, but I don’t because it scares the shit out of me.” It was Jude’s turn to chuckle. They made quite the messed-up pair. On and on it went, each of them asking questions and digging up buried secrets. He didn’t know how long they sat there, but his butt started going numb, and his cock jerked excitedly with each smile Whitley gave him. Part of it was because of the mating heat, but a larger portion of that had to do with how much Jude truly desired his mate.

“Someone’s coming,” Carter whispered before scrambling to his feet and holding his bound hands out toward Jude.

“Just sit tight,” Jude told his lover, then jumped to his feet, crossed the room, and took the end of the rope tied around Carter’s wrists. “This is it.”

Carter started drooling and snarling again as he fought against his restraints. The kid was a damn good actor. Jude pinned him up against the wall with an arm across his collarbones, careful not to cut off his air supply. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Blinking to signal he understood, Carter jerked his head forward and snapped his teeth together just as the door opened and several people filed into the room. Reginald led the way with Elaina and Gamble following just behind him. Then two men and a small redheaded woman came after them. Jude assumed they were from The Allegiance.

The last person who entered the room made his jaw drop and his head reel. “Elder Swanson?”
Carter, not registering his shock, made another lunge for him.

Jude wasn’t prepared, and he cursed loudly when his brother’s forehead smacked into his chin. “Fuck, Carter!”

“Yes, I see what you were saying,” Elder Swanson commented as he stared Carter up and down. He looked bored with his hands laced behind his back and his nose turned up in the air. “I still don’t understand why you couldn’t simply call in the UPAC guards, however.”

Emmett Gamble hurried forward and began a long-winded speech about upholding family honor and yadda, yadda, yadda. “So, you see, this would look very undignified for my daughter if it leaked that her mate was not only caught cheating, but produced a child from the affair.”

Elder Swanson nodded slowly. “Yes, I see your predicament, Emmett. Was the boy feral when you found him?” Gamble and Reginald glanced at each other and fidgeted nervously. “Yes,” Jude’s father lied.

“I see.” Elder Swanson glided across the floor toward the cell where Whitley was. “And you locked him inside this cell so that he couldn’t harm anyone. Then you called me immediately.”

“Yes,” Elaina piped up.

The elder turned his head to grin at her. “Elaina, it’s nice to see you. I’m assuming you’re here to get your son back.” Elaina’s face paled and she began to tremble. “He…no…I mean, we caught him freeing the boy. He’s not right in his mind.”

“Is that right?” He turned back to the cage and tilted his head to the side. “Hello, Whitley.”

“Hello, sir,” Whitley returned, dropping his head respectfully.

“Were you involved in freeing this young man?” Whitley lifted his head and looked the elder right in the eyes.

“Yes.”

“See?” Elaina pointed her finger and jabbed it repeatedly in Whitley’s direction. “He admits it.”
“Would you shut the hell up?” Whitley shot at his mother in exasperation. “You could talk the damn paint off the wall.” Jude swelled with pride at Whitley’s outburst.
Way to go, baby,
he cheered silently. The snotty bitch deserved much worse than that, but he was happy to see his mate finally standing up for himself.

Elder Swanson chuckled under his breath. “Maybe you’d like to try again, Elaina. Your son seems perfectly stable to me.”

“You are not here on behalf of UPAC, and it’s not your job to question anything.” Elder Gamble crossed his arms and glared. “Just get on with the execution.”

“And who would you have me execute?”

They all turned as one to look at Carter, who was smiling happily as Jude untied the ropes around his wrist. “Hi, Dad,” he said with a cheery wave when his wrists were free. “You come here often?”

“You!”

Jude stood his ground as his father advanced on him. Two of the guards stepped between them and ushered Reginald back. “You lying, treacherous bastard! You tricked us. He was feral! I made sure of it!”

“Do you know how much money I shelled out to that stupid bitch?” Gamble jerked his head at Elaina. “All so that this little problem would go away. You’re going to pay for this.” Resting his hands on his hips, Jude tilted his head to the side and smirked. In their self-righteous fury, they’d just blurted everything Elder Swanson needed to know. He had a very childish urge to stick his tongue out and sing, “Nana, nana, nana!” He refrained, of course, though he might have done it inside his head. Just a little.

Elder Swanson dipped his head to his guards, and within seconds Elaina, Reginald, and Elder Gamble were on the ground with their hands behind their backs. Swanson was saying something that sounded official, but Jude wasn’t listening. He raced across the room, threw open the cover to the control box on the cell, and looked up to Whitley for the codes.
Whitley rattled them off, and Jude punched the numbers in one by one. When he’d shut down the power supply, he punched in the next code to unlock the door. Moments later he wrenched Whitley into his arms and covered his mouth in a hard, possessive kiss.

“Are you okay?” He stroked his mate’s cheeks and wiped the sweat away from his brow. “Let’s get you fixed up, baby.” Whitley rolled his eyes, but he was grinning from ear to ear. “I’m okay, Jude. Just take deep breaths and relax.” Then he pushed up on his toes and pressed their lips together. “Thanks for coming back for me. How did you do it, though?”