Midnight Matings 13 Splash and Elegance (8 page)

“Why are we doing this? I mean, why don’t you just go to the elders? Surely they’re not going to let your dad hold Carter prisoner like this.” Whitley had assumed their sneaky behavior had something to do with a bunch of hired guards. When Jude informed him that there were no guards at the house, the first niggling of doubt formed and spread like wildfire from there.

“Elder Gamble doesn’t want my brother’s existence to leak out any more than my father does. Not only does it prove what a lying, cheating piece of crap my dad is, but it makes Isa look bad as well.”

“That’s only one elder, Jude. There are plenty of others. Take your pick.”

Jude shook his head stubbornly. “I can’t risk it. I don’t know how many of them know about this or support Gamble and my father. I can’t risk going to the wrong person. I’d never see Carter again.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Whitley closed his eyes and swallowed down the groan that built in his chest. “Then why are we trying to sneak him out? If there aren’t any guards, then that only leaves your dad to stop us. I’m pretty sure you can overpower him.”

“And how long do you think it would take him to call Elder Gamble and have UPAC guards breathing down our necks?” Jude was getting angry, but he still wasn’t making any sense as far as Whitley could see.

“You think he’s not going to know who took him?”

“He’ll know, but by the time he realizes something’s wrong, we’ll have a head start. We just need to lay low until I figure out who we can trust.”

If the man hadn’t figured that out in the six months since Carter landed in his life, Whitley doubted he was going to do it before they were caught for kidnapping. Jude was hiding something. Whitley didn’t expect him to spill all his secrets after only a day, but this was different. This was Whitley’s ass on the line if they got caught. He figured if he was putting himself out there for persecution, he at least had the right to know what the hell he was doing it for.

“I’m going to get some sleep.” Maybe it would make more sense when he woke up, because right now, he wasn’t feeling very friendly toward his mate.

“Maybe we should get this whole consummation thing out of the way. Then I won’t have to wake you up later, and you can just sleep until my dad leaves.”

Whitley’s mouth hung open for a second before he snapped it closed. Had Jude seriously just said that? He’d made sex into a chore—something to put on his to-do list. “You know what, Jude?” Whitley closed his eyes and sighed. “Honestly, you can just go fuck yourself.”

Then he turned and marched out of the room, leaving Jude sputtering behind him. “Of all the stupid, arrogant…” He grumbled under his breath as he navigated the short hallway and stepped into
the only bedroom. Well, at least the place had a bedroom, and he’d be able to get away from his dear mate for a while.

Closing the door behind him, he shucked his clothes and climbed into bed. His entire body was shaking by the time he’d pulled the blankets up around his shoulders. Never in his life had he said something that rude to another person. He’d just been so hurt and angry that Jude could even think something like that, let alone say it aloud.

They didn’t know each other well, not yet anyway. Whitley had felt they had a connection, though. At the very least, he figured they had a mutual respect for one another. Neither of them had asked to be thrown together and bonded to each other. Still, Whitley was doing his best to make it work, and Jude’s careless words made him feel like a low-rent prostitute.

“Whitley?” The bedroom door eased open, and Whitley squeezed his eyes closed. “Whit, I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean it like that, okay?”

Right, because there was any other way for him to take it. “Jude, it’s at least eight hours until we have to worry about it. Can you maybe come back then?” Whitley was scaring himself with his behavior. He never talked back, never made waves. That was before he had a mate, though.

His family might not respect him. His former lovers never had.

But damn it! He didn’t think he was asking too much to expect it from the one person who was always supposed to have his back.

The end of the bed dipped as Jude settled himself down on the mattress. Whitley had never met a more pig-headed person in his life.

He couldn’t make the guy leave, but that didn’t mean he had to acknowledge him.

“Can we please talk?”

“No.” Well, that had gone well. Whitley couldn’t even ignore a person properly.
“Look, I’m stressed out and exhausted, and I was a dick. I’m sorry, Whit. I didn’t think before I said that shit. You know I think more of you than a way to get my rocks off.” Whitley pushed up in bed and turned to face his mate. “No, I don’t know that. How the hell am I supposed to know that? I can’t read your fucking mind, Jude! So that just leaves your actions, and your actions aren’t saying very nice things right now.”

“I knew there was some fire in there somewhere,” Jude joked.

Whitley wasn’t amused. “You are such a dick.”

“Where is all of this coming from? I mean, I know I was out of line about the sex comment, but I get the feeling it started before that.”

“You’re lying about something,” Whitley blurted.

Jude closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped, confirming Whitley’s suspicions. When he looked up again, there wasn’t as much contrition there as Whitley had expected to see. “The Council can’t know about Carter, okay? Just…Just trust me, Whit.”

“That’s a pretty tall order considering you haven’t given me a single reason to trust you since we met. I was willing to believe you were a good guy until you proved me wrong. Seems like all you’ve been doing since we left Virginia is just that—proving me wrong.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.” Jude scrubbed roughly at his face and growled. “There are just some things that I can’t tell you.”

“Yet, you still want my help.” Hell, that was all Jude wanted.

Once he learned that Whitley could manipulate the security on the cell, he didn’t seem to have any other use for him.

“Yes.”

“I’ll help,” Whitley conceded. “I’m not doing it for you, though.

I’m doing it for Carter.”

Jude gave him a strange look he couldn’t decipher before quickly looking away. “So am I.”

* * * *

His brain argued that sex wasn’t on the agenda, but his body wasn’t getting the message. His dick was hard enough to cut glass and not very happy being confined inside the denim of his jeans.

Even if Whitley was willing—which, after his little outburst, Jude doubted he was—there wasn’t time. His father would be leaving in twenty minutes to make his reservations, and they needed to be ready to move.

Stomping to the bedroom door, he banged on it loudly. “Whit, it’s time.”

The bedroom door opened, and Whitley glared at him, his face flushed as sweat beaded across his forehead. He was completely dressed, and looked just as uncomfortable as Jude felt. “What happens if we fail to have sex every twenty-four hours?”

“According to the elders, we lose our ability to shift and go feral.

It’s still bearable. We’ll be fine for a little while longer.” Whitley growled and shoved past him. “Just stop talking.

Everything out of your mouth pisses me off.” He scratched at his arms and tugged on the collar of his cotton shirt. “You are without a doubt the shittiest mate on the planet.”

Jude knew he wasn’t doing a stellar job, but he didn’t know if he would take it that far. “I’m trying, Whit. What do you want from me?”

“Forget it. So, what’s the plan?”

Taking a chance, Jude skimmed his fingertips down the back of Whitley’s neck, smiling when his mate shivered. “This is important, Whit. We don’t have a huge window to make this work. I promise I’m going to take good care of you as soon as we get out of here. Please trust me.” He was asking a lot of the man and giving very little in return, but he couldn’t take a chance that Whitley would bail on him.
Moving closer, he molded himself to Whitley’s back, wound his arms around his lover’s chest, and kissed the side of his neck. “We’re in this together, right? I’m hurting the same as you, but you know what? I’d want you even if I wasn’t.” It wasn’t just a line he plucked out of the air to gain Whitley’s compliance, either.

Whitley was unlike anyone he’d met and very different than Jude assumed he’d be. There was something so lost about him, but he had an inner strength he hadn’t even realized yet. Even if it hadn’t started that way, Whitley was quickly becoming someone Jude could see himself falling for.

“When we get out of this mess, I want the truth, Jude. I want to know everything. I think you owe me that much.”

“Once we’re safe, we’ll sit down and talk for days if that’s what you want. I’ll tell you every thought I’ve ever had.”

“That’s not what I want.” Whitley pulled out of his arms and turned around to face him. “I don’t need to know your life story up front. I just want to know the parts that involve me. This.” He waved toward the window, indicating their current situation. “This involves me, and I have a right to know.”

He was right, of course. The less he knew, the better off they’d all be, though. This had seemed like such a great plan in the beginning, but now Jude just felt conflicted. On one hand, he needed Whitley’s help to get his brother out of that cell. On the other hand, Whitley wasn’t some spoiled, arrogant jerk like Jude had imagined a Turner to be. The guy had jumped right in to help him without demanding anything in return.

Jude was still trying to navigate the line of right and wrong when his cell phone chirped with a text message from Arman, telling him that it was go time. “They’re leaving.”

“Let’s get this over with.” There was none of the spark in Whitley’s eyes that he’d had while they’d been practicing moves in his backyard. He didn’t look worried or concerned like he had on the plane, or confused and frustrated as he had in the car. The anger from
moments before was gone, and he didn’t even appear shy and timid as he had when Jude had first met him. He simply looked vacant.

The look made Jude’s insides shrivel and his gut clench painfully.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He hadn’t set out to hurt Whitley.

They were supposed to have more time together before he unloaded all this drama on the guy. Things hadn’t worked out that way, though, and now there was nowhere to go but forward.

With nothing to say that could possibly make things any better, Jude simply nodded, grabbed his backpack off the floor, and reached for Whitley’s. His mate stopped him, grabbed the bag, and hoisted it over his own shoulder before turning his back and marching toward the door. It wasn’t heavy, but Jude figured it was something small he could do for the man. Apparently, he’d been wrong. Whitley didn’t want anything in exchange for his help. He didn’t want anything from Jude at all.

That wasn’t exactly true. He wanted Jude to be a good mate.

Anything would be a step up from how he’d acted so far, but Jude couldn’t worry about that just then. “There’s a service way the yard crew uses to navigate the grounds. We’ll follow that to the back of the house and through the kitchen.”

“Fine.” Whitley opened the door and motioned for Jude to go first.

“Lead the way.”

Pausing beside his mate before exiting the pool house, Jude looked into Whitley’s eyes for a long moment. “I’m sorry.” Whitley stared back at him vacantly, even as sweat continued to roll off his face and his body trembled with barely suppressed need.

“Yeah, I know.”

With a little piece of him dying inside, Jude nodded curtly and stepped through the door, waiting for Whitley to join him before jogging up the path that led to the main house. The trip wasn’t long, taking barely more than a minute to reach the back door.
Jude peeked in through the glass, smiling when he found Lucia moving about the kitchen. Pushing the door open, he held his finger to his lips to silence her when she spun around with a gasp of surprise.

Her eyes were wide, but she nodded her understanding and pointed toward the ceiling. “Your pickup will be waiting out front,” she said quietly then went back to her chores as though two men hadn’t just burst into her kitchen.

Checking over his shoulder to make sure Whitley was still following, Jude led him through the house and up a winding flight of stairs. Hurrying down the hallway, he paused at the last door on the left and pressed his ear to it, checking for any sounds inside.

When he heard nothing, he motioned for Whitley to stay put while he raced back down the hall, into his father’s study, and straight to his desk, rifling through the drawers until he came up with the key to the room. Once he had the piece of metal firmly in his grasp, he darted back to his mate, slipped the key in the lock, and turned it at the same time he turned the doorknob.

The minute they stepped into the room, a loud scream rent through the air, and Carter bared his teeth. His eyes were wide and crazed, his nostrils flared, and he snarled viciously at them.

He looked like he hadn’t been bathed or fed in days. His clothes hung off of him like pieces of scrap material, and his hair appeared tangled and matted. There were fresh burns and bruises littering the exposed skin, and Jude wanted to find his father and tear him apart slowly.

“Carter, we’re going to get you out. Just hold on, okay?” If he understood, Carter gave no indication of it as he threw himself against the bars of his cage and roared at them.

Jude shook his head sadly and turned back to his mate. “We need to hurry.”

Whitley stood frozen in place, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. “Why didn’t you tell me? Jude, this is fucking crazy. I can’t do this.”
“Whit, you have to.” Jude resisted the urge to grab the man and shake him. “I know it’s bad, but he’s my brother. He’s just a kid, and he doesn’t deserve this. Please!”

“Bad?” Whitley shook his head slowly. “This isn’t bad, Jude. This is so much worse.”