15. Jude

Chapter 15

Jude

Mate, pup, baby, home! My wolf was nearly beside himself with excitement, spinning in circles and chasing his metaphorical tail, and I couldn't blame him one bit. Morgan was pregnant! We'd scented it as soon as we broke down his door. And now I had his suitcase in one hand, him in the other, and we were headed back to Grim Wilds. The future with my mate and our baby was spread out in front of me, and it filled me with the purest happiness I'd ever known, all clean and bright.

But…

It felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, with my toes hanging over the edge, just waiting for a strong breeze to tip me over. I was so terrified of what would come next, because as impossible as it was to believe, I loved Morgan. Everyone I had ever loved had come to harm, and now that I'd admitted out loud how I felt for my omega, my mate, the father of my children, I had this dread pooling inside me of all the ways this could go wrong. Pax, Vesta, and I had all had a nightmare for a reason.

It can't be as easy as this.

We stopped off briefly at the landlord's apartment to tell the man we were leaving. I knocked sharply, and I heard grumbling from inside as he stomped through his apartment. He finally answered the door tying the sash of his robe around his waist, a scowl on his flushed face. His black hair looked like it was trying to fly off his head, stuck up in all directions, and a waft of air from inside carried with it the aroma of sex.

"This better be good," he snapped. He directed his narrowed black eyes at me instead of Morgan, as if he blamed me personally for the interruption.

Morgan looked awkward and shrank into my side a little. "Uh, I'm leaving, Al. Maybe forever."

Al looked back and forth between us. "Took you two long enough. It's not normal to ignore the mating pull, not healthy." He shook his head sharply. "Fate or not, though, you're not getting any rent back."

I grunted in understanding, though at this exact second, money was my last concern. This sense of urgency was building inside me, like a brewing storm on the horizon, and it was starting to give me a headache.

I was ready to drag Morgan to the car, but when I started for the door, he resisted, pulling back on my hand while he tried to give his landlord all the information he would need. "I really appreciate all your patience with me this year, and all the help with getting us together, even if that meant giving my key to a total stranger—totally illegal, by the way," he said super fast, trying to get it all out before I could get us out the front door. "I won't have service on my phone, but I'll call soon to tell you what to do with all my stuff. But if I'm not back by the end of the month, just sell it or toss it or whatever and—bye!"

The door closed behind us with a dull thud. The wind hit my face like a slap, whipping the blowing snow around us in a flurry. Morgan gave a startled gasp, trying to pull his collar up with his free hand. "Gods, when did it get so cold?" he asked, looking up and down the street in front of his building, as if searching for something.

I was about to ask how he'd missed the start of winter, since we were smack dab in the middle of the season, but then I looked down at his pale, sunken cheeks and reminded myself that he'd been home sick. "Don't worry, Mo. The truck's parked just around the corner, and we'll turn the heat on full as soon as we get there." I let go of his hand and moved my arm around his shoulders, pulling him into my side to share my body heat.

He gazed up at me, all moony-eyed. "You called me Mo."

"Is that okay?" Were nicknames not something humans did?

"Of course it's okay. More than okay." He wrapped an arm around my waist and held on tight.

We hurried down the sidewalk toward where I'd parked the truck. "So… what kind of shifter is Al?" he asked, leaning in and whispering as if we were discussing trade secrets—which I guess we sort of were.

Though it wasn't really my place to spill Al's secrets, I saw no harm in divulging that much about the man. "Crow," I answered.

Morgan nodded, humming in thought. "That makes toooootal sense. The hair, the beady eyes, the way he cocks his head. And have you noticed how much he likes shiny things?" He wiggled his fingers, indicating all the man's rings. "Do all shifters' human forms resemble their animal?"

I shrugged, half distracted by keeping an eye on our surroundings. "To a certain extent, I guess." A tingling sensation had begun to crawl up my spine as I guided Morgan around the corner, my grip on him tightening. I could see my truck at the end of the narrow lane, and I hurried our pace. My heart began to thrum like a bird caught inside my cheat, its wings battering at my ribs to get out.

"We need to hurry," I hissed, half catching Morgan as his feet slipped in the snow.

"What? Why?" Morgan's head snapped up, his eyes on alert.

I smelled the man just a second too late. The sharp scent of formaldehyde triggered memories long buried but never forgotten. My legs locked up, and I shoved Morgan behind me just as a man stepped out from around the corner of the building ahead, between us and the truck. I hadn't seen him in years, but I would recognize him anywhere, even without the white lab coat. "Dr. Taylor," I snarled. Light glinted off the gun in his hand.

Morgan gasped, clinging to the back of my jacket. "Eric!"

"You know him?" I asked, alarm bells blaring in my head as I crouched in a defensive posture, claws extending.

"Oh yes, your mate and I go way back, don't we, Morgan," Dr. Taylor answered for him. "He has been so helpful in reuniting us." His lips stretched into the grin I'd once found charming as a child, but I was no longer that clueless kid. I could see the tightness to his mouth, the malicious gleam to his eyes, and I knew exactly what he was capable of. He was older than I'd last seen him, his hair more silver than blond, but he was the same monster underneath it all.

For the briefest of moments, I wondered if I'd been taken for a fool. If they knew each other, did that mean Morgan had knowingly led me into a trap? But even as the thought flitted through my mind, I rejected it. I knew Morgan. I mean, I might not have known his favorite color or the names of his parents or grandparents, but I knew him. And I was absolutely certain that he would never betray me.

"Don't listen to him!" Morgan said from behind me, sounding surprisingly fierce. "I would never help him! He's been following me, hoping that I'll lead you to him. It's why I haven't come to you before now."

"It's okay, Morgan, I believe you." I reached back and set my hand on his hip. I could feel him shaking. "Nice try—Eric, is it? We were never on a first-name basis," I growled, my muscles tightening in preparation to fight. I kept my eyes locked on his, anticipating him to make a move. His gun was pointed straight at my chest. Getting shot would no doubt hurt like hell, but I would heal. Morgan wouldn't, though. If I'd been facing off against him alone, I would've simply taken him out, but with Morgan, the rules were different. It would be better if we could get out of this without engaging. "If you'll excuse us. It's a bit chilly to stand around and chat." Keeping Morgan behind me, I tried to slide past Dr. Taylor toward my truck, but he shook his head.

"Ah-ah," he tutted, gesturing with the handgun. "You're not leaving. Well, not by yourselves, anyway. But if you're eager to get warm, I'm parked just over there." He jerked his head to where a black SUV was pulled up along the curb. "Shall we?"

"We're not going anywhere with you," I snapped, but it was like he didn't even hear me.

Dr. Taylor was watching me with a critical eye, his gaze roving up and down my body. "You know, I really am surprised to see you, Jude. I'd assumed it would be a different wolf shifter, since we knew you to be defective, but now it turns out you really are a wolf! That you somehow suppressed your canine all those years, through hundreds of full moons. Fascinating. I've never found a shifter who could control their beast like that. I am very much looking forward to studying you further."

"You won't be studying anything," I gritted out. My blood was roaring in my ears, my gums aching where my canines lengthened as my wolf begged me to let him out, and still I waited, wondering how this would play out .

Dr. Taylor's eyes turned hungry. "I wonder if a shifter's human mate is afforded any kind of special abilities…"

Panic reared its head, turning me borderline feral. My vision was overlaid with my wolf's, and I knew my eyes must've been bright green by the way the doctor's face reflected his satisfaction. He knew he had me. What he didn't know was that my mate was pregnant.

I thought of my poor omega father, forced to bear children on the whims of a madman, and yet he loved us all the same. Right up until he disappeared through that unmarked door the final time, he protected and cared for me, all while being subjected to the worst mankind had to offer. The director and his team had spent over a decade studying us, torturing us in the name of science, taking blood and tissue samples, though for what reason, I still didn't know. And now here I was again, faced with a choice.

If this were a busier street or an earlier time of day, there would've been a chance of someone stumbling on the scene, but as it was, the sound of traffic was too far in the distance. I even would've been grateful for the human cops at this point. But nobody was coming to save us. It was up to me.

"I'll come with you," I said, taking a step forward. "But you have to promise not to hurt Morgan. "

Morgan clung to my jacket, gasping. "No! You said you would never leave me again. Wherever you go, I go."

Dr. Taylor scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm not letting this opportunity slip away. Both of you, get in the truck."

"But he's not even my mate," I pleaded, lying like our lives depended on it. "Just look at his neck. I haven't marked him."

That had him pausing, and I clung to that hope. "Then why do you care what happens to him?"

"He's an innocent in all this, and I'm not some heartless monster," I snapped, implying that he was the worst of the two of us if he was prepared to experiment on a fellow human. "Just let him go, and I won't put up a fight. I'll even shift for you."

His face showed more wrinkles than I remembered as he frowned. I never found out if I'd won him over or not, because when he opened his mouth to answer, he was interrupted by the trill of a phone.

Dr. Taylor pulled his cell from his pocket. "I've got him," he said in greeting.

With my beast so close to the surface, I heard every word on the other end of the line. "Good work," the voice said, and it was enough to make the world tilt on an awkward angle—or maybe that was me. I concentrated on Morgan's tight grip at my waist, keeping me anchored. Because the voice was straight out of my nightmares—the director, Dr. Gray. "Do you need backup?" he asked.

Dr. Taylor turned to the side, as if trying to shield the call from being overheard, but it was pointless. I heard it all. "No. He says he's willing to come in quietly as long as I let the human go."

I held my breath for Dr. Gray's answer. "I'm going to send a team. I need you to take the omega with you. We might need him to keep this one in line."

No. No, no, no, nononono.

Concrete walls painted white, tiled floors. Bright lights, a metal table, and a floor drain for easy cleaning.

No matter what it took, I refused to let Morgan and our child be subjected to their so-called tests.

While Dr. Taylor was distracted, I tilted my head and whispered over my shoulder, "When I make my move, I need you to run."

I couldn't see Morgan to gauge his reaction, but the scent of his fear was acidic on the back of my tongue, and I swore he tightened his grip on me. He wasn't going to let go, but I needed to be able to move freely. I reached back and offered my hand. Morgan didn't hesitate to take it, lacing our fingers. I tried to convey what I needed from him, that I needed to know he was safe so I wasn't distracted by trying to protect him.

Power surged through my veins, teeth sharp enough to tear, claws to rend. My wolf was an extension of me, and together, we were an unstoppable force.

Morgan's breath caught in his throat, and he loosened his grip. I felt him trail a finger along one claw, before he took a small step back, putting space between us. I regretted scaring him, but this needed to be done, end of story. I would beg for his forgiveness after.

Their actions could not go unpunished. My father, telling me to run, even while resigning himself to imprisonment or death. Amelia, Carter, and Isaac, their lives cut too short.

The second Dr. Taylor looked down at his phone to hang up, I was already moving. The hand holding the gun had dipped just enough in his distraction that it was no longer pointing dead center. His slow human reflexes didn't even register that I was coming at him until I was halfway there.

He had no chance of stopping me.

I slammed a closed fist straight into his nose, felt the bones break, heard the satisfying yelp of pain, before the blood began to gush from his face, hot and metallic. How ironic that, for all our differences, our blood smelled almost the same.

The man went down like a sack of bricks, the gun falling from his limp grip with a slushy clatter on the wet pavement. I didn't stop, though. I couldn't . I lunged forward and straddled his hips, keeping him pinned down, though he fought weakly.

A childhood of fear drove my fists. "How dare you think you could lay a hand on my mate," I roared in his face between punches. I saw red, blind to anything but the rage fueling me. "He's mine !" Face, chest, stomach, there wasn't an inch of him I didn't mar. Blood spattered across my clothes, the sidewalk, and the coppery tang drove me mad! How many times had he taken my blood? Well, now it was time to return the favor.

Morgan's voice was in the background, but my focus remained on the sorry excuse of a man beneath me. "Jude. Jude!"

A hand came down on my shoulder, and I gasped, drawing a deep breath into my lungs as if I hadn't breathed in days. It was like waking from a dream, climbing up from the fog of blood rage.

I blinked up at my mate, then down at the bloody mess of Dr. Taylor's face, steaming in the cold. "I—I just…" I didn't know what to say to excuse what I'd done. I felt like I should apologize, but I wasn't sorry for what I'd inflicted on Dr. Taylor. I was a predator, and I did what needed to be done. This was just a part of who I was. I finally settled on, "I'm sorry you had to see that."

I stood up on shaky legs, the adrenaline leaving me weak as a pup as it abandoned me. Head bowed to my chest, I waited for Morgan's tears, his panic over the violence he'd witnessed, preparing myself for the worst, but it never came. Instead, he walked around in front of me and reached up, tilting my chin so he could look into my face.

"Are you okay?" he asked gently.

I blinked in confusion. Surely I'd heard him wrong. "What?"

"Are you hurt? There's a lot of blood." His hands hovered over my chest, then down my arms to my fists. He took one gingerly in his hands, his tender touch a stark difference to the way they still throbbed.

"I'm fine, the blood's not mine." I pulled my hands back. I didn't want to get that monster's blood on my mate.

Morgan turned to look down at Dr. Taylor. "Is he dead?" he asked impassively.

It was hard to tell, but I tuned my wolf's hearing and listened for the plodding beat of his heart, the rattle of his labored breath. "No, he's alive. "

"That's too bad," Morgan said, surprising the hell out of me. "That asshole had it coming."

Where I thought my mate would've been terrified by the violence in me, he looked to be almost as furious as I was. His eyes were dark as he glared down at Eric. "Fuck you, Eric," he spat, giving him a sharp kick in the ribs.

I desperately wanted to pull him into my arms, but I resisted. Instead, I grabbed a handful of snow and used it to wash my hands clean the best I could. "It's not too late," I said, considering the possibility. "I could just end him now, ensure that he'll never bother either of us again."

"Can't kill… Still alive…" I heard someone whisper, like an echo of what I'd just said, except it wasn't Morgan who said it. My head snapped to the body on the ground. His lips were split, making it hard for him to talk. "Still… alive…" he said again.

I sneered down at him. "Yeah, I know. You're lucky I didn't tear out your throat, as much as my wolf wanted to."

"N-No." Dr. Taylor took a series of wheezing breaths, his eyelids fluttering as unconsciousness crept over him like a shroud. "Your… father…"

Suddenly it was like my body gave up the fight against the weather, the cold seeping into my very core and turning the blood in my veins to ice. "What did you just say? "

He wasn't saying anything now, though. The man was limp on the ground.

I bent forward and grabbed the front of his jacket, lifting his sagging torso off the ground. "Hey! What did you say?" I gave him a shake, his head lolling on his neck. "My dad is alive?!" I didn't want to believe a lie, but I couldn't stop the glimmer of hope from sparking to life inside me. "You're lying! You killed him! He's dead!" The words were choked off with a sob, tears dripping down to mix with the blood.

Somewhere in the distance, I swore I heard the squeal of tires. Morgan gripped my arm and tried to pull me away, but my fingers were still tangled tight in Eric's shirt. I didn't want to let go until I got answers. "Jude, we have to go. They're coming!"

I knew he was right. I forced myself to release Eric, and he fell back in the stained snow. Shock weighed me down. I was barely able to get my body to move, and without Morgan's help, I probably wouldn't knelt there in the snow until Dr. Gray's backup arrived to imprison me again.

"Give me your keys. I'll drive," Morgan said, but when I made no move, he reached into my pocket and fished out the keys. He pressed the unlock button, and the truck's headlights flashed. "Get in, quick!" he said, shoving me roughly inside, along with his suitcase, then slamming the door behind me and running around the hood to climb in behind the wheel. The roar of engines could be heard now, getting louder, and Morgan cranked the key and slammed down on the gas pedal, propelling us in the opposite direction as quickly as he could.

I stared blindly out the windshield, not seeing a thing. "My daddy… he's…" I felt nothing, I was entirely numb.