Chapter 22
Jude
“You ready for tonight?” Kai asked casually. He lifted a bottle of sparkling water to his lips and swallowed. Jude popped the knuckles on both hands. He knew the move was obnoxious. That’s why he loved doing it so much. Kai’s nostrils flared in response to the sound and Jude smirked.
“What’s there to be worried about? I’m a tiger or did you forget?”
“Whatever, Judas. Just remember you asked for this. I’m keeping my end of the bargain. Now you keep yours or I’ll provide you with an even better distraction,” the warlock said.
Jude shrugged nonchalantly in response, choosing to ignore Kai’s intentional butchering of his name. Jude went back to staring out the window and cleared his mind of Kai’s threats, knowing they were mostly empty. He’d been around the warlock long enough to know what the man could and couldn’t do. Threats regarding his own personal safety no longer mattered. As long as Logan was unharmed, Jude honestly didn’t care what happened to himself.
When they pulled up behind the vacant warehouse, Jude rolled his head side to side, forcing the tension from his shoulders. By the time George killed the engine, any hint of nerves on Jude’s part was well hidden. Kai thumped him on the shoulder, but Jude ignored the warlock’s poor attempt at camaraderie. He wasn’t here for the warlock, no matter what Kai chose to believe. Jude was a shifter set adrift from himself. He’d lost his one true mate. There was nothing else left for him but this.
As they approached the warehouse, Kai’s cell phone rang. The warlock took one look at the caller ID and held up a finger, indicating he had to take the call. Kai put his back to their SUV while his bear shifter bodyguards stood on either side, scanning the lot for any hint of danger to their boss. Jude kept his eyes peeled too, not really concerned about Kai’s safety, but knowing the bears wouldn’t go out of their way to provide him any protection.
George still refused to talk to him, even after he’d apologized repeatedly for his previous bad deeds. No matter how many times he’d explained that he had no idea she was George’s girlfriend, the bear just wouldn’t let it go. At least she’d just been George’s girlfriend, Jude thought. Jude almost chuckled at the macabre image that flashed through his mind of the consequences he might have faced if Serene had really been George’s true mate. The bear’s living room floor would probably look very nice decorated with a tiger’s hide.
When Kai erected a privacy shield around himself to hide his end of the conversation, the hairs on the back of Jude’s neck stood up. The warlock was up to something. Jude knew better than to trust the other man. He’d already proved himself to be a backstabbing traitor. The last hairball Jude had the pleasure of coughing up had been in human form, thank you very much.
Jude hoped he hadn’t been an even bigger fool than he suspected for putting himself back in Kai’s world. When something didn’t go Kai’s way, he had a habit of laying the blame on the nearest person. Last time, it had been Jude taking the brunt of Kai’s temper tantrum. This time it better not be him again. It was hard to kill a warlock, Jude accepted, but he’d had plenty of free time to do some research in the last few months. If Kai betrayed him again, there would definitely be a reckoning. Even if Jude didn’t survive it, he vowed to take the warlock with him.
Headlights played across the almost empty lot and Jude’s Spidey-sense alerted. A blue, extended cab pickup with a few years on it turned the corner and slowly drove past but didn’t stop.
“No fucking way,” Jude told himself. The truck kept going and Jude shook off the feeling of Deja vu. That wasn’t Logan’s truck. He was gone and the sooner Jude accepted that, the better.
A meaty palm landed on his shoulder and Jude jumped. George squeezed hard, obviously happy to have caught the tiger distracted. Jude pretended he didn’t feel a thing and brushed off the bodyguard’s hand.
“Are we finally ready?” Jude asked, feigning annoyance at the delay. Kai’s hands were free, so the call must have ended already. Jude wondered how long they’d been trying to get his attention. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, knowing if he walked into this without his full attention on the task at hand, there could be fatal consequences.
George beckoned for Jude to move and they once again started across the lot. The side door into the warehouse was monitored by what Jude suspected was a goblin. At least he was ugly as hell, so Jude imagined that was what a goblin would look like. Kai said something in another language that made the goblin (or whatever it was) laugh. When the creature stepped back, he motioned for their group to enter.
Jude briefly looked back, but the parking lot was pitch-black again, no sign of the truck he’d seen before. Jude squashed the faint hope that had tried to bloom in his chest. He pulled his preferred persona around himself like a shield and stepped inside.