The Tracker's Secret: Sunderverse (Mate Tracker Book 2) by Ingrid Seymour (the gingerbread man read aloud .txt) 📗

out of one of his lieutenants.” He waved a hand in the air. “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I need to stop him before this situation gets worse. Tell me where he is.”

Everyone turned to me expectantly, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust Damien with the information. What if he was in it with Blake and things had gone sour between them somehow? What if Damien wanted to kill him because Blake could serve as a witness against him?

“I... I’m not really sure,” I lied, grabbing my head as if I had a headache. “Last night, I tried to track Blake, but I couldn’t come up with a location. Then when I... passed out just now, I thought I remembered something, but now...” I trailed off, shaking my head.

“So you don’t know where he is?” Damien demanded.

“I—I don’t. It’s all so fuzzy.”

Oh God, I was terrible at lying. Were they buying any of it? I glanced sideways at Rosalina from under my hand as I squeezed my temples. She was frowning, her lips pursed, clearly doubting my performance.

Damien, however, stood and started pacing the room. “I need to find that blasted werewolf. There are rumors that they are about to flood the system with enough rhabo to kill the entire vampire population in the city. Someone has to stop him, but he always seems to be a step ahead.”

“That sounds awful,” Rosalina said.

“Since when do you care about vampires, Copper Mage?” Jake asked, his tone full of skepticism.

Damien glowered at Jake but, like before, avoided answering the question. He was hiding something, but what?

Stomping his foot on the floor, Damien turned and headed toward the stairs, his cloak fluttering behind him. “I’m wasting my time here.” He halted at the top of the steps and glanced at Rosalina. “It’s unfortunate what you did. I really liked you,” he said, then, like a freaking diva, he descended the steps, a holier-than-thou expression on his face.

“Bastard,” I called out, loud enough for him to hear me.

We sat in silence until we heard the door chime. After a few beats, I pushed to the edge of the bed and whispered, “I think I know where Blake is and where they’re keeping that new shipment of rhabo.”

Chapter 29

“I KNEW YOU WERE LYING,” Rosalina said.

“She’s terrible at it,” Jake put in.

I huffed. “I can’t be that bad. Damien bought it.”

Rosalina peered at me with confusion. “But why didn’t you want him to know?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I just didn’t feel like I could trust him. We don’t know much about him.”

“I don’t trust him either.” Jake stood, walked to the window, and pulling back the curtain, glanced at the street below. “He’s hiding something.”

I nodded in agreement. “I got the same gut feeling.”

“So you did see something when you... passed out?” Rosalina asked.

I noticed that she opted to call my episode “passing out” and not “flailing like a fish.” She was sensitive like that.

I turned to Jake. “When Damien hit you, the sound seemed to echo all around me, and it brought me back to last night. It was weird because I was there all over again, but this time I could see more. Things my subconscious must’ve noticed during the trance that I didn’t register at first. I saw a warehouse full of crates.”

And I had seen the name “Pulse Inc.” in the news just a week ago. The report had said that they had two warehouses in the area and that one of them had burned down to the ground in a mysterious fire that was under investigation. It would be no problem finding out where the second warehouse still stood. One quick internet search would take care of that.

Though the miles and miles of wooden containers that had flashed before my eyes made me wonder if what I’d seen in the vision was true. I doubted any warehouse could hold that many crates, so that part had to be some sort of dreamlike exaggeration—unless the whole thing had been a dream. As I thought more about it, I started doubting myself.

“What is it?” Jake asked, noticing my confusion.

I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was just some sort of waking nightmare. Some of the stuff I saw couldn’t have been real.”

I didn’t understand what was happening to me. This was the second time my skills had kicked in on their own. First, that nightmare that helped me find Stephen and now this. Was it my new werewolf skills interfering with my tracker ones?

“Either way,” Rosalina said, “you have to tell Tom.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I sent him to Damien’s house, and for nothing. He’s probably mad at me.”

“Then I’ll go,” Jake said. “Tell me where Blake is, and I’ll find him. All we need is a good look at the place and confirmation the rhabo is there, then the cops can storm the place.”

“It could be dangerous,” I said, remembering the glee with which Blake had killed that man. “You shouldn’t go alone. I’ll go with you.”

“You think I’m crazy? I’m not bringing you along.”

“Then I’m not telling you where Blake is.”

“What?!” He turned to Rosalina, putting his hands out. “Talk some sense into her.”

“I’ve tried. I told her not to track Blake, but clearly, she doesn’t listen.”

“Hey, that’s not fair.” She was supposed to back me up. Maybe she was still mad. Regardless, I stood my ground. I couldn’t let Jake go there alone.

“Toni, don’t be unreasonable. If I get hurt, I’ll heal. You won’t.”

I pressed a fist to my mouth, fighting the temptation to tell him I could heal just as well as he could, but this wasn’t the time to talk about that. When I told him, I would make sure he couldn’t be distracted by anything else.

“You’re not indestructible, Jake,” I said. “You can still get killed, and you can’t come back from that, can you? Besides, I’m not defenseless. I