The Tracker's Mate: Sunderverse (Mate Tracker Book 1), Ingrid Seymour [red white royal blue TXT] 📗

Rosalina signed for me to put the lamp down, then painstakingly formed four letters with her fingers.

J-A-K-E.

I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, I’m going to kill him.”

Why in the hell couldn’t he leave us alone?

Chapter 14

“Tell him I’m not here,” I told Rosalina.

She nodded, walked out of the bedroom, and closed the door. I sat at the edge of the bed, biting my thumbnail and bouncing my knee.

How in the name of a million witchlights had he found us?

It’s my job to know things, I heard his obnoxiously sexy voice inside my head.

This was the worst possible time for Jake to show up. I had purposely kept the side effects of my powers secret from him. At the time, I’d been afraid he would refuse to let me use them. Losing my senses was traumatic, but that wasn’t the only problem. When I tracked people in trouble, I got a full blast of what they felt. Fear, desperation, despair, pain.

Mate tracking was a walk in the park compared to that.

Now, it didn’t matter if Jake found out, but my burden felt private, and I didn’t think he deserved to know.

My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to imagine why he’d come. What was he telling Rosalina out there? Had something—

The door to the bedroom slammed open, and Jake stormed in, Rosalina hot on his heels, pulling on his massive biceps with no effect. His mouth was moving at a thousand miles per hour, and I had no godly or ungodly idea what he was saying.

My gaze darted from him to Rosalina, my eyes practically screaming for help. She took a step back out of Jake’s line of vision and began signing. She tripped over the words in the worst possible way. And I didn’t blame her because I doubted even one of those professional TV interpreters used during press conferences would’ve been able to keep up with Jake’s twaddle. Honestly, it had to be twaddle. No one could move their mouth that fast and make any sense.

Rosalina signed something that read like “Pink puppies have taken over the White House.”

I stared at her, open-mouthed. “What?”

She tried again. “Finger, fucking finger.”

What was she going on about? Whatever it was it sounded dirty. Or did she want me to give Jake the finger? I’d gladly do it, but I didn’t want to be out of context. It would let him know I had no clue what was going on.

Jake glared at me, his frown causing that little groove between his eyebrows to appear. He seemed expectant, probably waiting for me to say something. Rosalina signed some more, but I couldn’t make heads or tails out of any of it. Jake’s attention snapped to Rosalina.

Her hands froze in midair. She smiled awkwardly and smoothed her dress, trying to act nonchalant. Holy goblins, she would starve in Hollywood.

Jake made a “what’s wrong with you?” face, then he grabbed her by the arm, led her out of the room, and clicked the lock behind her.

“Hey, this is her place. You can’t do that,” I said, furious at his nerve.

He whirled, his lips already moving faster than Mom’s when she found out I’d been out past curfew. I backed away as if his silent words were lashes. He pressed forward, driving me against the bed, and kept ranting.

I’m freaking deaf, right now. I’ve no idea what you’re saying, I wanted to yell in his face, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to know anything else about me. Once, I’d given him everything. I’d opened up about my feelings, my teenage secrets, and fears. And how had he treated me?

Nope. Not doing that again.

“Stop!” I pushed him out of the way.

As Jake staggered backward, I rounded the bed and walked to the window, my back to him.

The thing about not being able to hear... it allowed me to shut the world away. I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing Jake behind me, still ranting about helping him find Stephen. I couldn’t imagine anything else bringing him here. He’d come back from the past with a one-track mind and a bone to pick.

After a long moment, a hand settled on my shoulder. I glanced at it, hoping to find delicate, manicured fingers. But instead, I found Jake’s large and strong ones. He made me turn, gently, which surprised me. However, the fury absent in his touch was evident in his stormy, silver eyes. His lips had stopped moving, and instead, formed a thin, unforgiving line.

Slowly, his hand slid from my shoulder down the length of my arm, unleashing a violent shiver across my body. Then, he pressed something into my hand and squeezed my fingers around it, until I crumpled what felt like a thick piece of paper.

He let go and took a step back. His head shook from side to side as disappointment and incredulity washed over him. Without another word, he walked away. As the door swung open in his wake, Rosalina appeared at the threshold.

Her expression told me everything I needed to know. Whatever had brought Jake here was bad.  Really bad.

Afraid to look, I brought my hand up and unclenched my fist, releasing what turned out to be a Polaroid picture. Carefully, I smoothed it open and stared at the image in horror.

My stomach convulsed, and I dropped the gruesome photograph and ran to the bathroom.

With the image of a swollen, severed finger flashing before my eyes, I retched until my ribs ached.

There had been a caption under the photo that read: Stephen Erickson’s Ring Finger.

Chapter 15

“Jake said a note arrived with the actual finger,” Rosalina explained once my hearing had returned five hours later. “It also said that if Ulfen doesn’t comply with their demands, they’ll deliver Stephen’s head next.”

My stomach did a flip, then filled with about two tons of guilt.

We sat in her living room, several boxes of Chinese take-out strewn about the coffee table. Rosalina was on the sofa,