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

and I was cross-legged on the rug, a greasy plate in front of me. After puking violently, no one should eat. At least that was what seemed reasonable, though I seemed to challenge that theory every time I threw up. I’d demolished an entire order of shrimp lo-mein all by myself.

“What are their demands?” I asked, patting my belly.

“I didn’t exactly have a chance to ask. Jake is... something when he’s mad.”

I considered for a moment, avoiding Rosalina’s gaze, fearing her reaction at the direction of my thoughts. She had kept me on a straight path for over a year. Without her, I wouldn’t have gathered the pieces of my life back together. Hell, I would be addicted to drugs or scattered in pieces all over the city.

“Um,” I started, my voice breaking, “please, don’t be mad at me but—”

She shook her hands. “I already know what you’re going to say.”

“I have to help. If I don’t, Stephen...”

“Stop! Do you really think you have to convince me? I thought it would be easy to coach you from the sidelines and tell you to stay out of it, but man, it’s hard.”

We both smiled sadly.

Her change of heart didn’t surprise me. This was Rosalina, the woman who picked up stray teens off the streets and invited them to watch Netflix.

“Yes, it’s really hard.” I patted her hand.

She stood and started pacing along the coffee table. “I’m not even the one with the skills to help, and I can see why you got involved in this kind of stuff before, how Jake dragged you into it.”

“And now, it’s happening again.” My voice sounded so resigned it scared me.

“It feels like giving up, doesn’t it?”

I nodded. “Like Jake’s winning.”

“That’s infuriating,” Rosalina growled, picked up an egg roll, and bit its tip off.

Yep, totally infuriating. And yet, here I was, trapped by my damn morals and facing one single way out: tracking Stephen, even if it killed me.

Why, oh why did I have a Mother Theresa complex? A baby one, but still.

Rosalina gave me a sad smile. She knew me well enough to figure out what I’d decided.

“Early tomorrow,” I said, “can you drop me off by Mom’s. I think I need my car.”

AT 7 AM THE NEXT DAY, Rosalina dropped me off in front of Mom’s house, the place where I’d grown up.

The two-story cape cod had light gray siding and teal shutters. A white railing surrounded the teal-painted porch. The front door sat off to the side, flanked by hanging plants, matching teal porch steps leading straight to it.

I stood on the sidewalk for a long moment, a familiar heaviness weighing my heart down. I hadn’t felt this way in a while, and I hadn’t missed it. Mom wouldn’t like this, not at all. I stretched my back, feeling stiff. I’d missed kickboxing class again last night, and it showed—not that I was in any shape to work out after a trance.

A car came driving up the street behind me. I felt it slow down, and out of nowhere, panic hit me. I hurried away from the curb, glancing over my shoulder as a sporty convertible came to a stop. A handsome teenage boy sat at the wheel of a black BMW. He angled his shoulders in my direction, resting his tan forearm casually on the steering wheel. He smiled, checking me out without shame.

“Good morning,” he purred.

Damn, where did these kids get their confidence? It had to be the cars they drove, had to be.

He was handsome. I had to give him that. Large brown eyes, trendy brown hair, strong jaw, and GQ features the envy of the Sexiest Man Alive, whoever they’d picked this year.

“Good morning,” I replied with a raised eyebrow.

“You must be Lucia’s sister.”

“And you are... ?”

“Connor, her boyfriend.”

“I see. I’ll tell her you’re here.” I turned and walked toward the door, sure the kid was checking out my ass. I resisted the urge to glance back and give him the finger. Funny how I kept calling him a kid, but I wasn’t that much older. Three years at most.

The moment I stepped onto the stoop, I breathed a sigh of relief. Home was safe. It had always been. Mom kept protection spells around the entire property capable of stopping intruders, magical attacks, and horny boyfriends. I glanced back at Connor and found that, indeed, he was admiring my posterior. I sighed.

I placed a hand on the door handle, and it unlocked for me. This was also part of Mom’s spell. No one who’d ever lived in the house would be kept out. Protection spells were her specialty. She could have probably made a lot of money casting them over businesses and homes, but she never cared about money, only about protecting her own.

Closing the door behind me, I walked in. The smell of breakfast sausage wafted through the air. I placed my purse on the console table and took a moment to peer at the portrait that hung above it. Six people peered down at me. My parents, brother, two sisters, and a younger version of me. It had been taken when I was fifteen, the last year we would all be together, before Leo moved out to travel the world. I’d only seen him twice since then: the first Christmas after he moved out, and during Dad’s funeral. Now, only Lucia still lived at home, and even she would be graduating soon.

Dad was a Stale, but all his children were Skews because of Mom. She came from a long line of witches, mages, trackers, healers, you name it. Leo, her eldest, was a skillful mage. Daniella, her second was a witch with great healing abilities. I was a tracker, and Lucia, the youngest, also a witch with strong telekinetic powers. We all had a variety of skills that seemed to keep changing and growing with time.

Nonna had been a tracker, too, which allowed Mom to pinpoint what I was early on. When Snitch, our