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

mean to upset you,” he said as calm and collected as I’d ever seen him.

He had disappeared for a year and a half, then materialized out of thin air, and he was acting as if nothing had happened? Did he have amnesia?

I took a deep breath, using all my strength and will to reign in my emotions. They were wild, like a category-five hurricane bent on destruction, so it wasn’t easy.

Don’t give him the satisfaction, Toni. He has no hold over you.

Maybe it was too late. He’d already seen what his mere presence could do to me. Still, I’d learned a thing or two since he’d left. I had changed. I took a deep breath, and as I let it out, I neatly folded my emotions like a piece of paper and tucked them away in a private corner of my heart.

“I’m not upset,” I said, my voice as calm as Jake’s.

He frowned, his silver eyes scrutinizing me, searching for the turmoil I’d locked away. But it was gone, and I’d thrown away the key.

“Look,” he started, “I’m back because—”

“I don’t care why you’re back. Like you said, it’s a free country. You can move in next door if you want. And I can move out if I want.”

“Wait, what?!” Rosalina asked from behind me. “Move out? But we love it here.”

I glanced back over my shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Okaaaay,” she said.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jake said. “I will terminate my contract if that’s what you want. It doesn’t matter. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I need your help, because you’re the only one who can find Stephen Erickson.”

Chapter 6

My mind stuttered, slowly trying to process what Jake was saying.

I’m here because I need your help, because you’re the only one who can find Stephen Erickson.

The cogwheels inside my brain had suddenly gone rusty, screeching to a halt.

Jake and Stephen. Stephen and Jake.

It didn’t compute. As I tried to say something and only puffs of air came out of my mouth, I began to think I was permanently broken.

As usual, Rosalina came to my rescue. “So... you’re Jake Knight?”

He glanced at my friend, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from me. “I am.”

“And you’re trying to find Stephen Erickson?”

“Yes.”

Rosalina shook herself and blinked. “How the hell do you know Stephen?”

Here was the question I’d been wanting to ask. It snapped me back to my senses. “Yeah, how the hell?” I demanded.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” Jake said. “His life is in danger. We have to find him before it’s too late. You saw what they did to his bodyguard.”

“Wait, how do you know that?” Then I remembered. “You were there. I saw you”

He nodded.

“And I thought I was going crazy.”

“Look,” Rosalina took a step forward and stood next to me, “it’s very nice of you to be so determined to find Erickson. I commend you for it, but Toni isn’t going to get involved in this.”

Jake frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are, and why you’re trying to speak for Toni.” His piercing eyes shifted to me. “The woman I know speaks for herself.”

“Yes, she does,” I said. “And she isn’t going to get involved in any of this.”

That new crease between his eyebrows grew deeper. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t do that kind of work anymore. If you haven’t noticed,” I gestured around the office, “I run a mate tracking agency.”

Now, it was Jake’s turn to act as if the cogwheels in his brain needed grease. He narrowed his eyes, frowned deeper, cocked his head to one side, opened and closed his mouth... And after all of that, he said absolutely nothing, which gave me an odd sort of satisfaction.

“Things are finally looking up for me, Jake,” I continued, “and I don’t intend to ruin what I’ve accomplished.”

“It’s Stephen we’re talking about.” He sounded truly confused.

“I’ve no clue how you know Stephen but don’t try to act as if we’re all long-lost friends because we’re not. I went on a few dates with him, and then he broke up with me because Daddy Ulfen didn’t approve. That was all. If he told you more than that about our relationship, it doesn’t give you the right to come here acting like this.”

“Toni, I don’t... understand. You like to help people.”

“And you know where that got me?” I paused, feeling a lump of familiar anger build in the pit of my stomach. “Nowhere.”

When I should have been working and saving money, I had selflessly tracked people who’d gone missing, expecting nothing in return. Yeah, saving that eight-year-old from that blood leech before he managed to hurt her and returning her to her parents had felt awesome. I would never regret saving little Emily Garner. But in the end, all I had left were two-months’ rent, an empty bank account, and deep depression.

“But this is someone you know. Someone you shared something with. How can you turn your back on him when it’s in your power to help?” Incredulity contorted his face.

“Just the way you and he turned your backs on me,” I said. “That’s how.”

Jake flinched but recovered quickly. “I don’t recognize you.”

The words hurt. I couldn’t deny it. Maybe because that innocent girl who once used her talents for good was dead. Or because my half-frozen heart couldn’t warm up toward Stephen, a person I’d known and liked. Or because the man I’d loved most in the world seemed so disenchanted of what I’d become.

“What did you expect?” I asked, my voice quiet. “That I would be the same naïve, pliable girl you left behind?”

He lowered his head as if searching for an answer in the floorboards. He found none.

“Pain takes its toll, Jake. It shapes you, and it rids you of your soft edges. I’ve been honed, and there’s nothing soft about me anymore.”

He met my gaze, and what I saw in his eyes made the half of my heart that wasn’t frozen twinge. I knew him