The Tracker's Mate: Sunderverse (Mate Tracker Book 1) by Ingrid Seymour (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

I blinked, held my hands closer to my face. Darkness still surrounded me, but I could make out shapes. I wiggled my fingers. Something dark was smeared on them, then I saw color.

Red.

Red, sticky blood.

Shaking all over, I lowered my hands. A figure etched in darkness stood in front of me. My heart hammered.

“Stephen?” I murmured, lips trembling.

The figure stepped forward, and his face became visible. I pressed a wet, sticky hand to my mouth to hold back a scream.

It was Stephen.

I could tell even though his face was a bloody mess. A cut ran across his eyebrow, dripping blood onto a swollen-shut eye. His lower lip was busted and streaks of red ran down his chin.

“Help me.” He took a step closer. “Help me.” Another step. “Help me.” He stopped a foot away from me and held up his hands. “Look at what they’ve done to me. Why won’t you help me?!”

All of his fingers were missing, and only bloody, bloated stumps remained.

Oh, God.

Vomit burned in my throat.

“Lusiola,” Stephen said, then he reached for my throat with his mutilated hands.

I screamed and screamed and screamed.

In the next instant, everything went dark and silent.

Someone grabbed my shoulders. I screamed again and flung my arms out, knocking the hands away. I lost my balance and fell with a thud. Desperately, I crawled away on my hands and knees until I reached a barrier.

My head and my heart pounded out of control.

I felt around, fingers fumbling, trying to find an exit, but I’d ran into a wall. I felt along its length until I reached the corner.

There was no escape.

I pressed my back against the corner and huddled there, hugging my legs, burying my face in my knees. I waited for Stephen, or whoever, to yank me to my feet and... and what? I didn’t know.

I sobbed into my legs, my body trembling with tension as I anticipated the worst.

Minutes ticked by. Nothing happened. I still couldn’t hear or see anything.

I don’t know how long I spent in that position, but when the gentle sound of bird song reached my ears, I opened my eyes to find I was cowering in the corner of my room with Rosalina sitting on the bed, watching me closely.

“Toni,” she said my name carefully as if afraid I would break.

Tears of relief spilled down my cheeks. She approached carefully, making no sudden movements as if I were a skittish cat. When she reached me, she wrapped me tightly in her arms and rocked me back and forth until my tears ran out.

Chapter 30

“I heard you screaming,” Rosalina said.

We sat on the sofa, nursing identical cups of tea. I had calmed down and taken a hot shower that had succeeded in making me feel half-human again.

“So I ran into your room. You were sitting up in bed, wailing. I tried talking to you, but I think you couldn’t hear me. When I touched you, you jumped off the bed and crawled to the corner. You couldn’t see me. Your eyes were blank, just like when you come out of a trance.”

Her words made me shake as I remembered the panic.

Rosalina laid her hand on mine. “Are you okay? We don’t have to talk about this if you’re not ready.”

“No, it’s fine. I want to understand what happened.”

“It was more than a nightmare. I can tell you that. You were blind and deaf, Toni.”

I nodded, feeling the truth of her words.

“What if, somehow, you put yourself in a trance during your sleep?”

I set my teacup on the coffee table. “Maybe.”

“But that’s never happened before.”

“No, but Skew powers are known to change with time.” The possibility of not being able to control the trance scared the crap out of me. I might never sleep again.

Rosalina half winced. “I’m afraid to ask, but... what did you see?”

Pushing through my fear, I told her everything, sparing no details. When I finished and glanced up at her face, she was pale—or her version of pale, anyway. Her beautiful tan skin looked as if someone had turned off its golden glow.

“That had to be a nightmare. You weren’t really there, right?” she asked, doubtfully.

“I don’t know. It felt so real. All the sounds and that smell. What do you think that word he said means?”

Rosalina shook her head. “I have no idea. Maybe we should Google it.” She went for her phone, which rested on the arm of the sofa. “How do you think it’s spelled?”

I shrugged. “L-U-S-I-O-L-A.”

Quickly, she typed the letters into the search box, then glanced up. “Apparently, it’s a city in Kenya. Shit, do you think that’s where Stephen is?”

“No.” For some reason, I had the feeling he was near. “Maybe it’s spelled differently. What if you try L-U-C-I-O-L-A?”

She used Google again. “A genus of flashing fireflies,” she read. “That helps me as much as saying a ‘constellation of neutron stars.’” Rosalina gave me worried eyes and confused me with her analogy. She was too smart for me. “Maybe you just had a nightmare, after all, a very lucid one.”

“The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it wasn’t. Maybe this word will mean something to Jake.”

Rosalina sighed. “Do you feel up to working today?”

“Yeah, I think so. I need something to take my mind off things.”

“All right, let’s get ready and go. Oh, by the way, your mom called several times. She wants you to call her back. She sounded pretty insistent.”

“Yeah, she’s been pestering me about coming to eat lunch. She’s making me tortellini. I’ll call her back.”

On our way to the office, we grabbed breakfast at a drive-through. I got a double espresso and two oversized blueberry muffins, while Rosalina went the healthy route and got tea and an egg on a wheat toast.

“At this rate, all those curves are gonna go flat,” I teased, gesturing toward her boobs.

“Pfft, they aren’t going anywhere. They’re a family curse. Abuela Esperanza has them, my mama has them, my sister has them, and