Page 39 of The Tracker's Rage
Chapter 15
The knowledge of myfather’s identity settled down in my gut like a heavy boulder. I had heard the name Travis Hillworth plenty of times, and like Mom had said, it was rarely in a good light, the more I thought about it even Ulfen Erickson sounded better than him.
I left Mom’s house in a daze. Once inside my car by the curb, I surfed the web on my phone, looking at pictures of the man and his family. He was tall, about 6’4”. He had dark brown hair and eyes. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and sweaters, which he actually managed to pull off. His face was long and his aquiline nose crooked. He was married and had a daughter and a son—my half-sister and half-brother. That idea gave me all kinds of nausea. I had more siblings, both older than me, which meant he had stepped out on his wife with my mother. What in the world had possessed him to do that? And how had my mother gotten pregnant when that was a rare occurrence between werewolves and non-werewolves?
Could it have been that thing Jake mentioned? What had he called it? Cravedark?
As I drove back to the office, I struggled with the concept of my mom cheating on Dad with a werewolf. It made absolutely no sense and seemed entirely out of character. Mom had loved Dad, and they had been happy together. When he died, she was devastated because she’d lost the love of her life. If that was how she’d felt about him, then why the hell had she cheated on him?
There was so much more that Mom and I needed to discuss, so many questions that needed answers, but life was moving at breakneck speed, and this would have to wait.
Once at the office, I waited for Rosalina to arrive. She was uncharacteristically late and seemed flustered when she finally got here.
We got a little bit of work done, making phone calls and rearranging appointments and plans. She understood that the priority was helping Damien find a cure so we could save Josh, but I could tell that putting things on hold stressed her out. We had enough money to cover our upcoming loan payment and other bills, but our salaries would take a hit, and after that, we would have to dip into our savings account, which we’d barely started to build. One month and it would be drained completely, negating all our efforts.
Crap!Dani had been right. I shouldn’t have signed my name on the dotted line for a condo—not without first building a comfortable financial cushion. If only I were as sensible as my older sister.
After a quick lunch from the pizzeria across the street, we headed out to Damien’s place. As I was locking the door to our office, my senses spiked with awareness, freezing me on the spot.
“What’s the matter?” Rosalina asked.
“I don’t know.” I turned the key and glanced around, trying to see what might have caused my sudden alertness, but the street was unusually empty, with only a couple of guys walking on the opposite sidewalk headed for Cup o’ Java.
I shook my head. “I guess it’s nothing. My senses have been a bit hyperactive. I think my wolf is still settling in.”
“Whatever spell Damien put on you, it must’ve been a humdinger.”
We were walking toward my Camaro when the rumble of an engine came around the corner. I immediately recognized it as Jake’s Harley. I glanced in the direction of the sound, and as I laid eyes on him, my hypersensitive senses settled down, going back to a comfortable level.
What the hell?
“Was he the reason you were acting so weird?” Rosalina asked, putting two and two together.
“I think so.”
“Like you knew he was coming? Like you have spidey sense?”
“I really didn’t know he was near, but maybe I should have. Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t want to talk to Jake. It was too hard to be around him. Plus, we had somewhere to be.
Unfortunately, he caught sight of us before we made it to the car and sped his bike in our direction. Damn, if only Eric had taught me how to teleport already. Jake came to a stop, kicked out the stand, got off, and strolled resolutely toward us.
“It was him,” he said between clenched teeth. “The other wolf at the warehouse, itwasStephen. You were right.” He halted in front of me, and I could feel his anger rippling from his body like an energy field. “The fucking bastard. I should kill him.”
My eyes darted all around, worried someone might hear him. “Calm down, and don’t do anything stupid.”
“How are you so sure?” Rosalina asked.
“I called Kaden, our friend in New Orleans. He sent me this picture.” He pulled out his phone and retrieved the photograph of a snarling wolf standing on top of an unmade bed, a woman wrapped in the sheets like a burrito, looking terrified. The wolf had reddish fur and glowing blue eyes. It was of medium size, only slightly bigger than Eric’s wolf.
“Kaden snapped this picture during a drunken party they had,” Jake explained. “They were wasted on this drug calledgrim shaggyor some crap like that, and Stephen decided to shift and scare all the women at the party. He thought it was funny.”
That sounded like something College Stephen would’ve done. Supposedly, he’d been a party animal then, but when I’d met him, all of his friends seemed to think he was reformed. But maybe he hadn’t been. Maybe, it had all been a front for his father’s sake.
Jake put away his phone, his fists clenching and unclenching as he worked through his anger and disappointment.
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing that this discovery pained him.
