Page 83 of The Tracker's Dawn: Sunderverse
CHAPTER 27
The next day, I walkedinto the kitchen after two hours of forced sleep. I had made myself stay in bed, tossing and turning, the events of the night replaying in my head over and over.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
We should have never gone there. Never. We should’ve stayed out of it. Damien had said it might be a trap, but it seemed all the risks we’d outrun lately had made us overconfident and reckless. I honestly thought we would walk into the warehouse, destroy Mekare’s drug operation, kill her hybrids, and even her while we were at it.
She had played us. She’d known we would fall for it. She had counted on our cocky behavior.
I stared at the coffeemaker’s empty carafe. It seemed I was the first one up. It was only 4:30 AM after all. I set a batch to brew and sat at the kitchen table, head in my hands, wondering where Eric kept the painkillers. My head was pounding.
Sometime in the night, Marcus, Patrick, and Ben had left. They’d called some of their pack members and took off. Marcus had tenderly picked up his sister’s body and transferred it to the back of the vehicle.
No one had said much as they left.
Once they were gone, we’d helped Eric and Damien upstairs. Jake took Eric to his bedroom, and Rosalina and I helped the mage in one of the spare rooms close to ours.
The coffee machine gurgled, signaling my poison was done. I poured myself a cup and drank it without milk or sugar, wincing at the bitterness. It was strong, and I hoped it would help with my headache.
I was about to sit down when my phone vibrated. The caller ID readunknown. My hand shook as I answered it and raised it to my ear.
“How are you feeling this morning, dear? You have a headache, I imagine. It’s a common side effect tophantasmagoria.”
My entire body trembled with rage. I set the coffee cup down on the counter, afraid I would fling it against the wall. Eric would not appreciate any attempts at redecoration.
“I wish it had been someone else,” she said. “A sister you don’t really know was hardly high on the list, but maybe it’s better this way. Maybe I’ll have more fun if I slowly work all the way up to say... Jake or your mother. Which one do you love more?”
“What in the fucking witchlights... ?!” I understood the threat, but I was having a hard time processing its magnitude. Why would she get such a hard-on for me?
“You will pay for getting in the way,” Mekare said. “For ruining my revenge.”
“Revenge? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” So she wanted revenge for ruining her revenge. That was fucked up.
“Of course you don’t. You’re just one of those people who think all their deeds are righteous, who believe they can make no mistakes.”
“Youmessed with us first,” I screamed, losing it. “I didn’t know you from jackwad before you tried to kill Damien. And as if that wasn’t enough, you kidnapped me and Rosalina. How dare you act like this is my fault, you crazy fucking bitch!”
“Aw, so innocent,” she replied calmly. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that for every action there is areaction?”
Gah!I was wasting my breath. She was a psychopath.
“I will tell you what you did, so you can understand,” she said. “But listen carefully because I will not repeat myself.”
She paused, then knowing when she had my full attention, the witch went on.
“The Dark Donna has been around for a long time. She’s one of the oldest vampires in St. Louis. She got here when the city was nothing but a dirt road. By the time I was born, Bernadetta Fiore owned half the city. She also owned my mother, a Brass Witch of moderate abilities.”
A Brass Witch? That was weak considering Mekare’s powers. There were six levels mages and witches could advance to, and Brass was only the second.
“She forced her to have sex with a Copper Mage,” she went on. “She invited him to one of her parties. My mother had never been with a man. She was only fifteen. She wasn’t free to even pick who to mate with. Because that’s what it was... mating. Bernadetta is always looking for mages and witches she can control. She uses them to pave her way and make things easier for her. Why should the mighty Donna have to wait for negotiations to follow their course, for laws to pass, for people to see her designs when she can have it all taken care of by magic? Oh, no! Goddesses don’t stoop to such levels. As you might expect, that Copper Mage ended up impregnating my mother with me.”
Shit!A Copper Mage? She wasn’t talking about Damien, was she? She was older than him, at least I thought so. It was hard to tell since they used magic to alter their appearance.
Mekare huffed. “That was the first time and the last time she ever saw him. She didn’t even know his name. I didn’t either, but it doesn’t matter. That’s not the point of the story. The point is that since I can remember, I was trained to serve that damn vamp.”
Mekare’s voice was charged with hatred. I could feel the magnitude of it even through the airwaves. It chilled me. Though, at least I could be relieved that she wasn’t Damien’s daughter. That would’ve been all kinds of weird.
