Page 16 of The Tracker's Mate: Sunderverse

I dropped my duffel bag on the floor, lost in thought.

“Chop, chop, Sunder. We don’t have all day,” Eric urged.

I glanced up, my eyes narrowed.

“Something the matter?” he asked.

I tried to dismiss my nagging questions, but they wouldn’t go away. I gave in. “As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve been wondering... why did you serve rhabo at your party?”

Eric’s expression hardened. “Is that how you want to use your limited time with me?”

I shrugged.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Have you wondered why I would throw a party at all?”

Ithadoccurred to me. The man was a grump. He wouldn’t know “partying” if it nipped him in the balls. He would probably think it was fleas.

“It was extortion,” he said. “Parties where rhabo is available to vamps have been going on in the city for some time. It is how they introduced the drug so quickly in the first place. One free dose and the vamps are hooked for life—or maybe I should say ‘til true death.”

“Extortion?” I said slowly. “That means they have something on you.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Your intellect shines even as early as 4 AM.”

My obvious remark had just been my way of asking “what” they had on him—not that I thought he would offer an answer. To my surprise, however, he did.

“Rhabo is my fault,” he said.

Huh?

“Damien created it because I asked him to.” Eric’s expression remained cold. “Its creation was the favor I owed him, which you’re helping me repay.”

I shook my head, unable to comprehend. “You... Damien... Why?”

“It was meant to kill one vampire, and one vampire only. And it did, but the knowledge of its existence leaked, and someone was able to recreate it. I don’t know who yet, but when I find out,” his left eye twitched, “I will kill him.”

Shivers broke over my arms. I rubbed them absentmindedly. I wondered what vampire he’d killed with the drug. Whoever it had been, they must have been powerful for Eric to need a weapon other than his teeth and claws. Jake had been right. Damien and Eric had everything to do with rhabo.

Eric held my gaze across the room, unflinching, as if daring me to challenge him. He was to blame, even if indirectly, for all the vampires that were dying. The count was in the papers every day, and it kept increasing exponentially.

Yet, that hadn’t been his intent. There was someone else behind it all.

“I’m sorry that happened,” I said.

He blinked. “You won’t condemn me?”

Despite his lack of civility and shitty reputation, Eric didn’t strike me as a bad man, only as someone who had suffered much.

He grunted, then asked, “Shall we begin then?”

I nodded. “Yes, lets.”

Eric opened his mouth to instruct me, but I spoke first.

“I want to learn to fight,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure that is the best way to utilize our limited time. You already wasted a good bit of it as it is.”

“I’ve almost been killed twice while trying to defend myself from a bigger wolf, so I think it is.”