Page 57 of The Tracker's Revenge

I rolled my eyes.Whatever!Arguing with them about this was a waste of good breath.

Jake grew serious then and addressed Eric. “Um, did you get what I asked for?”

Huh? What’s he talking about?My curiosity reared its head.

“I did,” Eric said. “You’ll find it in the training room.”

“Thank you.”

I opened my mouth to ask, but Eric turned his back on us and walked to his desk. I mouthed “what?” at Jake, but he took me by the arm and guided me out of the room.

“What’s going on?” I asked as he closed the door behind us.

“You’ll see.”

When we entered the training room, my eyes zeroed in on two tall stacks of boxes. “What is this?”

Jake rubbed his neck, his silver eyes dancing around the room. “I like it here. There’s another Toni in view.” He was referring to my reflection on the large mirror affixed to the wall. Why was he being so cryptic? Obviously, it wasn’t something he wanted to hide from me, or he wouldn’t have asked Eric about it in front of me.

I decided not to press him and made a dismissive gesture with my hand. “Pshaw, she doesn’t hold a candle to me.”

He smiled and stepped closer, stopping a mere inch from me. “No one does.” He perused my face, his lips parting.

“Stop, you’re going to make me blush.”

“You’re gorgeous when you blush.”

“Is that what you tell Allison?” I asked, finding it hard to play along.

His expression darkened. “Don’t do that. You know I don’t care about her that way.”

“That way?” I asked. “That seems to imply you do care about her somehow.”

He sucked in a breath to say something, seemed to think carefully, then finally said, “She’s not a bad person, Toni. She’s a pawn of the circumstances as much as I am.”

Maybe she was, but I still remembered the way she had seemed to rub their engagement in my face along with Walter the day I found out about it.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. She delighted in calling youJakeyin front of me.”

He shook his head. “That had nothing to do with you. She was angry, blamed me for the arrangement between our packs. Her father practically forced her. She had less say than I did, and was only trying to mock me.”

“Does that mean she’s not angry anymore?”

She could do a lot worse than Jake. He was hot as hell, a strong alpha, and a good man. Maybe, after having some time to think about it, she was starting to like the idea of becoming his wife and was making nice with him.

“No, she isn’t mad anymore.”

Bingo!

“We’ve talked since. I told her about the promise I made to my father, explained that it was what led me to accept the pact. She understands the responsibility of keeping the Knight legacy alive, the weight of it.”

The way he said it made it sound as ifIdidn’t understand any of it, and maybe it was true, but his words still hurt.

“I’m glad to hear,” I said in a biting tone. “If you can’t find a way out of the pact, at least you won’t be marrying a total nitwit.”

“C’mon, Toni. It’s not like that,” he said in a reproachful tone.

“No? So... you told her about us?”