Page 108 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

I stare at the ceiling. The sheet stretches across my bare chest, tucked under my arm to keep me covered.

Zeus lies on his back beside me with one arm slung behind his head. He breathes deeply, satisfied and relaxed after our three rounds. Three seemingly unending rounds.

The virility of the male gods surprises me at times. It shouldn’t, but it does.

While Zeus is sated, smug, and fulfilled, I’m empty and hating myself—hating him.

Hating that his actions forced me to degrade myself.

That what I experienced with him is only a fraction of what my females went through at the hands of those involved in Zeus’s foul scheme.

Hating that all it took for those weak males to act on their depraved thoughts was a nudge in that direction from someone with power and influence.

Zeus and Lyall gave them the tools, but those men were the ones who turned their depraved fantasies into reality.

Those men are dead now. But what’s stopping Zeus from starting over with others? What’s stopping him from finding a new scapegoat?

This has to end. That’s why I was willing to play this part—to seduce him. So my wolves can have their revenge.

I slide out of the bed—thank the stars Zeus is not the cuddling type—and slip my dress on before heading to the bathing area. I press my finger to my lips as I peer around the privacy screen to silence my guest. It’s unnecessary, though.

Brenna sits on the floor, her knees hugged to her chest and her stare vacant. My appearance catches her eye, and she uncurls herself. Her body moves like it’s on autopilot as she exits the bathroom.

Poor, fragile little thing. She has seen too much and lived too little. I’m tempted to take her hand, but she’s as skittish as a baby bird and may take flight at the slightest sudden movement.

She reaches a hand towards Zeus, then twists her wrist and curls her fingers in one by one. With each curl of her fingers, Zeus’s breathing deepens. His body relaxes more and more, until he’s so sound asleep not even his own thunder will wake him.

“I didn’t have to go find him. He found me,” I tell her, even though she didn’t ask for a recap.

I pick my midnight blue silk robe up off of the chaise and tie the belt around it to cover my sheer dress and the disgusting, nauseating hickeys I know Zeus left on his favorite parts of my body. “I’m sorry if you heard any—”

“I put up a sound barrier as soon as we arrived. Just in case.” She takes a syringe out of her pocket. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?” I repeat her question back to her so I don’t have to give her an answer.

“No.”

She says no, but she walks forward anyway, heading straight to Zeus without a second thought. Without looking back at me. She only pauses when she reaches him. Her hand hovers over his forearm with a barely visible tremble.

“Brenna?”

“He is very old,” she remarks.

“That he is,” I confirm. “Ageless but ancient.”

“His memories will be vast and unending.”

“Can’t you touch him without experiencing his memories?”

“I don’t know. I could before, but as the battle progressed, my magic changed. And ever since, it’s been…different. Wild. Unpredictable.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’m afraid of what I might see.”

“You’re strong enough to control it. I know you are.”

My belief in her seems to be enough to boost her confidence.

She darts her hand forward, snatching his wrist in her grip and inserting the needle into his vein.

Ichor—the blood of the gods—fills the vial.

Thicker than mortal blood and as gold as the ambrosia we drink, it’s toxic to humans and will kill them on contact.

Luckily, my warriors aren’t human.

Once there is enough ichor in the vial, Brenna drops his arm like it’s a snake about to bite her. She grips the vial in her fist. Fury brews within her. It bubbles like a cauldron of water, close to spilling over the edge, but she funnels all that wrath into that tiny vial clutched in her hand.

Zeus wakes with a mighty roar. His eyes fly open, and the bed shakes beneath him with the force of his shout as he tries to throw himself from it. But he’s stuck in his reclined position, pinned in place by the blood magic Brenna uses against him.

“What is the meaning of this?” he shouts.

“I should ask you that question,” I reply.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He strains and writhes within the unpleasant, magical hold he’s under, desperately attempting to break free.

The visible shaking of his muscles and bulging of his veins, and the way the capillaries pop within the whites of his eyes, speak to how much pain Brenna inflicts on him.

Brenna and I meet in the center at the foot of the bed, and when he sees us side by side, when he sees the vial clasped within Brenna’s fist, his confusion disappears.

“I should have realized you gave in too easily.” He laughs humorlessly. “You were always so adamant in your refusals of me. Your willingness should have been a red flag.”

I shrug one shoulder. “We all make mistakes. Lyall made plenty of them.”

If he had control of his body, I’m sure he’d raise a brow at me. “Like what?”

“The list is quite extensive, I assure you. But his biggest mistake? Attacking the pack where my daughter lives.”

“Did she survive?”

“They had sufficient time to prepare, and she was safe with me during the attack.”

“Pity.” He doesn’t attempt to deny his involvement in Lyall’s overall scheme. “Because losing two daughters to the same male? That would have been an epic blow against you.”

I shut my eyes at the thought. The prideful tone of his voice slices through me like a freshly sharpened blade.

As he intended it to, I’m sure. He cares for nothing and no one but himself.

He always has. That’s how he came to be “king of the gods”.

Not because he is the strongest or the smartest or the most powerful, but because he is the biggest bully, with infinite pride and a nonexistent moral compass.

“Why are you so desperate to hurt me? What have I ever done to you?”

“It’s what you didn’t do. What you refused to do until tonight.”

My jaw drops. “You’re telling me that all of it—bringing Lyall back, telling him to hurt me however he wanted, the trafficking… You started all of it because I refused to sleep with you?”

I knew I bruised his ego with my refusal, but I never thought it was enough for him to retaliate like this.

He had demigoddesses and nymphs, and countless other beings, fawning over him and tripping over themselves to be his bedmate.

I was certain he’d move on from my refusal quickly and find himself a new conquest to chase after.

How foolish I was.

“You say that like it was a one-time thing, Selene.” He says my name with a sneer.

“It wasn’t once. Millennia of asking, and always a refusal.

At first, I understood. I let it slide. You’d lost your daughter.

You were mourning. I figured if I gave you space, you’d come around.

You’d see what’s been there between us all along.

But when you came to me, asking for permission to have another daughter, you refused my offer once more and chose a human instead! ”

“I didn’t sleep with—”

“You chose a human over me! You turned me down countless times and then chose a fucking human instead of me!”

“Her father had to be a human. It was the only way she’d be human and raised in the mortal realm. Don’t try to tell me you would have made an exception for her. We both know that’s a lie.”

“If I was her father, she would have grown up at your side.”

At my side.

He may not be omniscient, but damn does it feel like he is sometimes.

How many times have I dreamed that Haven grew up with me as her mother? How many times have I woken up and instantly sobbed because there was no joyous, rambunctious, blue-eyed child waiting for me to braid her hair and show her the wonders of our world?

My beautiful, graceful, red-haired daughter .

My choice—to use a sperm donor and leave her in the care of humans—hurt both of us.

At the time, I thought it would be selfish to keep her instead of gifting her to an alpha, like I promised Conan I would.

But it was my selfishness, my need to protect my image as the goddess of the werewolves, that forced my hand. I see that now.

As much as it pained me, the choice to deny Zeus of his request was never really a choice.

I knew if I accepted his offer—if I agreed to let him bed me so we could create a child of the sky and the moon—she wouldn’t truly be mine.

She’d be his. Raised by him, or shunned and ignored by him, she’d always know that her father was a tantrum-throwing toddler disguised as a god.

“But she’d have you as her father,” I spit at him. “You, who would hurt countless innocents to get back at me for something so trivial as refusing to join you in bed.”

“What are you going to do about it? You can’t hurt me. The rules forbid it.”

I laugh. “You’d be surprised how many of your ‘rules’ I’ve broken these past few years. But this one… This one, I’m not going to break. I will not hurt you.”

He sighs in relief, but I smile.

I gesture towards the far side of the bed as six more individuals join us in the room, transported from my realm on the moon where they’d been waiting this whole time, listening to our entire conversation through communication crystals Brenna crafted.

Wesley. Reid. Nolan. Sebastian. Madeleine. And Sarina.

“I’m not going to hurt you, but they are.”

Zeus scoffs. “They can’t hurt me. Only a weapon crafted by a god can hurt me. And you don’t have one.”

“You’re right. I don’t have one.” My eyes gleam with triumph, and I raise my chin higher as my warriors all extend their claws in unison. “I have six .”