Page 2 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

Howls. Soulful, haunting howls echo throughout the pack grounds.

They ripple across the lake’s surface and cling to the redwood trees’ needles, eerie yet hopeful, as more and more wolves join in with their voice.

It’s a bittersweet song of solidarity, a hymn of healing, sent with love to the one who needs it.

We can’t feel the pain of others unless they’re our mate, but by now the entire pack knows of the crime committed against our future luna.

The howls crash into my heart and send a wave of guilt washing over me.

I failed. My brother entrusted me with a task, and I let him down. Our future luna almost died, and I’m partially to blame.

I grit my teeth against the shame, though, and paint on the aloof expression I wore when I left Haven’s hospital room.

This is not the time to wallow in misery and blame, to list all I did wrong and all I should have done differently.

I need to act, and I need to act fast. That’s the only way I can make up for my mistakes.

A plan is already taking shape in my brain.

I speed walk towards our warrior headquarters. There is a room inside that building with surveillance feeds of the interior and exterior of every business our pack owns in the nearby city.

The grounds are dark. Only a sliver of the moon hangs in the sky, but the upcoming new moon is the furthest event from my mind. All that matters is hunting down the bastard lycan who dared attack my brother’s mate .

Lennox. A scumbag name for a scumbag male. I will track him down, and I will bring him here to serve justice.

My instincts scream at me to kill Lennox on sight.

That way, he’ll never be a threat—to her or anyone else—ever again.

But she’s my brother’s mate, and Wesley deserves his pound of flesh.

I’ll leave the bastard’s impending demise to him.

That doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun with the bastard before Wes gets his hands on him.

Goddess, I hope Wesley asks me to give him ideas—I’ve created a mental list of all the ways to deal with Lennox and tucked it away for when I need it—or, even better, I hope Wes lets me take a turn when I get Lennox back here.

The things I will do to Lennox if Wes lets me… I’ll take it slow, starting with his fingers. Rip his skin in tiny slivers, from his cuticles to his knuckles. Then I’ll tear his nails off and break each digit, one at a time. After that, I’ll move to his toes, and—

No. Wait. I have a better idea.

A cruel smile spreads across my face as I flick the lights on in the empty office of the training facility and boot up the surveillance systems and feeds. I know exactly what I’ll do to him.

All I will need is a silver knife dipped in wolfsbane.

And then, slowly but surely, I’ll carve into his neck—one slice for each of the gashes he left behind on Haven’s neck when he attacked her in the alley behind the club.

Maybe even a few extra slashes, for good measure, just so he can know the pain and humiliation he put her through.

I’ll carve into him over and over until I’ve mangled his neck as badly as he mangled Haven’s.

Only, his wounds won’t ever heal. Of that, I am sure. Once we get the answers we need from him, I’m ending his life. Unless Wesley kills him first.

I chuckle to myself as I continue imagining all the things I will do to Lennox, or suggest to Wes, and cue up the security feed of when we were at Moonlighters, the club in town our pack owns.

I frown as I watch it, though. The feed cuts off when the power went out—obviously—but that’s not what concerns me. I expected that to happen.

I lean forward as I rewind the feed again. Haven enters with her friends, and then…

“Motherfucker…” My brows furrow as I rewind it and replay it a third time.

Yes. Right there. Right after Haven enters… A splice. Imperceptible if you aren’t trained to no tice them, like I am.

I rewind again, eyes glued to the screens as the video feed rolls in reverse, watching for the moment the feed was looped back to. I see Haven entering again, and Nolan and me entering…

There it is. That’s where they doubled the footage.

A bachelorette party. The feed was edited so it seems the party entered the club after Haven and her friends, but they actually arrived much earlier, before Nolan and I arrived at the club.

I growl and slam my fist on the desk. Now I not only need to hunt down that bastard lycan but also find out how he gained access to the security cameras. I bet he caused the power outage and tampered with the backup generators to ensure chaos and no eyes on him when he attacked Haven.

Shaking my head and clenching my jaw, I send the looped footage to my phone and then pull up the feeds from the other businesses near the club, hoping at least one caught Lennox as he took off.

He likely stayed in the alleys since he was in his lycan form, which will make it harder to find him but not impossible.

With rapid eye movements, I scan the feeds. There’s no time to linger on them. The clock is ticking, and the longer I take here at the pack, the longer Lennox has to make a break for it.

Not that I think he will. If he went to the lengths of tampering with security feeds and footage, he must be pretty intent on getting to Haven.

No. He’ll stay in town and wait to make another move. But this time, he’ll have an entire pack to contend with. The Crescent Lake wolves won’t take kindly to someone who dared harm their future luna.

Least of all me. I let him get to her once. I won’t let it happen again.

“Found you,” I snarl when I spot his lycan racing behind Brewed Awakenings, the most popular coffee joint in town.

He takes off over the back wall of the alley and into the trees after that, but at least I have a sense of his path. It gives me an idea of where to start.

“Sebastian.” My dad’s voice breaks into my mind as he uses our pack link to communicate with me.

“Yes?” I resist the urge to growl at him. Tonight’s events are the result of his choices, now and twelve years ago .

“Pierce took off. Benjamin went after him, but he had a transport stone.”

I freeze then pat my pocket, checking for the pinkish-purple stone I used to get Haven and me here before she bled out.

“I know you promised your brother you’d find whoever did this to Haven, but—”

“I’ll keep an eye out for Pierce too,” I say before he can finish. “But Lennox is my priority right now.”

“The pack is still on lockdown, but you have my permission to do whatever needs to be done to find him.”

The link drops. I exhale as I stand and turn off the feeds, keenly aware of the stone in my pocket.

None of the others know how I returned to Crescent Lake so quickly.

No one has asked yet, but I know they’ll be suspicious of the rogues-who-aren’t-rogues and Alpha Pierce both having transport stones.

Witches are the only ones who can create them, and they don’t give them away without reason—or a hefty payment—so they’re rare for anyone but a witch to have.

I shake my head and lock the door as I exit, taking off towards the neutral section of the forest between our pack and the two others nearby, where the rogues have their camp.

Stopping there will cut into my hunting time, but I need to get this stone off my body.

Having it will raise too many questions.

I know the rogues are innocent. My gut tells me so, and my gut is always right. But the others are too wary and will be more so after the events of the last few hours.

The howling stopped while I was inside. It’s replaced by a hollow silence. Not even the chirping crickets, the rustling grass, or the creaking of the branches ease the weight the absence of the howls leaves behind.

It’s an emptiness I’ve felt before, on nights like tonight when the moon is almost invisible, and the grounds are still and quiet. Nights I’ve roamed the forest unaccompanied and undisturbed, hoping to ease the aching sense of loneliness and isolation within me that the moonless sky amplifies.

I reach the rogue’s camp uninterrupted and glance around the empty site. A log glowing with dying embers crackles in their fire pit, but there are no signs of life. Just the neat and inconspicuous tents, spaced evenly from each other in a half-circle, all of them closed up tight.

I’m hesitant to leave the stone sitting out for anyone to see if they stumble across the campsite, but there is no other option. No one is here, and I need to track Lennox.

I set the stone on a camp chair and head back the way I came, leaving the site as quickly as I arrived, ready to take off for the city.

But a voice stops me in my tracks.

“What’s the rush, Pretty Boy?”

I freeze, my fists clenching, and close my eyes. Gritting my teeth, I hold in my exasperated sigh before turning to face her.

Sarina.

She stares at me, expectant, her arms crossed and dark brows raised. That thick, straight black hair of hers drapes over one shoulder, leaving the other and her sleek neck exposed by her skin-tight, off-the-shoulder red mini dress.

She’s been the bane of my existence since she tackled me in the forest the other day, taking me out with an ease not even my best warriors possess. I can’t stop replaying the moment in my mind, analyzing her technique and her muscles and her facial expression and those lips and…

I shake my head, shoving that train of thought into the recesses of my mind. That is not a path I need to be heading down right now. Or ever, if I’m honest.

“Pack business that doesn’t concern you, Little Rogue.” I cross my arms to match her pose.

She sighs and flicks her hair off her shoulder, and my eyes track the swaying of it behind her. “I’m not a rogue. I’ve told you this.”

She has told me that. Many times.