Page 33 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

Her name is Sarina.

Her name is Sarina.

Sarina. Sarina. Sarina.

The others talk around me, but I hear none of what they’re saying. Their voices ping off my eardrums, drowned out by the echo of her name in my mind and my soul.

“How?” I ask.

Dominic stops mid sentence and angles towards me. His eyes flick towards Wes, whom he’d been speaking to before I interrupted.

“How?” I repeat when he doesn’t answer me. My voice is louder, my tone uncompromising with a growl leaking into it.

Wes leans forward in his chair, brow furrowing. “Seb—”

“How?” I yell, ignoring Wes.

I rise to my feet. The chair topples to the floor behind me from my momentum. The others in the room flinch at my sudden outburst, but I barely register their reactions. My primary focus is Sarina. It’s on finding out what happened.

My hands press into the top of the table as I lean against it and demand answers from Dominic. “How did she go missing? What do you mean by missing?”

“We—they—have been hunting down a group for the king for a while now. Their intel led them here a few years ago. They knew one of our three packs was involved with this group, but they weren’t sure which one or how. When Wesley took out Alpha Benjamin’s dad, they figured out it was him. ”

I close my eyes and drop my chin to my chest. My mind is racing, running, sprinting through my memories.

My little rogue curled up in my lap as she told me their intel led them here.

My little rogue tensing and listening carefully when Forrest mentioned Lennox—Pierce’s bastard son—wanting to use the club as a front for something darker, something illegal.

Pierce ranting and raving about the drug he’d created to amplify alpha abilities, one he was sure he could perfect by using Haven’s blood.

A drug he’d already been working to distribute before we took him down.

There was a warehouse or something, and money he was receiving as payment for a “holding area”.

I straighten, hands moving to my hips as I pace back and forth next to the table. “What does this group do? Traffic drugs? Like the one Pierce was developing?” I tread the space between Nolan’s and Dominic’s chairs.

The pieces fall into place as my memories settle, but they don’t quite match up. There’s something missing, some bigger picture I’m not seeing.

Dominic’s wary eyes track my agitated pacing. “They traffic females.”

That’s it. That’s the piece I didn’t have—the information that completes the puzzle, the key that unlocks the cipher. But while it gives me answers, it doesn’t provide me with any relief. It doesn’t ease my mind.

And his next words… They’re a punch to my gut. A dagger to my soul.

“We haven’t heard from Sarina since last night. We think…we think they took her.”

Searing pain explodes from my heart, shards of red-hot metal floating within my bloodstream, nicking my veins and arteries, and embedding themselves into my skin.

I grip the edge of the table, knees shaking as the pain bubbles to the surface, the scalding pieces of my broken heart boiling my blood.

My lycan roars and riots, clawing at his heart. My hands fly to my head, where blood thunders in my ears, squeezing it like a vise.

The room spins, and nothing makes sense. Words and voices fly across the table towards Dominic and me as the others ask more questions, but they’re gibberish—a garbled, mangled web of noises.

None of the questions matter because they won’t erase the truth. They won’t change the grim reality of the situation .

I failed her. I promised Sarina I would find her, but I didn’t. And now she’s in the hands of sex traffickers.

I drop my hands from my head as my eyes narrow, glaring at Dominic. This is as much his fault as it is mine. He was with her. They were working together.

His attention shifts towards me right as I launch myself at him. My hands encircle his neck, and I pin him to the wall. I’m an inch from his face, fangs out and my lycan right there with me, aura writhing and thrumming through my veins and into the room.

“How did it happen?!” I yell. “How did she end up in their clutches? Where were you? Why weren’t you with her?”

Dominic flounders, mouth opening and closing. Choked sounds fall from his lips. His pulse flutters under my hands, heart lodged in his throat, and he struggles to breathe.

I bear down harder on him, slamming him against the wall again. “Answer me!” I demand, body shaking with the force of the command laced into my words.

His hands clutch at my forearms to yank them away from his throat.

My vision tunnels, honing in on his neck, on his heartbeat.

All it would take is one swipe. One swipe of my clawed hands across the front of his throat, and that would be the end of Dominic.

The claws on my fingers nick his skin as I squeeze tighter. Beads of blood appear, dripping down his neck to the collar of his shirt and over my knuckles. My lip curls, and I breathe in through my nose, inhaling the scent of his fear mixing with the copper tang of his blood.

My lycan howls in triumph, readying himself for our attack, both of us embracing the hunger the scent of blood awakens within us. Both of us ready to dole out punishment to this male for placing Sarina in danger.

Two hands grab my shoulders and rip me from Dominic, stopping me before I can take what I’m owed.

I whip around, ready to strike down the asshole who dared to lay a hand on me and thwart my plan. I charge at him, but Wesley is ready for me.

He sidesteps out of my path, grabs me by the back of the neck, and throws my upper body on top of the table, my cheek smashing against the smooth wooden surface.

“Stand down!” Wes orders before I can get out of his hold. “He can’t give you more information if you kill him! ”

His aura breaks through mine, overtaking it and stifling it until nothing remains. I close my eyes, letting Wesley’s alpha command sink in and relinquishing myself to the power it holds over me, and only then does he release me from his grasp.

My shoulders heave as he lets go, and I gasp for air. My skin doesn’t fit on my body. It’s too tight. It itches and ripples, and I claw at my shirt, mimicking the frantic movements of my lycan in my mind. The room contracts, the walls closing in on me with every passing second.

“Sebastian.” Wesley’s voice breaks through the thick fabric shoved in my ears.

I lift my head to meet his eyes. He towers over me, and I realize I’m on my knees, claws piercing holes into the wood flooring.

I can’t be here anymore. I have to get out. I have to escape.

The roaring in my head forces its way through my lips. Wes recoils as I leap to my feet, and the door bounces off the wall as I bolt from the room.

Footsteps echo behind me as I make my way down the hall and out the back door. My body sways as I weave through unsuspecting pack members milling around, but I don’t bother checking to see who is following me.

As soon as I hit the lawn behind the house, I break into a sprint. My natural ability and years of training make up for the unsteady legs and the ungainly, rickety steps my feet take. The footsteps following me mimic my rhythm and pace, staying behind me yet still within reach.

I’m blinded by rage and anguish. My mind only sees images of Sarina instead of the pack grounds as I run the path across the training fields and around the lake to the forest by memory. My imagination conjures gruesome, terrifying visions of Sarina that I hope never come to fruition.

Tree trunks blur into a brown wall, where Sarina is tied to a chair, tears in her eyes as hands roam her body, touching her without permission.

The underbrush skitters and flies from beneath my feet as Sarina is forced to kneel in front of an undeserving male who only wants to show others how powerful he is, who only wants to exert full control over anyone and everyone.

I leap over a shrub, and Sarina is chained to a bed, arms and legs spread, her once fiery eyes distant and glazed, and—

I trip over a broken branch and crash into a redwood, palms scraping open on the bark as I catch myself. I shove off from the tree, leaving blood on the trunk, and break into a clearing.

Sarina’s clearing.

I didn’t realize that’s where I was heading, but it doesn’t surprise me that I ended up here. It’s both the first and last place I saw her. It’s where I gave her all of myself, and where she left me behind while taking my heart with her.

The footsteps that followed me from the packhouse to this clearing slow from a sprint to a jog behind me, and before their owner moves to my side, I whip my body around and attack.

Three sharp jabs—left, right, left, high, low, and middle—but Wesley blocks each easily, unfazed by my aggression.

I’m undeterred and continue my punches—all of them fast, all of them powerful, and all of them blocked.

I growl, lip curling, and I duck as Wes takes a preemptive, defensive swing at me. My fist connects with his stomach. He grunts but recovers quickly, and I spin away from him.

We continue our dance of fists, each taking as many hits as we’re giving, with matching frowns on our brows and matching growls in our throats.

But in the depths of his eyes, I see it. The concern. The solidarity. The understanding. The ghost of pain.

That realization gives me pause.

My hesitation costs me, and Wesley clocks me square in the jaw. The punch knocks my head back and slams my teeth together. I stumble backwards, hand flying to my jaw without a thought, massaging it to ease the pain. It comes away bloody, and I stare at the red on my fingertips.

The red that matches the choker I tied around Sarina’s neck. The red that matches the small rectangle of fabric from her dress that I use as a bookmark.

I snarl, slowly lift my eyes to Wesley, and launch myself at him, fists flying. I attack him once more with renewed vigor, my fighting now wild and unruly, almost all my training going out the window.

But Wes doesn’t falter. “I know you have more than that!” he goads, dodging and ducking and blocking my unwieldy blows .

He grabs my shirt’s collar. Grunting, I twist out of his hold and shove him.

“That can’t possibly be everything you can give me, Seb!”

I shove him again and again, harder and harder, right in the center of his chest. Each hit backs him up closer to the edge of the clearing and the trees circling it.

If I can just get him close enough… If I can get him pinned against one…

My eyes flick behind him, and I realize my mistake too late. The split second costs me, and he rushes by me, taking off for the opposite side of the clearing.

But I’m not having that. Fuck no.

I leap towards him and wrap my arms around his neck and head, grabbing him in a chokehold and squeezing.

Where most would struggle, Wes holds still, widening his stance and grounding himself.

He clenches his jaw, teeth grinding together.

His neck strains, and he grabs my forearm.

A noise begins deep in his throat. It builds in intensity and volume until it’s a full-blown roar, and I’m somersaulting over his shoulder, launched from behind him and slammed into the ground in front of him.

The wind knocks out of me—I think my heart, lungs, and stomach leave my body too. I lie on the ground, blinking up at the night sky, unsure if the stars twinkling above me are celestial balls of gas in the darkened nighttime sky or a hallucination from the impact with the ground.

The noise I make as I finally inhale is embarrassing—a mix between a gasp, a cough, a laugh, and a sob. I lift my hand and wave it back and forth as if it’s a white flag, hoping Wes will read it as my surrender.

He plops down next to me, elbows on his knees and shoulders heaving as he catches his breath. His hair is a mess. His slacks and shirt are stained and torn, and dirt and sweat cover his face. But he sits there with me, glancing at me from the corner of his eye to make sure I’m okay.

I prop myself up, brush dirt and pine needles from my hair and clothes, and take deep, even breaths. I mimic his posture—arms around my knees—and sigh as I duck my chin to my chest.

“Good fight.” He bumps me with his shoulder and musses up my hair. “Maybe you’ll get me next time. ”

I lift my eyes to his. He’s smiling—laughing—but etched in his eyes is that pain, that understanding.

His words and actions… All of it is an echo, a mirror of that day sixteen years ago—the day I raced him as we waited for word about Haven, pushing him to run faster, to use the pain in his muscles and lungs to block his anxiety and fear.

I laugh too. I can’t help it. The sound falls from my lips, and in the same breath, my laugh turns to a sob. I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes to hide the tears forming there. My body quakes with the mixture of tears and laughter.

“I failed her.” My voice is so hoarse and thick with tears that I’m not sure he can hear me.

“You didn’t.” He grips my heaving shoulder. “You didn’t fail her any more than I failed Haven.” He swallows, and his hand on me tightens. “It’s taken longer than I should admit for me to realize that.”

My hands drop from my face, and I stare at him through blurry, water-logged eyes.

He stares back, a frown marring his forehead.

I wait for the questions, the interrogation, for him to pry for answers and find out exactly what happened between Sarina and me so he can understand my crazed outburst against Dominic.

But all he says is, “I’m sorry, Sebastian.”

My throat aches with a fresh wave of sorrow, and I clench my teeth to push it down. “I promised her, Wes. I promised her I would find her.”

He holds my gaze, determination shining in his brown eyes. He stands from the forest floor, reaching for my hand to bring me to my feet with him. “Then let’s make sure you keep your promise.”