Page 55 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

I stare straight ahead, unblinking and unseeing. My heart stutters, and my palms sweat. Knees shaking, I stand straight and tall, even as nausea pools in my gut, keeping my reaction hidden the way I’ve trained myself.

“Tonight?” Brenna voices the question before I can.

Not that I should question Amara anyway. That’s a surefire way to receive a punishment.

“A new, high-profile customer with very deep pockets and connections to clubs all over the country is attending our auction tonight. We need to put our best foot forward to impress him and his associates.”

Goosebumps ripple across my skin. The fabric of my robe scrapes over the innumerable miniature bumps, snagging against them like silk brushing over unsanded wood. I resist the urge to shake my head.

I can’t have heard Amara right. I’m supposed to be auctioned next week . Brenna told Sebastian it would be next week. She just reminded me while she washed my hair that there was only one week left.

Unless Brenna lied to me. Unless she’s been lying to me this entire time, as I’ve begun to suspect.

She knew this was happening tonight. There’s no way she didn’t. Amara is cruel, but she would have warned Brenna about the change of plans. She would have ensured Brenna had me in tiptop condition for this auction. She wouldn’t have risked me being anything less than what she deems perfect .

I’m worth too much money in her eyes for that.

Brenna’s gaze darts towards me then back to Amara. “I thought we agreed to give her one more week.”

Amara shakes her head with a quiet laugh.

“Anaís is a showstopper. And she’s ready.

She doesn’t need more time.” Amara smooths her dress over her hips and tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“I need to take care of a few more last-minute details,” she says as she unlocks the door.

“Anaís is expected in the dressing room in five minutes to finish preparations.”

The door slams shut as she leaves. Brenna swivels her head to stare at me with wide eyes, but I see through her innocent “I’m a prisoner too” act.

Of course she lied. She did everything she could to gain my trust. Brenna saw an opportunity to impress Amara, and she seized it.

Her power gave her the ability to exploit my weaknesses.

She used my empathy and my love for Sebastian against me, and molded me into this empty shell of a person who’ll do anything to survive.

She’s just another snake. A power-hungry, ladder-climbing snake.

I should have seen it sooner. I should have seen through her bullshit from the beginning.

Trusting her was the worst decision I’ve ever made.

Brenna grabs my hand. I snarl at her, but she ignores me.

Her words spill from her frantically as her eyes scan my face. “I swear I didn’t know about this, Sarina. You have to believe me. You have to trust me!”

Jaw clenching and nostrils flaring, I rip my hand out of her grasp and hold it in the air behind me—tensed and ready to strike.

“I did trust you. Look where that got me.” My chin lifts, my gaze traveling down my nose to shoot her a frigid glare.

“I thought you were different, but you’re just like Amara. ”

I brace myself for the backlash, for her to drop her act and give me the punishment I deserve—the punishment she’s likely been waiting for weeks to give me.

But that doesn’t happen. Instead, she flinches at my words, the hurt rippling across her features and reflecting in her eyes faster than a bruise would form from a physical blow.

“I am not like Amara.”

“Then let me go.” I tug at the collar that renders me practically human, ignoring the bite of pain of the silver against my fingers. “ Libérame . Set me free and help me escape.”

“Sarina…” She blinks back the tears shining in her eyes. “You know I can’t do that.”

I bite back a wry laugh. Of course she sticks with her facade of innocence, even though the truth is obvious.

Her chest vibrates as she takes slow, measured breaths, and my eyes lock onto the vial of blood next to her eagle pendant. I flick my gaze to her face for a split second before returning it to that vial.

Then I act.

I lunge for her, reaching for that chain, for the vial resting against her sternum. Before I can grab it, before my fingers even brush against the glass, her hand is around it, using the blood magic to hold me in place—just like I knew she would.

“I’m sorry, Sarina. I—”

“Save it for your next victim.” I spit the words through gritted teeth, fighting with everything I have against her magical hold on me even though I know it’s no use. The electrifying pain pulses through me with each beat of my heart, growing stronger the harder I fight against it.

Brenna grips the vial tighter and spins to the door, dragging me along with her. The skirt of her white dress slides across the floor as she walks.

Another set of goosebumps rises across my skin at the sense of déjà vu I get while watching her, the dress flashing from white to deep plum and back again.

The resemblance between her and Amara in this moment is uncanny.

Her pure white dress is the younger, seemingly innocent sister to Amara’s purple one—a stark reminder of whose protégé she is, of who has molded her and guided her, who influenced her every move and decision.

The door swings open, and we walk out into the hallway, and all I want to do is cry.

I want to cry at how stupid I was to trust her, and at the knowledge that I’ll never see my Sebastian again, or anyone else I love.

I want tears to fall down my cheeks and smear across my skin, to turn my eyes red and my face splotchy, to ruin all the work they’ve done to me since I arrived here.

But I can’t cry. My tears have run out. I’ve been here so long I can’t even remember when I shed the last of them .

Instead, my heart sinks further into the desolate, gaping pit in the center of my body. Each beat reverberates into the emptiness, swallowed by the vast nothingness spanning the galaxy of my soul.

The halls are silent as Brenna forces me to walk through them. The only sounds are the soft padding of my bare feet on the cold floor and the rustle of Brenna’s dress as it trails behind her.

She leads me through the building and through the room where I endured my torturous training, to a door in the middle of the far wall. On the other side of the door, the hall is bustling with activity.

Dressed all in white, Amara’s witches rush around, some escorting girls who will be auctioned, like me, and others carrying serving trays.

“Please bring Cecily backstage and have Payton on standby,” a voice says through speakers lining the hallway.

“Of course, we’ve been in the auction house this entire time,” I mutter under my breath as I observe the organized chaos.

Brenna shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs, avoiding my eyes. “There is a temporary spell on that door to transport us straight to the estate where they host the auctions.”

Brenna heads to our left, towards another large, open room similar to the one they used for our training.

She’s walking in the opposite direction as the parade of cuffed and collared girls dressed in skimpy lingerie with faces full of makeup.

They pass us with their chins dipped slightly, eyes locked on the middle of their trainer’s back.

None of them show an ounce of resistance or rebellion.

None have a spark of life or hope left in them.

We’re all the same. We’re all broken shells, with nothing to fight for.

“Over here, Brenna,” a blonde witch calls from a vanity near the center of the room. “Amara wants to see you in the lobby. She asked us to finish getting Anaís ready.”

Brenna deposits me into the chair in front of the vanity, where the blonde witch and a purple-haired witch stand, then walks away without saying goodbye as the two new girls swoop down on me.

Blondie jabs my forearm with a needle, drawing a fresh vial of my blood.

They’ve taken so much from me they could fill an entire second Sarina with it.

The purple-haired witch paints my face with a thick layer of makeup, contouring and highlighting and blending to hide any tiny blemish from sight and give my skin an airbrushed finish .

As they begin my final preparations, I watch Brenna disappear in the reflection. Even though she betrayed me, I can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment that she left without a word.

However fake our tenuous truce was for her, it was real for me. I spent the majority of my time here thinking she was something close to a friend, only to have it all shoved in my face at the last minute—an added, anchoring weight to the trauma I’ve endured.

“I’ll go grab her outfit from the rack,” Blondie says as soon as she removes the needle from my arm.

As she walks away, Purple Hair dusts shimmering shadows across my eyelids and lines them with black.

The room grows quieter while she works, emptying of every captive girl and all of Amara’s witches as, one by one, they’re all called to the backstage area until the three of us are the only ones left.

The silence creeps closer to me, floating around me like the cold air slipping through the flimsy fabric of my robe. The temptation to lash out, to strike the witch who works on my face, grows stronger the longer I sit in the quiet room. But no good would come of that.

There is a witch in front of me, another walking around with a vial of my blood, and Amara could walk into the room at any moment. Not to mention I’m cuffed and collared with silver, and I do not know how to get out of here or where to go if I managed to escape.

They let me sit here without binding me to the chair because they know an attempt at escaping would be disastrous for me.

“I can’t find her outfit,” Blondie says from behind me.

“They’re all in garment bags marked with their names,” Purple Hair replies, not stopping her work on my face. “Just like they are for every auction.”

“This is all that was in hers.”

Purple Hair pauses, and I peek through my eyelids. Blondie dangles a pair of sky-high black stiletto heels from her fingertips. And nothing else.

Purple Hair rolls her eyes with a scoff.

“I’m sure you just missed it.” She closes the eyeshadow palette with a snap, and her lips twitch with a short laugh.

“It’s probably one of the super skimpy ones.

One that’s just a bunch of strings or something.

You know how much Amara loves putting her favorites in those. ”

She sets the makeup on the counter, then disappears from my view. Blondie paces slowly behind my chair, her free hand clutching the vial of my blood.

I track her steps, eyes fixated on that vial.

Purple Hair returns in less than a minute, a frown on her face and nothing in her hands. “You’re right.” She shrugs. “Her bag is empty. Amara must have forgotten to put her outfit in there.”

I close my eyes. Amara wouldn’t forget. Everything she does is calculated. If she didn’t put an outfit in my garment bag, it was intentional.

She wants me naked for the auction.

When my eyes open, I find the two witches staring at my reflection. Matching smirks form on their faces, growing wider as they examine me through the sheer fabric of my robe. They’ve clearly come to the same conclusion I have.

“Please bring Anaís backstage.” Amara herself issues the order through the speakers. Excitement and anticipation vibrate in her voice.

It’s mirrored in my preparers’ eyes, and their faces go straight to the top of my “torture until dead” list—right beneath Amara, Brenna, and Nuncio.

They round the chair, shove the stilettos on my feet, and tug me from the seat, each gripping onto one of my forearms with impressive ferocity. Blondie clutches my blood in her other hand, preventing me from speaking or making any sound at all.

A growl echoes in my mind, a growl that would reverberate through the foundation of this building if I could release it.

The walk from the dressing room to backstage takes no time at all. One moment, I’m in the room with the vanity-lined walls and ultra-hot makeup lights, and the next, I’m in near pitch-black darkness, being guided to climb onto a platform.

The witches lead me to the center, dropping their hold on my arms once I’m on my mark. Purple Hair tears the robe off me and Blondie’s hand remains on the vial, sending her magic through my system to keep me under her thumb.

Her control over my blood differs from Brenna’s. There’s a sharp frostiness to it, like an icicle plunging through my skin, and my response to her magic is more abrupt.

My heart rate increases as the full reality of what’s happening hits me.

They’ll send me onto the stage—naked—where hundreds of eyes will inspect me with hunger and greed.

The guests in the audience will bid on me, calling out higher and higher dollar amounts, until one person wins.

I’ll be handed over to that winner so they can force me to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

My body trembles, both from the temperature of the air dancing across my bare skin and the fear awakening within me.

Water lines my lids. The tears I thought were gone forever finally return, but they remain inside my eyes.

There’s not enough of them to spill over the edge of my eyelids and streak down my painted skin.

Purple Hair swipes a dark plum lipstick across my parted mouth with expert precision. The platform rumbles beneath my feet and rises towards a trapdoor in the ceiling.

I plead with my eyes, unable to move any part of me because of the magical hold on my blood. They hop off the platform and move towards a small screen in the corner playing a video feed of the stage.

“Lemon.”

The word rings in my mind. The word I’m supposed to use when it’s too much, when I want it to stop. When I want to go back to being just Sarina and Sebastian.

“Lemon.”

I push harder against the invisible chains holding my mouth shut and my tongue still. I need to get that word out. It’s my safe word, a magic word, the word that will end everything and return it all to normal.

“Lemon! Lemon, lemon, lemon!”

I scream my silent plea into the void, but the emptiness within me devours it, hiding it away as if it never existed.

There is no one to hear my cries, my screams. No one to stop what’s already been set in motion.

There’s no one to save me.

The platform halts its ascent, leaving me with a thundering heart under the white-hot stage lights, as the auctioneer clears his throat, preparing himself to begin my auction.