Page 70 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

“Dad?” I tear my gaze away from the intruder and frown at Sarina. “He’s your dad?”

I switch my focus once more to the massive male in the doorway.

A male I’ve seen countless times over my lifetime, and with increasing frequency in the years since Wesley found Haven.

But never in my life have I seen him so disheveled, so worried.

He’s always been a pillar of strength and power, with a calm, collected exterior and a stellar wardrobe to match.

Today, however, he looks as if he hasn’t slept, eaten, showered, or changed his clothes in days. Today, he’s dressed in sweats instead of in a custom-tailored suit. He looks as if he hopped on a plane as soon as he received word that we’d found Sarina.

He looks nothing like the powerful king I’m used to seeing.

“You’re her dad?” I ask again.

Sarina continues to smile at him, her bottom lip quivering with suppressed emotion.

He takes a step forward, crossing the threshold of the room but staying on the opposite side of the table. His face wears an expression that mimics Sarina’s—one filled with equal amounts of sweet relief and bitter remorse.

He grips the back of a chair. I can tell he wants to rush around the table to us, to hug Sarina, but keeps his distance. Perhaps because someone warned him of the state she was in when we rescued her or from what I assume is respect for our new bond. Or maybe both.

“Yes.” King Malachi gives me a look filled with gratitude and what I can only describe as fatherly affection. “I’m her dad. ”

“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “No, that’s not possible. Your children are twins. Sarina doesn’t have…”

I run my hand through my hair. I don’t know what siblings Sarina does or doesn’t have. She never told me, and I never asked.

“Her twin brother is at home with their mother.”

“Micah is back?” Sarina’s eyes light up briefly at the mention of her brother.

King Malachi nods. “He came home as soon as he heard what happened to you.”

I shake my head again. “I met your twins, though,” I insist, interrupting them. “I met the princess when we visited the royal palace in Hawaii after Wesley shifted early. I was ten, and she was seven, and her name was…”

I open my mouth to say her name, but nothing comes out.The name is right there. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I know that I know it. I can feel it like an itch in my brain, like when you enter a room but can’t remember why you went in there in the first place.

“Sara Anaís Goodrich Cisneros.” King Malachi’s lips tip into a proud smile as he utters her full name. “But we’ve always called her Sarina.”

Like a dam breaking, his words unleash a tidal wave. Forgotten memories—repressed memories—rise to the surface in the ocean of my mind, each one fighting for dominance.

A seven-year-old little girl, with dark brown eyes that match the pinecones littering Crescent Lake’s forest floor, skips up to me.

She’s dressed in a frothy concoction of pink tulle and chiffon, and her sparkly shoes click across the marble floor of the palace.

She beams up at me, her face framed with shiny, dark hair.

Stars of excitement sparkle in her eyes as she sways side to side with her skirt held in her hands.

“Do you like my new dress, Sebby?”

I’m outside in the grass. The humid, tropical air mixes with the sweat on my skin from our workout, and the sun descends in the west, heading towards the ocean’s surface.

The same little girl runs up to me, wearing shorts and a T-shirt now, her dark hair in a high ponytail that bounces and sways with each of her sprinting steps.

“Sebby!” She yells my name with the enthusiasm of a fan at a sporting event, even though she’s within three steps of me. “Sebby, play tag with me!”

It’s night, and I’m on the roof of the palace’s enormous glass greenhouse, sitting cross-legged in my pajamas and gazing at the stars .

I’m supposed to be packing, but instead, I snuck out of my room and meandered around the palace grounds until I ended up here.

Honeysuckle vines wind their way up the sides of the building and across the roof’s edge.

Their subtle fragrance floats on a soft, nighttime breeze that carries another, sweeter scent on it—a scent similar to the perfume of the honeysuckles all over the grounds, but more layered and nuanced than the flowers alone.

Across the glass roof, footsteps pitter-patter towards me, their owner not bothering to keep their steps quiet.

I glance at her as she sits next to me, her two long braids draped over her shoulders and hanging down the front of her light blue pajama top.

She lifts her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs, hugging them closer.

I turn my gaze back to the stars, and she does the same, sitting in silence with me as the night passes us by. Neither of us speaks as we watch the stars, which is odd since she usually talks my ear off with her nonstop chattering. But tonight, she’s quiet. Pensive. Maybe even a little sad.

The breeze continues to drift through the island flora. The palm fronds dance and tap against the glass walls. A shooting star streaks across the vast, sparkling sky, its glittering tail lingering as the stardust drifts towards Earth.

“Sebby?” Her voice is a whisper, almost carried away by the gentle breeze rustling the honeysuckle vines draped across the length of the roof.

“Yes?”

“Promise me we’ll see each other again.”

Wide, round eyes framed by thick, dark lashes meet mine as I glance at her once more.

They glisten and absorb the starlight with two identical lines of silver clinging to the edge of her lower eyelids.

A tear escapes, sliding down the side of her face—a mirror of the shooting star flying across the sky above us.

I hold my hand out to her, and she slides hers into mine, linking our fingers together. They rest on the glass roof between us.

I lean in closer to her, a smile lighting up my eyes to drive away the tears in hers. “I promise.”

That third memory fades, and the weight of it knocks me into my chair.

I lean forward and rest my elbows on the table and my face in my hands.

My shoulders heave with each shaking breath I take, as other wispy memories coalesce and fight for their turn in the spotlight.

They flash and pulse like lights and music in a dance club .

I shove them away, ignoring them for the time being to focus on the present, on finding answers and understanding what the fuck is going on.

“You called me Sebby.” My brow wrinkles as I rub my temples. “When we were kids, you called me Sebby.”

Sarina nods. “Yes. I did.”

“Why didn’t I remember that before? Why did I remember meeting the princess but not that the princess was you?”

“Magic,” Sarina states simply.

“It’s a spell very similar to the one that hid Maya and Levi’s mom,” King Malachi elaborates. “I released your memories when I said Sarina’s full name.”

“As I got older, I hated it when others called me Sebby. It always rubbed me wrong, always created this… gnawing sensation in the back of my mind.” I lift my head from my hands and meet King Malachi’s eyes. “Is that because of the spell?”

“It could be.” He shrugs a shoulder as he pulls the chair away from the table and takes a seat across from me. “Maybe the part of you that knew the nickname was important, the part blocked by the spell, was trying to force those memories to the front or break through the magic.”

I drop my hands, placing them flat against the table. Sarina lowers herself into the chair beside me, watching me closely. Hesitantly.

“Are you okay?” she whispers, leaning in towards me, her hand hovering above mine.

“Not really.”

Her face twists with regret as she closes the distance between our hands. “I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

She slides her fingers between mine. I watch the movements, marveling at the strength of the sparks that ignite with the slightest touch—a sensation I will never tire of.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I twist my upper body to face her better.

Her grip on my hand tightens. “I couldn’t.”

I laugh dryly. “Alpha command?”

“Royals can’t alpha command other royals,” King Malachi says as Sarina shakes her head. “I can’t command any of my family.”

“But you questioned her…” I blink and lean against the back of the chair, my palm hitting my forehead. “It was an ac t.”

“My aura was real. And none of her answers were lies.” He chuckles as he remembers his interrogation of Sarina at our pack almost four years ago. “Her answers weren’t the complete truth, but they weren’t lies either.”

“Did my dad know? Was he lying to me when he said he asked you for help finding her?”

“No,” King Malachi reassures me. “ I lied to him to protect her, the others, and their mission.”

“Why all the duplicity? The spells, the ‘nomadic’ pack, the half-truths?”

“The royal family has used magic to protect their offspring’s identities for generations. It keeps the bloodline safe.”

“So you used a spell to protect your daughter, but then you sent her on a dangerous undercover mission?” I scoff. “Because that makes sense.”

“Sarina and her brother each went on their own undercover mission, just like I did when I was younger and my father did before me, and his mother before him. It’s an old practice. An old tradition.”

A growl builds in my throat, and I glance at Sarina. “Like the old practice of challenging another to claim their mate as long as they’re unmarked?”

My eyes involuntarily flick to her neck.

The band of scarring circles it right above where I’ll eventually place my mark.

I don’t want to rush her, don’t want to push her into doing anything she’s not ready for, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about the possibility of someone challenging me to claim her before I have the chance to mark her as mine.

“Still hung up on that law, are you?” King Malachi chuckles and crosses his arms, his laughter making his eyes sparkle with a mischief akin to the playfulness I’ve seen so often in Sarina. “Maybe you two will be the ones to finally change it.”

Sarina swallows then dips her chin to her chest. She pulls her hand back, but I clench my fist, keeping it in place.

My brain spins, and blood rushes behind my eardrums with the force of rapids on a raging river. “What did you say?”

He can’t have possibly said what I think he just said.

“Maybe you and Sarina can be the ones who finally change that law,” he repeats.

“Us. ”

“Yes.”

I bite my lower lip and inhale, angling my head towards Sarina, who sits straight and completely still, staring down at her free hand in her lap.

“How? How would we be able to change it?” I ask her.

It can’t be. It’s not possible. I won’t believe it.

“How?” I ask again when she doesn’t reply, my volume increasing and my body tensing from the eternal pause.

“Sarina isn’t just any princess,” King Malachi explains when Sarina still doesn’t answer. “She’s the crown princess. She’s the future queen, and you are her future king.”