Page 75 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

It’s strange being back in Sebastian’s office at The Black Door.

I stand in front of his desk as still as a statue. I haven’t moved further into the room since I first entered it, and I can’t say how long ago that was. Time no longer has meaning for me.

The office is exactly the same as it was four years ago: the same furniture, the same computer, the same minimalist decor. The only thing different in it is me.

I’m not the same girl I was back then. That girl? I don’t even know if she was me.

The images I see of her in this office play in my mind like projections on a screen.

They’re grainy and pixelated, and spliced together haphazardly like a homemade movie a group of students made for a school project.

The feisty, free-spirited female in the low-quality home film that teases and flirts with Sebastian looks like me and sounds like me. But is she me? Am I her?

Riven leans against the wall behind me, and Dominic waits outside the partially open door in the hallway, but neither says anything to me.

Riven was silent the entire journey from Peter’s house to the club.

Everyone was silent, too afraid to say something that might jinx us.

Or perhaps they were afraid anything they might say would spook me.

I don’t blame them. Everything spooks me. Even I don’t know what may set me off or send me into a spiral of terror.

Riven shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and I flinch, hands flying to my chest as my heart skips a beat. My eyes clench shut, and I focus on breathing and on the facts.

We’re in Sebastian’s office .

Riven is here to protect me, to help me.

Sebastian is downstairs, getting everything ready.

I’m safe.

I’m free.

“Sorry,” Riven says, his voice tight and quiet.

I glance at him over my shoulder.

Like all the others, he’s exhausted—dark circles above his cheekbones, red veins in the whites of his eyes, disheveled hair, wrinkled clothing. He’s the worst of the lot, though. The only two worse than him are my dad and Sebastian, which is understandable.

But Riven—my future beta, my best friend, and the one who was with me the night they took me—blames himself for what happened to me.

There’s more to his apology than what’s on the surface.

His apology isn’t for scaring me right now.

It’s for all of it. For every moment of torture I endured.

For him failing in his duties as my beta, my second-in-command.

“You don’t need to apologize.” The smile I give Riven is halfhearted. Weak. Unsteady. But my words are sincere. “It’s not your fault.”

He nods, even though it’s clear my reassurance doesn’t assuage his guilt.

It probably never will. The remnants of this horrifying experience will stay with him for the rest of his life, just like it will for the rest of us too.

The memories—the unforgettable, sickening memories—will corrupt every decision each of us makes from now on.

My feet finally detach from the floor. I cross to the window and the chest beneath it. Layers of dust that match the layers of scarring on my skin sit on top of it.

The chest is untouched. Sebastian probably hasn’t opened it since I left him here that night four years ago.

I reach for the latch but then jerk my hand back. The chest is not mine to touch. It’s his. Who knows how he’ll react if I open it without his permission.

I move instead around the desk to the chair. Riven tracks my journey from his post by the door. I swivel the chair right and left with my hand on the armrest.

The mouse sits within arm’s reach—the same mouse I stole from Sebastian and ran around the office with until he caught me. He tied me up, right on this desk. He wrapped rope around my body as tight as he possibly could, until I couldn’t move an inch.

And then he punished me. A cruel punishment. A dreadful punishment.

He unleashed every ounce of his wrath and darkness on me, never giving me a chance to breathe or use my safe word as he wrought terror on me for hours.

He was unrelenting in his malice, taking delight in the pain and fear he awoke in me as he had his fun.

I was incapable of stopping it, bound and gagged as I was while he flaunted his power over me.

“Sarina, she’s going to be here soon.”

I gasp and back away from the chair.

Sebastian walks through the door, a duffle bag in his hands, but he freezes when he sees me. I blink as he approaches me faster, circling the desk with a careful haste. His cruel smile flickers in and out of my vision, replacing the worried frown with every other terrified beat of my heart.

Which one is real? The torturer, the one with the dark smile and the twisted tendencies, the one who brings me pain without a thought or a care? Or the one with concern in his eyes, the one with a gentle, centering touch who takes care of me and always ensures I’m safe?

“What happened?” Sebastian asks.

I shake my head and back away one step as he approaches me. “ Nada . Nothing.”

His brows fly up.

“ Estoy bien . I’m fine,” I lie.

He stops in his tracks, giving me my space. The Sebastian in my vision, in my distorted memories, wouldn’t do that. He’d push and push until I had no room to breathe. He’d force the truth from me.

This Sebastian, though, he’s my Sebastián . He’s the real Sebastian.

Or at least, I think he is.

He stares at me for several long moments, the duffle clutched in his hands, his knuckles ghostly white from the intensity of his grip. Then he sets the bag on his desk, tearing his gaze from me so I can breathe again.

For now.

“Everyone is in place. Cassandra and Nolan, and Steele, Rune, and Landon are all already seated in the main area of the club. Wesley and Reid are at the back exits, just in case there’s an ambush or I need backup.”

As he talks, as I watch him unzip the bag and track the movements of his hands, the false memory of him punishing me on his desk invades my mind again .

I know it’s not right. I know he didn’t do any of the things my imagination is conjuring. The warped memories are a result of the terror inflicted on me by Amara. They’re remnants of the nightmares that plagued my drugged sleep every magically created night I remained in that house of horrors.

But separating the real from the imagined is like untangling a basket of yarn. It’s an insurmountable, near impossible task—one I fear I’ll never accomplish. Especially if Sebastian continues maintaining this distance between us.

“Where are Reid and Wesley’s mates?” Riven asks.

“Haven and Taryn are at Peter’s with King Malachi.” Sebastian’s jaw tenses as he says my dad’s name and title, but he continues with his summary of the plan as if that word—“king”—doesn’t bother him.

“You’ll need to change.” He speaks to me again instead of Riven and produces a bright pink lace dress from the bag on his desk.

A sexy, flimsy, barely there dress. And silver shackles.

The room shrinks, and my vision tunnels, everything zeroing in on those torturous silver restraints. My body shivers like it’s below freezing temperatures in the room, and the small portion of food I forced myself to eat today coagulates into a heavy, bubbling mass in my stomach.

I agreed to help him, to play my part as his sub like I did so many years ago. But somehow, I didn’t think through what that meant. I didn’t think about what I’d have to do this time around in order to be convincing.

I didn’t think about what I’d have to wear .

I can’t pretend to be his property. No así . Not like this. Not in front of Amara. Not in those silver cuffs and that Goddess awful collar.

Lemon. My mouth moves, but my voice doesn’t work.

Sebastian, however, always in tune with my every need, pauses his preparations and glances at me from the corner of his eye, as if he heard me even though I made no sound. Maybe he heard my thoughts, or maybe he sensed my rising panic through the bond.

My heart pounds like a warhorse’s hooves, and I clear my throat before repeating my one-word safety net. “Lemon.”