Page 78 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

Trees fly by in a blur of green and brown as we head back to Peter’s from the club.

Dominic drives, and Riven sits in the back with me, behind the safety of the tinted windows of the SUV.

After getting an all-clear signal from everyone putting on a show for Amara in the club’s main room not long after Sebastian left, they ushered me out of the office and into the vehicle.

Sebastian’s absence creates a void within me, and it grows the further we drive up the mountain and into the forest. It’s not so different from the chasm created by our separation four years ago, but it’s fresher, and I don’t have my lycan to shoulder the burden with me.

My lycan. Goddess, I miss her constant presence in the back of my mind.

I know she’s not gone completely. According to what I learned during my school years, the pain from the complete loss of a wolf or lycan is akin to that of losing a mate.

So my lycan isn’t gone. She can’t be gone.

She’s just hiding or healing from the massive amounts of wolfsbane and silver exposure.

But without her, and without Sebastian, I’m lost at sea with nothing to anchor me.

Dominic pulls around the circular driveway and up to the front of the house.

The gravel crunches beneath my feet as I hop out of the vehicle and walk towards the front door, with my arms crossed to protect myself from the chill in the night air.

My steps slow, however, and I glance towards the edge of the long dirt path leading to the house from the main road .

I wait for headlights, for the spinning of tires against the ground, or for the roar of an engine. But it’s dark, quiet, and empty.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” Riven says.

I tuck my hair behind my ear and duck my head, my foot shuffling over the pebbles. “He didn’t say he would be.”

“Does he need to?”

My jaw tightens. Old me—the Sarina who tackled Sebastian in the middle of the forest without thinking through the consequences—would be able to answer that without hesitation.

I can’t, though. No soy ella . I’m not her.

Riven opens the door for us, standing aside so I can enter first. “You should eat,” he says. “There’s some leftover pizza from lunch. I can warm it up, and then you can—”

“Sebastian told me to rest.”

He gives me a half-laugh that tilts the left side of his mouth up into a crooked smile. “I don’t think he’d be upset if you ate something first.”

I shake my head, the movement growing more frantic with each sway of my hair in front of my face.

Riven doesn’t understand. None of them do. I have to do what Sebastian says. If I don’t, he’ll punish me. I’m his . Not because I’m his mate, but because he bought me. He purchased me.

He’s my Dom and I’m his sub, and he gave me an order. I’m required to follow it. Skipping a meal now is worth knowing he won’t take future meals away later for disobeying him.

“I’m exhausted, Riven.” Not a lie. I’m drained—mentally, physically, and emotionally. “Will you let my dad know I’ll see him in the morning?”

Riven runs his fingers through his hair and sighs. He opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, but on instinct, I stand up straighter and raise my brows at him. I don’t have access to my lycan or my aura, but if he’s smart, he’ll show me the respect I’m due as his future alpha.

“Yeah. Okay,” he concedes with a nod. “Goodnight.”

I spin and leave the entryway as soon as he finishes speaking. The longer I stay there, the higher the risk that Sebastian will return and see me disobeying him .

If he even returns.

The command he gave me is a relief because it means I can hide from the world for a bit longer.

I’m not ready for the questions or the sympathy, especially without Sebastian by my side.

I use his order like a shield, protecting myself from the prying or from having to pretend like I’m fine, like what I went through didn’t invoke a fundamental change in my psyche.

When I get to the room, I head straight for the bed, sitting cross-legged in the middle. I stare blankly ahead, unable to do anything except sit there.

Rest, Sebastian said.

There is no rest happening for me, though. How can I rest when he’s not here? How can I rest when we haven’t talked about what happened this morning?

I hate how desperately I need him. I hate how I can’t tell if that is wrought from my brainwashing or from my love for him. All I know is he’s not here, and I’m locked in limbo, unsure of anything and everything.

What if he doesn’t want me anymore? What if I never see him again?

I’d survive his rejection. I’d accept it. But…

This isn’t helping. Thinking about the what-ifs just adds to my disquiet.

I can’t rest, but maybe I can relax. There is a large tub in the bathroom. A soak in hot, flowery-scented water will soothe my muscles. If my muscles are relaxed enough, maybe then I can rest. Maybe then I’ll fall asleep.

I hop off the bed and head into the bathroom. The lights, set off by my movement, turn on automatically. They’re bright and reflect off the shiny, clean surfaces of the room—surfaces that are ruined by the two glass containers filled with my blood.

My vision tunnels, locking in on those villainous vials, and I see nothing else. My heartbeat erupts into a galloping, sprinting rhythm that cannot be contained by my ribcage, and my lungs expand with great, heaving gasps as I attempt to fill them through the straw lodged inside my throat.

The room flickers and blurs until it’s an amalgamation of this bathroom and the bathroom I spent an indeterminable amount of time in. Brenna stands behind me, prepared to disrobe me and help me into the tub so she can wash me, and Amara watches on, devouring my pain and misery .

Phantom pain, electrifying and numbing in equal parts, shoots through my veins. It sets my nerves on fire. It flows to every part of me and locks my muscles in place so I can’t move.

I can’t flee from this room. I can’t run to safety or protect myself from the inevitable manipulation of my body. There’s nothing I can do to prevent them from taking control of me.

The ground vanishes beneath my feet, replaced by a gaping, warped hole. I fall into the pit, ready to let it devour me and consume me until there’s nothing left.

Large, powerful arms catch me before the darkness envelops me. They wrap around me and cradle me to a massive, warm body. A brief spark ignites where Sebastian’s skin meets mine, and the subtle hint of fresh lemon encircles me and fills my lungs.

I cling to his neck and bury my face in the hood of his sweatshirt as he removes me from the bathroom. His deep, soothing voice fills my ears, but none of the words make sense. They’re all gibberish, a garbled mess of sounds, but I sense the concern and the comfort within those words.

He carries me to the bed and perches on the foot of it, with me still in his steady embrace. “Breathe,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

I finally relax enough for my brain to decipher the words he murmurs to me. My grip on his neck tightens, and I press myself harder into his chest, like I’m trying to merge my body with his so his strength will be mine and I’ll always be safe.

“ Mi sangre. My blood,” I manage to say through my gasping, heaving breaths. “It’s still in there. I can’t—” I shake my head. “ Sácala de ahí. Por favor, ” I beg.

I need him to get the blood out of there.

He wraps me up tighter. “Shit.” His focus slices towards the bathroom.

“Shit, Sarina. I’m sorry. I completely forgot about it.

” He turns to set me on the bed, but I clutch him tighter, shaking from the force of my hold on him and the fear of those tiny, seemingly innocuous vials of blood.

“I need to grab the vials to give them to Rune.”

“ No me dejes ,” I whisper, leaning back to stare into his eyes as I desperately plead with him. “Don’t leave me.”

He sets his jaw and gives me a singular, jerky nod. Then his focus wavers briefly, his eyes glazing over, as he reaches out to someone through mindlink .

“Rune is coming to grab the blood,” he says as soon as his gaze returns to normal. He clutches the back of my head and tucks me under his chin. “Breathe,” he instructs me again, exaggerating an inhale and an exhale. “Follow my lead and breathe.”

I copy him, taking in giant lungfuls of air and blowing them out in a slow, soothing rhythm.

With each breath he coaches me through, the anxiety melts away, until a ghost of it remains.

It lurks in the shadows of my soul, staring at me and waiting for the perfect moment to strike again, but for now, I am at peace once more.

Two raps echo through the door, followed by Rune’s voice. “It’s Rune.”

“I’m going to let you go now, okay?” Sebastian cups my cheeks and tilts my face up.

I nod.

His fingertips trace my jawline, and he flicks my hair over my shoulder before setting me in the middle of the bed. I cross my legs and hug them to my chest, my eyes tracking his every move.

As soon as he turns away from me, he switches from protective and caring Sebastian to dominant, business-minded, alpha-aura Sebastian. He strides to the bathroom with purpose and is back in front of the bedroom door in no time at all.

“Here,” he says to Rune as he opens the door and passes her the vials.

“I wasn’t sure if there was something special that needed to be done before disposing of it.

” He keeps his body angled in front of their hands so I can’t see the blood or the glass containers holding it.

“There’s also a ring.” He nods at Rune’s hand.

“It belongs to Brenna—the witch I met in my dream. She said we can use it to find her.”

“If that even works.” Rune sighs. “It didn’t work when we tried to find you,” she says to me over Sebastian’s shoulder.

“Brenna thinks the magic shielding the girls doesn’t work on her. She wasn’t sure why, but…” Sebastian shrugs. “It’s worth a try.”

Rune shoves everything into her pocket. “I’ll go to Crescent Lake to work on it tomorrow and let you know what we find.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian says.

He closes the door and locks it. His chin drops to his chest, and he rolls his shoulders back as he leans against the door with his palms flat against the surface.

The intensity of today and last night weighs him down like a ship’s anchor.

It all weighs me down too .

He shoves off the door and bends to pick up two duffle bags—a green one and a blue one—that he probably dropped there when he ran into the bathroom to help me. When he straightens, he meets my eyes. In his expression, I see he’s still in business mode. Alpha Sebastian mode.

He doesn’t want to be an alpha, but he falls into the role so easily. He doesn’t want to be in charge of a pack, but he already steps up as a leader without anyone asking him to.

If he wasn’t so afraid of it, he’d be the perfect king.

“I didn’t think you were coming back,” I confess, my thoughts forcing the words out of me.

He places the bags on top of the dresser against the far wall. “I made you a promise that I’ll always be here when you wake up.” He unzips the green bag. “I can’t keep that promise if I’m not with you.”

Some of the air leaves my lungs, and my shoulders curve inward again.

Of course, that’s why he returned. To keep a promise he made to me.

Te lo prometo.

I fiddle with the bedding, plucking out a down feather poking through the duvet.

He continues unpacking, placing his clothing into the top two drawers of the dresser. Shirts, jeans, sweats, socks, underwear—all of it moves from one method of storage to the other.

Once the first bag is empty, he moves to the second.

The clothing in that bag is smaller, Sarina sized, and he places it all in the bottom two drawers—one item of clothing at a time.

He places each piece with care and precision, drawing out the monotony of it as if he’s using the mindless task to forget about everything else hanging over us.

I want to forget all of it too. I want to curl up in the cozy bed, close my eyes, and sleep the pain away. But I can’t. My mind won’t let me. It will continue racing and spiraling unless I clear the air between us. There will be no sleep for me unless I get everything out into the open.

“Sebastian.” I lick my lips.

He pauses his movements as he slides a thin, narrow black box out of the bag.

“Sebastian, I owe you an explanation.”