Page 97 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

Another auction done and over with. Another group of girls sold off to the highest bidders—bidders who will use and abuse them. They’ll add them to the rosters at their clubs, for the… enjoyment …of the equally vile patrons who frequent their establishments.

I don’t know how many more of these events I can take. I don’t know if I can sit through one more night like this one, pretending to be unfazed by the males who trip over themselves to snag one of the girls presented to them.

The entire operation sickens me. I hate that I’m constantly positioned at Amara’s side, that she considers me her protégé, that she requires me to follow her around during every auction.

If I could, I would leave. I would run and run and never look back.

But I can’t. There’s no way for me to leave. There’s no escape for me. I don’t have access to the exterior doors. The only time I’m allowed to leave is for auctions, and Amara rarely lets me out of her sight during the events.

So, I played my part. On the outside, I’ve spent every single day pretending to be exactly what she wants me to be: innocent, impressionable, compliant.

I’ve protected myself by doing everything she asks without question and without showing my distaste for it all.

All the while, I waited. I waited for a girl to come into that sorting room with a fighting spirit or connections to someone— anyone —on the outside who could outsmart Amara.

Fate handed me Sarina. Sara Anaís Goodrich Cisneros.

The fiery lycan female who is the heir to the throne of the werewolf kingdom.

Someone whose family would definitely notice she was missing—a family that would do anything to get her back.

And she happened to be hunting down the very group that captured her.

My one hope. My shot in the dark.

I got her out. Barely, but I got her back to her people, and now I’m waiting for her—for them—to find us and launch their assault.

Any day now. I’m sure it will be any day now. Sarina promised me she’d save me. Her team has searched for this group for too long now to pass up an opportunity to take them out once and for all.

I wish I knew when they’d be here. Reaching out to them is dangerous.

I took too many risks with unauthorized magic usage while Sarina was here and under my care.

But now that she’s gone, now that I no longer have an asset I’m overseeing and I’ve altered Amara’s memories so she thinks she was the one who trained Sarina, any excessive use of magic might draw Amara’s attention.

So I wait. I wait as patiently as I can for them to rescue me, even though it means enduring more of this nightmare, more of this sham of a life I lead here.

I roll from my back to my side and tuck the blankets higher under my chin.

I’m colder tonight than I normally am, and a chill works its way up my spine and through my body.

It’s not a cold from the temperature of the room but a cold emanating from within me.

It pools in my veins and fills me with a heavy and overbearing unease.

I take a breath and shove it down, focusing on calming the rising apprehension.

It means nothing. There’s no reason to panic. It’s just this place and the awful people filling it. It’s their thoughts and auras and sadistic enjoyment in the “work” we do here creeping in on my subconscious.

But, of course, it’s not any of that. It’s not in my head.

The lock on my door spins, the knob twists, and the door opens.

I’m frozen in place, trapped with my back to the room’s entrance. Trapped by my fear and by Amara’s potent air magic.

Her magic takes hold of me almost instantaneously, with only enough time for me to shut my eyes and put an illusion in place. If she touches me, if she checks my heart rate or my breathing, she’ll think I’m in a deep sleep instead of lying here wide awake.

“Here she is,” Amara whispers .

The blanket inches down my body until all of me is exposed to the room. A chill runs through me, and I long to curl in further on myself, but the air magic holding me in place is so potent it prevents my blanket-less body from even shivering.

“I’ve kept her safe and untouched, as you instructed,” Amara adds to the unseen guest accompanying her.

“And after tomorrow, she will be mine forever.”

Another chill runs through me, but this time, it’s from the voice speaking and not from the temperature in the room.

It’s a voice I’ve heard countless times before, although I’ve never been in the same room as him until now.

I’ve only ever heard him speak over video calls, where he could see me but I couldn’t see him.

Lowell is here. In person. In my room. Staring at my vulnerable body. Close enough to touch me. Close enough to grab me and take me away if he wanted.

Nausea and unease gurgle in my stomach. Panic rises within me like a raging, roaring wildfire burning down all the barriers inside me. His voice rings in my ears, speaking words I don’t want to hear—words I want to erase from my memory.

His voice and the memories it awakens overwhelm me. They threaten to drown me, to pull me down into a bottomless well of darkness where I can hide away from it all.

I don’t let that happen. I can’t let that happen. Not when Amara and Lowell are talking here in my room. I need to focus on what they are saying to each other. If they think I’m asleep, then their guards may be down and they might let something slip.

I push through the fear and listen, waiting for any scrap of information I can pass along to Sarina and Sebastian, anything that may be worth the risk of using my magic to contact them.

“There’s nothing stopping you from taking her now if you want her so badly,” Amara says, voicing the fear racing through my mind.

“No,” he replies. “We must take care of the werewolves first. We must deliver this final, soul-crushing blow before I can claim her.”

“Why?”

“My…benefactor…wants me to destroy Selene emotionally, and I long to take my revenge on her as well. Wiping out an entire unsuspecting pack of her precious werewolves is sure to break her beyond repair. Once I reveal to my benefactor what I’ve done, I’ll be given my wolf back and my own mate bond. A mate bond with her . ”

I sense his eyes coasting up and down my body. My pajamas cover me, but they’re thin, and the chill the path of his gaze leaves behind has me feeling naked.

“Your wolf back?” Amara asks. “What do you mean?”

“I had a wolf once,” he confesses. The weight of his eyes disappears from my body, and I give a mental sigh of relief. “I was a werewolf once upon a time. Ages ago. Before I died.”

“Did Selene kill you? Is that why you want revenge?”

“Selene didn’t kill me herself, but her favoritism for another family is what led to my unfair and untimely demise.”

The bed dips with the weight of an added body—a body that must be massive, muscular, and powerful if it used to belong to a wolf shifter.

Amara kept me away from most of the world, but I’ve seen enough werewolves and lycans to know what they usually look like, to know the male who has lusted after me is likely built like the males who work with Amara or the males who came to the auction with Sebastian.

This male who wants me so badly could snap me in two, as if I was nothing more than a dried twig, if he so desired.

“My cousin and his family were always Selene’s favorites.

She adored him and them, and rewarded them for merely existing.

She gave him a lycan, gave him a mate, and meanwhile, I was overlooked.

Forgotten. Swept to the side as if I didn’t matter, as if the contributions I’d made to werewolf-kind meant nothing.

So I took what I wanted. I stole my cousin’s mate away in the dark of the night so I could make her mine.

And when that didn’t work, when my mark wouldn’t stay on her neck? I killed her.”

“You killed your cousin’s mate?” Amara sounds far too intrigued and excited by the thought.

“If I couldn’t have her, then no one else deserved to have her either. I killed her, and then my cousin killed me. Tore my throat out just like I tore out Asteria’s throat.”

“Asteria? Selene’s daughter?” Amara gasps, reaching the realization of who Lowell really is at the same time I do.

We may not be werewolves, but as witches, we are raised on the lore of every magical creature in existence.

“But if you’re the werewolf who killed Asteria, then that would mean you’re—”

“Lyall. Yes.” He lets out a laugh—a dark, cruel sound that slithers over my skin like an oily sludge. “I am Lyall.”