Page 98 of The Delta’s Rogue (Crescent Lake #4)

“How are you alive?” Amara asks Lowell—Lyall—her voice more reverent than I’ve ever heard it.

“Hades refused to let my soul into the underworld. I was instead cursed to remain in the mortal realm for eternity. Millenia passed, and my benefactor found my soul wandering the mountains where Conan killed me, and offered me a deal: I would become a demigod in exchange for help with hurting Selene, and once I succeeded in doing so, I would once again have a wolf and finally get a mate.”

“Couldn’t they just hurt Selene themselves? Why go through all this trouble to hurt her in such a roundabout way?”

“There is an agreement in place among the gods. It prevents them from physically hurting each other. My benefactor needed to find a way around that agreement to inflict pain upon her in a way that wouldn’t be linked to them.

I was the perfect opportunity—the male who killed her daughter, brought back to life to torture and destroy her beloved werewolves, to bring her to her knees with anguish and sorrow when she learns of everything they’ve been subjected to. ”

“Is there a reason they want to hurt Selene so badly?”

“They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Our end goal was the same, and that was enough for me.”

I cling to every word. I commit each one to my memory. The rhythm my heart beats as he reveals the cruel depths of his conspiracy with this heartless, nameless god or goddess is faster than the rumblings of thunder through a raging storm .

Thankfully, they hear none of it. If they did, if they knew I was awake and listening to this entire exchange, who knows what they would do to me. Who knows if his desire to have me would outweigh his need to protect his secret and protect their plan.

Attack a pack. Take them by surprise and kill them—all just to hurt Selene, the moon goddess, the creator of all werewolves and lycans.

I need to get this information to Sebastian and Sarina. Then they can warn the packs, so everyone will be prepared and on guard for a potential attack.

If only they’d let the pack’s name slip…

“Who is this benefactor?” Amara asks.

“I can’t tell you that,” Lyall replies without missing a beat. “Our agreement prevents me from revealing their identity.”

“Of course. I understand. I just can’t believe you’re trusting me with this information,” Amara gushes.

That makes two of us.

“Oh, Amara.” Lyall lets out another of those slimy laughs, and the weight of his body disappears from my bed. “You silly, power-hungry witch. I’m only telling you this because you won’t remember any of this conversation.”

There is a long pause. A heavy sigh. The sound of palms wiped together and shoved into pockets. And then—

“Thank you for letting me see my pretty little prize tonight,” Lyall murmurs, and I can picture the disgusting, self-satisfied grin he wears even though I’ve never seen his face. “She truly is a lovely little thing, especially when sleeping so peacefully.”

Tears form behind my eyelids. I want to shrink away from him, to jump up and launch myself at him and rip out his eyeballs, but I’m trapped within the shackles of Amara’s spell, and all I can do is listen and endure their presence.

At least he doesn’t know I heard everything he said too.

“What would you like me to do with her tomorrow, Lowell?” Amara’s voice is almost mechanical, like it was after I erased her memories of me training Sarina.

I wonder how many times he’s told her this secret and then erased her memory of it.

“I’ll keep her by my side. She can be our backup secret weapon.”

“Crescent Lake will never know what hit them.” Life creeps back into Amara’s voice, like the slithering of the floor-length dresses she prefers to wear, and I can feel the smile I know she wears—the smile that looks sweet but hides a mouth of fangs and a mind of depravity.

My heart stops beating altogether as they leave the room. The spell freezing my entire body in place lifts, but I remain as motionless as possible on the bed. As unmoving as a statue.

The bomb they dropped on me prevents me from moving or forming coherent thoughts other than one: I have to warn Sebastian and Sarina.

They may be in Hawaii at the royal palace by now, but they’re the only ones I can contact. There’s no way they’ll let Sebastian’s pack—or former pack—face an attack without warning and without backup.

But I can’t reach out too soon. I need to wait, to be certain that Amara or Lyall won’t return to my room while I’m dreaming with Sarina and Sebastian.

They can’t know that I warned them.

Lyall can’t know that I heard his secret.

So I wait. I wait and wait and wait, as quiet as a mouse in my room.

The illusion I spin shows me sound asleep, but in reality, I’m wide awake. I pace the foot of my bed, wringing my hands in front of my stomach. I’m on alert, listening for even the slightest noise from the hallway, for any hint that someone might be approaching my room to check on me.

Minutes pass. Hours. I wait as long as I can, until the urge to spill my discovery is too powerful for me to resist. I wait until I’m certain everyone in the compound is asleep.

Then I make my move.

I position myself in the center of the bed, legs crossed and palms resting on my knees.

Deep inhales of air through my nose fill my lungs, and I blow each one out between my lips.

I speak no words. No spell is uttered by my tongue.

I focus on the ring I gave to Sebastian—the only thing I have left of my family.

I focus on my connection to it, on what it symbolizes to me, on the warmth I feel whenever I hold the shimmering, reddish gemstone in my hand.

I close my eyes, but instead of the vast nothingness of sleep, instead of the dark of my eyelids, I find myself in an enormous meadow. Wildflowers of every type and color stretch beyond the horizon, and in the center of it all is a bird .

With shimmering feathers in the brightest shades of blue and undertones of purple and pink, the bird is large enough to carry at least three grown adults. Much larger than the mountain bluebird it resembles.

I run to it and climb aboard, as I have so many times before in my dreams. This bird has met me on more than one occasion, even on nights when I’m not searching for another soul in the realm of sleep.

It’s become a companion of sorts over the years, someone familiar to cling to when I’m trapped in a prison with no friends and no escape.

On the back of the massive bluebird, I soar away from my fantasy landscape and into the beyond, into the world of dreamers.

I fly past swirling, spiraling nebulas of sleep.

I follow the winding path of gold with veins of fire quartz connecting me to my ring and leading me to Sebastian’s or Sarina’s mind.

The air ripples through my long dark hair.

It’s neither hot nor cold. It’s the perfect temperature, and it caresses and soothes my skin with its gentleness.

The sun’s rays warm the silky-soft feathers of the bird, and the edges of those feathers tickle me, drawing out a smile even with anxiety filling me to the brim.

In these moments, when it’s the bird and me, I imagine I’m free.

It’s been far too long—so long I don’t know the exact amount of time—since I’ve been anywhere other than the compound or the auction house.

These reprieves with the bluebird are my only escape.

They’re bittersweet and over too soon, but it’s all I have.

A nebula pulses with soft greens and blues. The path I follow leads me to it, and I slip into it with ease. There is no resistance, no barrier attempting to push me away or keep me out of this dream.

But the color is wrong. It’s not the color of Sarina’s dreams—the oranges and reds and pinks of a sunset—or Sebastian’s gray shades of a stormy night.

My bird circles as it descends, and I stare in wonder at the views stretching to the edges of this dream.

Snow-capped mountains, clear blue skies, and evergreen trees as far as the eye can see, surrounding a large, flat area that overlooks it all.

A single, solitary figure stands there, with his arms crossed as he gazes out at the beautiful scenery.

It’s not Sarina or Sebastian. It’s one of their friends. The grumpy, unmated one with eyes the color of the sharpest, shiniest silver blade, who was with Sebastian at the auction. The one I saw in several of Sarina’s more recent memories.

Dominic .

My bird lands behind him, and I dismount by sliding down its wing. As I dart towards him, he whirls around to face me, then backs up several steps before I reach him.

“What the—”

“Dominic!” On instinct, I reach for his hand.

He backs up another step, nostrils flaring and body angling away from mine. “How do you know my name? And how are you in my dream?”

“I tried to reach Sebastian or Sarina, but the path through the dreams led me to you instead. You need to warn them: there will be an attack on Crescent Lake.”

I don’t answer his questions fully. There’s no time for that, even though I myself want to know why my ring led me to him and not Sebastian. Instead, I spit everything out as quickly as I can, hoping he understands what I say with how rushed it all leaves me.

“When?” he asks.

“Tomorrow.”

“Fuck!”

He paces the edge of the cliff. Tension fills every cell in his body, rippling through his powerful arms and tightening the muscles beneath his shirt.

“There’s more.” I wait until he gives me eye contact again. “Lowell—the male in charge of the whole thing—he’s actually Lyall .”

“Lyall?” Dominic blinks at me. “Lyall from our old werewolf stories? The Lyall who killed Asteria? The Lyall whose throat Conan ripped out? That Lyall?”

“Yes. I don’t know why, but he’s planning to bring all of us to Crescent Lake tomorrow to attack you. You have to warn the others. You have to tell them so they can fight back.”

“How do I know this isn’t a trap? That this dream and the dream you shared with Sebastian—that everything you’ve ‘helped’ us with up until now—isn’t all part of some elaborate plan you’ve masterminded in collaboration with Amara?”

I stare down my nose at him, even though he stands at least one foot taller than me.

There are so many reasons I could give him for my “betrayal” of Amara and the rest of the traffickers, but there is only one reason that will speak to him, one reason that will resonate with the job the king hired him for.

“If I wanted to help them with their plan to hurt all werewolves, I would have told them exactly who Sarina was the day she arrived here and I rifled through her memories. But I didn’t. I kept her secrets. All of them. ”

“Back up and start from the beginning,” Dominic demands. “Explain everything to me—everything you heard and everything you know.”

I speak as quickly as I can, relaying all the information Amara and Lyall let slip while they thought I was sleeping. His expression remains stoic and unchanging as I talk, but his heartbeat betrays how shaken he is by it all.

He’s silent for a long moment after I finish as if he’s processing my revelations. Then he says, “If I find out you’ve deceived us—”

I shake my head. “I won’t.”

He’s quiet again. His eyes scan the overlook, avoiding mine, looking everywhere but at me. “Bluebird…” He stops and strokes his jaw as a sigh parts his lips.

“What?” I ask with a furrowed brow.

“Your bluebird,” he repeats. “It’s getting ready to leave.”

I snap my head towards my ride, where the enormous bluebird flaps its wings as it prepares to take off. I glance at Dominic once more, backing up towards the friend who brought me to him.

Dominic’s jaw clenches, and he jerks his chin towards the bird. “Go.”

It’s a simple command. A suggestion, really. But I follow it, sprinting to the bluebird and hopping onto its back as it launches itself into the sky.

As it takes my subconscious back to my dreaming body, I hope with everything in me that my warning will give them all the advantage they desperately need to win this battle.