Page 197 of The Delta's Rogue
“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 actuallyLyall.”
“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.
Dominic’s story of hisdream with Brenna and the information she passed to him erases any trace of joy from the celebratory atmosphere in Wesley and Haven’s home and stuns us into silence.
A fear I’ve only seen once before clouds Haven’s eyes as she clutches Dylan tighter against her chest and leans instinctively into Wesley. It’s the same fear that darkened her eyes the night her ex attacked her outside of Moonlighters, the night Wesley discovered she was his fated mate.
“So, you’re telling us,” Reid finally says through the phone, “that the male behind the entire trafficking operation is Lyall?” He breaks the silence and voices what all of us are likely thinking but too afraid to speak into existence. “Lyall from the book on a shelf in my living room? The Lyall who killed Asteria?”
With each of Reid’s unnecessary questions, Selene’s expression darkens further, until the silvery light emanating from her is instead as black as the night sky her home hangs in.
“Yes, that Lyall,” Dominic spits out. “Lyall, and whoever his benefactor is.”
Powerful wrath unlike anything I’ve ever experienced exudes from Selene as she moves from the window to the foot of Haven’s bed. “How long has this group Lyall leads been trafficking my wolves?” she asks.
“I don’t know how long exactly.” Sarina stands straight and poised within my arms, even beneath the weight of Selene’s anger. “My team and I have been hunting them down for five years now. The Crescent Lake members started helping when the traffickers captured me a few weeks ago.”
