Page 9 of The Delta's Rogue
My hands brace his head. With one quick twist, I snap his neck and end his life.
“I have a question,if you don’t mind,” Sarina says.
I pause my perusal of the computer’s files and security footage, glancing at her with a raised brow. She doesn’t acknowledge me or look at me. She just continues searching through the filing cabinet next to the office door.
I shrug. “I don’t mind.” My lips twitch as I turn my focus back to the computer. “Although I get the feeling you’d ask me anyway, even if I did mind.”
She laughs softly. “Probably.”
The room grows quiet again, and I wait for her to ask me her question. The silence stretches, and I school my features as I browse the security footage feed, resisting the urge to clear my throat or prompt her to continue.
“You’re waiting for your mate?” she asks finally, her voice lacking her usual spirited sass.
I blink and snap my head towards her again. That’s not at all what I thought she’d ask me.
She stares at me with an expectant, wide-eyed gaze, her eyes tinted with an uncharacteristic vulnerability and curiosity.
I pause the footage and rest my elbows on the desk, glancing around the clean, organized office. Our contacts from law enforcement already took Lou’s body, and they’ll be back later—after I’m done searching for the original security footage file—to finish scrubbing the office of any evidence.
Nolan, the computer programming hacking genius that he is, would be better suited for this job. But he has his own concerns right now, guarding our future luna. I’ll ask him as a last resort.
“I am,” I say.
Her head tilts to the side, and she crosses her arms. “Why?”
“Because I want to?”
She laughs and shakes her head, shutting the cabinet drawer and plopping into the chair she occupied while I questioned Lou. “But why?” she asks. “It’s very…unusual for us. As shifters, we have a naturally higher sex drive. It’s not like it’s frowned upon to have sex before we meet our mate and settle down. The second the mate bond snaps into place, all previous relationships no longer matter. They are little more than a distant memory.”
I nod, chin in my hand and eyes on the computer. “It’s not so much that I’m waiting for my mate. Not specifically,” I amend as I lean back against the chair with a sigh. “I want to be sure,” I tell her. “I want to know that the one I’m with is someone who truly understands me and my needs, who is my match and my equal in every way. Whether that is my mate or someone else remains to be seen, but if our mates are meant to be our perfect match, the other half of our soul, then it would follow that my mate’s…desires…would align with mine.”
“So you just use your hand?”
I smirk at her but say nothing.
“And you’re a virgin?”
“I’m a virgin, but I’m not a saint.”
She huffs out a small laugh. “That’s all very un-alpha like.”
“I’m not an alpha,” I remind her, crossing my arms.
“You may not bethealpha or the future alpha, but you’re still an alpha. A lycan. You could take over a pack or start your own if you wanted.”
“No.”
“No?”
I shake my head, reaffirming my response.
“Why not?”
I grit my teeth and return my gaze to the security footage files.
“You’d be good at it,” she presses. “You have the instincts and the charisma.You—”
“No,” I say again, the hint of a growl behind my words.
