Page 90 of The Delta's Rogue
“Sebastian.”
My name is a ghost of a whisper on the wind, a flash of gold in the distance, the hint of a rainbow in the middle of a storm. There and then gone again as if it never existed in the first place.
I rise to my feet, gazing at the blackened sky above me. There are no stars and no moon, no noises beyond the faint voice barely reaching me—the voice that seems to call my name. It comes from everywhere and nowhere, from within my soul and yet from lifetimes away. It’s so soft, so subtle. I’m unsure if it’s actually a voice or a trick of my mind, a figment of my imagination.
A bridge extends before me, disappearing into the endless darkness and stretching farther than I can see. I glance behind me, but there is nothing there. No door, no bridge, no landscape. Just more darkness. More emptiness.
“Sebastian.”
There it is again. The voice.
I whirl around, searching for the source of my whispered name, but I am alone.
Tentatively, I step forward, towards the length of the bridge. The darkness around me, as thick as tar and as sticky as molasses, compresses and squeezes. It prickles against my skin like tiny shocks of electricity, raising my hairs from the static swirling in the air.
But I press on. I fight against the strange shadows and the conductive energy, and continue forward, staying in the center of the narrow bridge extending into nothing.
I need to make it to the other side of that bridge. Something is there, waiting for me. Something, or maybe someone. Whatever—whomever—it is tugs on the strings of my heart, urging me onward.
“Sebastian!”
The voice grows urgent. It’s filled with anguish, fear, and immeasurable sorrow. It pleads with me, begging me to reach it. To touch it. To embrace it.
To save it.
I roar and charge forward, fighting the deepening pressure and strengthening current of the inky atmosphere. Desperation fills me—both mine and the voice’s—and it fuels my power, giving me the boost I need to break free from the clutches of the darkness.
A blinding white light and a noise louder than thunder throw me backwards, launching me off the bridge and into a free fall through the infinite, starless void.
My stomach lurches, and my eyes fly open. With a heaving chest, I sit bolt upright in bed. A cold sweat covers my body, my ears ring, and my hands clench the covers so tightly my tendons ache.
As my heart races, I scan the room. It’s pitch black except for the light shining from the numbers on my alarm clock.
Three o’clock in the morning.
I collapse against my pillows with a sigh and cover my face with my hands. Then I throw the blankets off myself and climb out of bed, shuffling through the room while rubbing my eyes.
There’s no point in attempting to find sleep again. I’ll lie awake for hours, tossing and turning in my bed, until the sun comes up and I give up and start my day.
Such has been my routine the past few days since Dominic showed up at our pack, with information about Sarina and King Malachi’s request for our pack to help find her.
I trudge through my apartment, not bothering to turn on the lights. I don’t need them to follow the path to my living room. My enhanced eyesight means I can see well in the dark, and I’ve lived here long enough to navigate it on autopilot.
I grab my book and Sarina’s blue blanket, then continue out of my apartment and into the main common areas of the packhouse until I’m in the large kitchen. I boil a kettle of water to make myself a cup of chamomile tea—the only thing that’shelped me get even a small amount of sleep. Two cups before bed every night, and the occasional cup in the early hours of the morning when my body, mind, and lycan are all fighting sleep.
At this point, I should steal a box of tea from the kitchen and place it in my pantry, so I don’t have to make the trek down here every night before bed.
The kettle whistles on the stove, the piercing squealing brash and disruptive and too similar to the imaginary screams that haunt me in my waking nightmares about Sarina. I dart forward, lift the kettle off the burner before it grows too loud, and pour the boiling hot water over my tea bag.
“Mind making a cup for me too?”
I jump a mile into the air and almost drop the kettle of scalding hot water. A few drops land on my hand, sizzling the skin a little. I hiss, shaking them off, as I glare at the intruder.
Madeleine. My little sister. Dressed all in black with her long, dark brown hair pulled into a French braid that hangs over her shoulder.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I growl. “How’d you sneak up on me?”
She flicks the braid behind her back, crosses the room to me, and grabs a teacup for herself from the cabinets. “Probably because you’re exhausted and distracted.”
