The Delta's Daughter Chapter 339

MIKE

Like a drum, my heart begins to slowly beat faster. In my anger, I hadn't realized she was even there. My sole focus was on the sight of Rhett ready to kiss Jonda. My wolf fumed that the woman we had planned to spend forever with was already moving on. Welcoming another male into her arms. We saw red. Fury, hot and untamable. And like wildfire, all we could think of was destroying the thing that fueled the rage inside of us. The ticking time bomb exploded.

Only now did we register the female on the other side of the bars, Duke instantly calmed at her emotionless voice. A bored expression on her face as she regarded us all.

Kellen steps up to the cell, his aura seeping out and filling the room. Stifling the air with his power. "Yet you are the one behind bars." His demeanor is unpleasant and threatening and I see her shiver with fear under his commanding tone.

Duke becomes defensive, not liking Kellen's threatening manner toward his mate. "Kellen," He holds up a hand to me in warning to step back, his eyes flashing a brilliant blue.

The female shakes her head, taking a step further back from the bars of her cell. She regards us all, her eyes lingering on me longer than anyone else, then settling on Rhett. The corners of her mouth quirk up into a devilish grin, smug and full of mischief. Her head tilts and she looks Rhett up and down, then like it was plain as day she says to him- "A hybrid, a knight of the queen. A wolf-less shifter."

Fuck me! How did none of us see it? Realize it.

She looks Jonda's way and I follow her line of sight taking in my love.

Jonda lets out a gasp, hand covering her mouth and knees buckling, both Rhett and I rush to her, but Kellen's hand snaps around my forearm, holding me in place. "No," Kellen says. That one word holding me in place.

But Jonda pushes Rhett away. Instead, using the wall to hold herself up. She quickly composes herself after the initial shock and stands, sticking her chin out. "Well, this has been embarrassing, to say the least." She wipes the tears from her cheeks with jerky movements. "If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I think I have had enough drama to last me a lifetime." She looks between Rhett and me, "I'm sorry." She says walking hastily away and out of the dungeons.

Rhett was just as dumbfounded as I was, as we both watched her leave. Neither of us made a move to go after her.

"As much as I am enjoying the show, and the fact no one figured that those two were mates…"

"You will tell me who hired you and confess your crimes." Kellen's Alpha tone commanded an answer.

The female shakes her head taking a step back, desperately fighting off the order. "Beta," She calls to me softly. Or so I thought. "I will speak to the Beta only."

I hear the low growl of Conri vibrate through Kellen's chest. "Leave." He motions to Rhett and Tyron, his eyes never leaving the prisoner.

"Why will you only talk to me?" I asked her once Rhett and Tyron were gone.

"Because you are my mate. I can smell you and know you are not an imposter. That you are not one of his Spies." She slides her eyes to Kellen uneasily.

"How can you defy my order?" Kellen asks her.

She gives him a wry smile. "I am rogue by default and the daughter of an Alpha. I have no allegiance to you and my wolf is willful." She looks at me again, big doleful velvet brown eyes that hold a plea, appealing to me and my wolf. "I will tell you everything, anything. On one condition."

I watch the way her body submits, shoulders dropping, arms becoming lax as if she has given up.

"What's the condition?" I dare ask her.

"That you let me make a phone call."

"No." Kellen says with absolute finality.

Tears well up in the suspect's eyes, and her breaths quicken. "You confess to us about the murders, and who hired you to steal the crown then, we might let you have that phone call. Until then you will answer our questions or come tomorrow you will be tried for your crimes and it's looking like the death penalty for you." I couldn't keep the disgust from my voice. I was at war with my emotions still.

"Damn it!" She yells rushing to the bars, her hands tightly gripping them. Either she didn't realize or didn't care that they were silver, but the smell of seared flesh filled the air. Masking the blood and sweat that permanently permeated the air down here. Still, her hands held tight, and she didn't wince once.

"Please - I beg you!" Real tears stream down her eyes splashing off those high cheekbones. Her deep velvet brown eyes pleaded with me.

Guilt slams into me. Hard. The mate bond working its magic, The tether that connects us pulling tighter. But I need answers. I have an Alpha with a dead son breathing down our backs and the body of another werewolf who we still haven't identified yet.

This woman. My supposed mate - is the only person who can give us answers. She's also our main suspect, not just for the theft but for double homicide too.

Unless she can prove her innocence.

"Pleeasse!" She sobbed, her chest heaving for breath. Her slender body sagged in defeat, "I didn't kill anyone." She gasps for breath through her tears and snotty nose. She falls to her knees and elbows - cradling her head, scrambling backward in her call "I have a son," she manages to get out in a much softer tone. "Please, I need to see my son,"

I'm stunned. It takes me a minute "Are you fucking kidding me!" This woman is the most irresponsible mother in the realm!

"Yes- I have a fucking kid!" she cries out crawling back toward the bars. She reaches out a hand through the bars, still on her knees. "I will tell you anything you want - just, please... I need him safe. He's not safe."

No shit, with a mother who made being a criminal her career choice, I dread to think of the lifestyle her pup grew up in.

Her face was streaked with tears and puffy. Her lush lips were swollen, and her face flushed. She is a beautiful mess, and my body was beginning to respond to her again. My wolf ached to touch and taste his female.

I growl and step backward, out of her reach. Refusing my wolf and my mate. I shake my head at Kellen, I'm sure I can do this.

*You need to question her.* Kellen's voice filters through my head. *She will only speak to you. Mike, if she has a kid…*

He didn't need to say anything else. He was wondering the same thing I was. Where this pup was, what state had he been left in? What if something happened to the pup?

"Fuck," I curse out loud in frustration, my hands grasping at my short hair. Privately I tell Kellen, *Take her back upstairs. I need a minute or two.*

"What is your name?" I ask her, thinking I can have someone run a quick background check on her while she is transferred back to the holding cells and in an interview room.

"Lyric. Lyric Swift." She replies through sniffles.

*****

Walking into the room, I glance towards the two-way mirror where Kellen, Tyron, and Hunji watch from the other side. "Sit down miss Swift." I gesture to the chair on the opposite side of the metal table. When she doesn't respond I order her. "Sit." Immediately she obeys and Duke preens in my head at the way our mate conforms to us.

My wolf and I are at odds. Once I left the dungeons, I tried to track down Jonda, but her scent went cold in the main palace. I would have texted her, but my phone was still somewhere in the forest where I had dropped it shredding my clothes to chase down Lyric.

Lyric. Her name rolled around in my head. It was a unique name and I wondered what the story behind her name was.

I schooled my face, wiping any emotion from it. I couldn't and wouldn't let the mate bond affect the job I was here to do. Work the case. My feelings towards my newfound mate hadn't changed. Despite Duke's growing comfort with her.

I sat down opposite her, dropping a manilla file in front of her. An empty one seeing as I couldn't find anything on the she-wolf. It was like she didn't exist. There was no record of her whatsoever. She had said she was a rogue but an Alpha's daughter. I thought for sure there would be some kind of information on her. Anything. But there was nothing.

"You say you didn't murder anyone, explain to me why your scent was all over the main vault and inner vault. Who hired you? How did you bypass the security code."

"Not until I see my son." She says with determination. Her eyes fixed on me.

She was being impossible. Defiant. Complacent. "That's not how this works…"

"I promise you, let me see my pup, and will give you whatever you want. I swear to the moon bring him here, let me see him and I will give you know more problems." Tears gather in her eyes once more, the sight pulling on my heartstrings. Duke whimpers in my head feeling empathetic towards our criminal mate.

When I remain silent and just stare at her taking in her beauty, she slides off the chair, dropping to the floor on her knees and lowering her head in a begging position.

"Please!" She begs again, a hand reaching out towards me, "I beg you please, his life is in danger. Reject me, execute me. I will live by your side if you want the other female or go far away. Whatever you want. I don't care! I just… need my son to be safe. Time is running out!"

I blow out a shaky breath. The mate bond kicks in as I watch her beg with desperation. I shouldn't care. I don't want to care. Yet, I find myself pushing the chair back, leaning down and hooking my hands under her arms, and pulling her up to her feet. The slight contact has sparks flying across my skin, an internal heat begins to build starting between my legs. My cock hardened with the contact.

Quickly I deposit Lyric in the seat. Once done, I take a seat opposite her. Picking up my pen and shuffling my note pad Infront of me. Squirming because of the raging hard-on that strains beneath my jeans.

"Where is your son?" I croak, trying to compose my shifting emotions. She sniffles, hiccupping, "Lyric, where is your son?" I ask again my voice calm and even. I fear if I upset her again my questioning will take longer and the sooner, I am out of this room with her the better.

"225 Bakers Street, in the reflective moon pack, a borough outside the kingdom's border." she wipes her nose on the sleeve of Rhett's shirt. "Please, no one can know about him" she shakes her head "If they find out he is alive, they will take him from me."

"Who will take him, what's his name? We can have him picked up."

"He's only three, my aunt is staying with him. She is the only one who knows about him." My brows furrow with her confession. She was hiding the child. Why?

Though disappointed in the mate the goddess sent me, a criminal and someone who bore a child outside of mating, I could never condemn a child. No matter who they belonged to. They were innocent of their parents' insolence. I had seen her naked, she wore no mark of another male.

She was young, which means she gave birth at a young age probably before she even found her mate.

"Okay, what's his name? " I ask again after writing down the address.

"His name is…" She lets out a shaky breath, closes her eyes, and drops her head in her hands. "His name is Zane. Zane Swift… Noir."

I flew across the table, upending it as I did. "What the fuck did you just say?" My hand coiled tightly around her throat, driving her back and pinning her to the wall. She struggles for air, clawing at my hand.

Her doe eyes stare at me with fright as I squeeze harder.

"Holy shit man, let her go!" The door bursts open and Rhett comes in trying to pull me off the little thief.

I'm shoved back harshly by Hunji, dropping my grip from Lyric's throat. Rhett holds me back.

Lyric slides down the wall gasping for breath and coughing - rubbing her reddened neck.

"Is this some fucking joke to you? A fucking game?" I spit at her, tugging at my short hair. Of all the names she could have said - she picked that one.

"I-I don't understand." She splutters.

"You know exactly what you said, who Zane Noir is. You sick bitch!" I curse at her, unable to contain my wrath.

Her demeanor suddenly changes, eyes hardening, fixing on me with a glare that could melt iron it was that heated with hate.

I see her fists clench "I don't give a flying rat fucking ass what you think of me or how you speak to me, but I would never lie about a child especially when that child, my pup's life is at risk!" The distraught girl who was begging and crawling on the floor only moments before is gone. In her place stands a mother trying to protect her child.

I truly believe she has a son, but why that name? Who is his father? I do the math in my head, if Zane Noir, Lamia's first mate is his father… it could be possible. He would have gotten her pregnant right around the same time as Kellen and Lamia's eighteenth birthday. Three and a half years ago.

"Who is the father?" I asked her, once I was semi-calm. Hunji was still standing in between us and Rhett holding my arm.

She shakes her head refusing to tell us. "I will tell you everything I know about the job and who hired me, once I have seen my son. But please do not ask me about his father. I won't tell you. Not yet."

I purse my lips debating on whether to push her or not. I give her a once over with my eyes and examine her small but curvy framed body. Images of her naked in my arms only 48 hours earlier flash behind my eyes and my cock twitches in response. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the thoughts to disappear. Jonda comes to mind, but I push her image away too.

"Have her taken back to the holding cells," I tell Rhett. I had had enough anyway. Being in the same room as her was wearing me and my wolf down. The pull of the bond was winding around us tight and igniting a deep arousal within us. The temptation to mate and mark her was too much. I had been able to tamper down my physical reaction to the she-wolf, but I didn't trust myself to be around her for extended periods.

"Come on," he directs the she-wolf out of our interrogation room and down the hall to where our holding cells are situated.

I step out of the room, only to find Kellen with a face that probably mirrored mine.

"What the shit was that?" Kellen grinds out. I could only imagine how he was handling this. He showed no emotion, but I knew him best, he would have reacted too. Yet Kellen wasn't the one to Lamia out MacTire. He wasn't there to see the horrors of the dungeon Silas had kept her in. That she had lost her pup while being tortured in the MacTire dungeons. Zane's pup.

Memories of that day come flooding back all at once. I swallow them down harshly. That day changed us all.

I frown back at him and answer with a clipped tone. "You heard what she said, you were standing on the other side of the mirror."

"What that fuck was that about?" Rhett says coming back to where I stood. I know he knows who Zane Noir is, or was, and what he meant to Lamia.

Did everyone swallow a stupid pill today? I almost say out loud but bite back the urge to do so.

"Have Damon go back over the tapes again and track Lyri... Miss Swift's movements from Friday night."

"Already on it" Rhett replies, opening and then closing his mouth like he has something else to say. He does and after a beat, he voices his concerns. Running a hand through his hair he blows out a huffed breath and says "I know hearing his name was a shock, but I don't agree with how you treated her. It was obvious she was telling the truth. And if she is your fated mate..."

"I'm not proud of my reaction," I admit. I shake my head, not knowing how to explain what's going on in my head or how finding my mate is affecting me so badly. Especially when my heart already, maybe still, belonged to Jonda. How Rhett could be taking everything in his stride I couldn't understand. If he was truly Jonda's mate, he would have gone after her.

I was so confused and emotionally drained. "If you were in my position you would understand. My wolf and I are out of sync for the first time... Ever."

"Hunji, can you take a team to pick up the boy?" Kellen asks him.