Page 102 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

M oonlight cascaded through the grate at the end of the tunnel.

Drakyth set Iaso on her feet, and she stood motionless, arms limp at her sides, eyes hazy and unblinking.

“Which exit is this?” Delphia snapped at Godrick.

He hadn’t remembered the passages as well as he thought. It took us almost an hour to navigate the maze of hallways, and tensions rose, as did my heart rate. My body ached, muscles and jaw tight, when we finally made it to an exit, stopping just out of the moonbeam’s reach.

He blinked and squinted out into the night. “Well, it must be the west one.”

“The…west one?” My brows knitted. “Yes, but is it one of the known ones? If we pour out of here, are there going to be more swords waiting for us? You said before that at least half the exits?—”

“Looks empty to me,” he said, tilting his head to look through the grates. “I don’t see anyone.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he met my gaze.

“Godrick?” I asked.

He hesitated before, “Yes?”

He looked the same, brown eyes wrinkled at the corners, a thick beard, and thicker hair—except his clothing. This tailcoat, soaked in blood and disheveled, had pearl buttons.

New pearl buttons.

Not ratty ones pulled from the back of a closet.

I pulled Severance from the sheath. “You are not Godrick.”

The others tensed, weapons drawn. Drakyth slid closer until I was flanked by two Draigs.

His eyes fell to the weapon in my hand.

He licked his lips nervously. “Jig’s up, I suppose.”

Nothing could’ve prepared me for who Godrick melted into.

The world tilted beneath my feet. A split second passed.

Gus shouted a horrified, “Finley?”

He stared at Gus, head cocked. “Is that my name?”

With a roar, I lunged forward and brought Severance down over his face. He dodged, but not before the tip sliced across his cheek. The split skin didn’t bleed.

Rogue snatched me by the shoulder and threw me behind him and Drakyth.

“How in the fuck are you still alive?” Rogue growled, then his eyes shot to Thana, who stared wide-eyed and confused at the creature before us.

“Who made you all?” she asked. “Where did you all come from?

I shoved my way between the two Draigs to see Finley shake his head. He looked as he always had—freckled and red-headed, but his eyes lost their old color. No pupil. No iris. Replaced by thick, red tears.

“I don’t know who turned me. None of us know his name. I didn’t even know my name.” He paused, and his attention fell to Rogue’s hip, to the red bloodstone dagger in its sheath. “He has one of those. It calls to us—commands us.”

“His?” Thana asked. “There’s another soul weaver?”

Rogue slowly unsheathed Sacrifice. “He has a dagger like this one that controls Puer Mortis?”

Finley nodded.

My blood ran cold, lungs wrenching. “Oh, Goddess above.”

How? How did this weapon exist?

“The hunger,” I breathed. “Is that your blade or his? If humanity has confused the two this entire time, how do we know which trait belongs to which dagger? Do they both kill everything they wound?”

Rogue swore under his breath and shoved Sacrifice back into its scabbard.

“The syrens only made two weapons—only one of which contained the high queen’s blood.” Iaso swiveled to Finley and pointed to Sacrifice. “You’re sure it looked identical to this one?”

As he nodded, I said, “I saw it, too. I used to watch the red swirl within the stone—the way it caught the firelight. They’re the same, down to the bloodstone.” Slowly, gears started to turn in my head until my gut sank. “Syrens eat men, yes?”

Iaso paused. “Yes, why?”

“So, do Puer Mortis—in a sense. What if they’re the same type of weapon, just created with different species? Two weapons that possess the hunger of their makers.”

“Two weapons that kill anything they wound.” Iaso blanched, her eyes flaring bright, a slight tremble in her hands.

“He may not have the weapon he thought he did,” Rogue said quietly, “but he has a powerful one.”

“Or does he? Maybe he has the exact weapon he wanted.” I screeched, throwing my arms out.

“Perhaps this was always the plan. He sees things, right? Maybe he knew all along we’d bring these two weapons, and he could bring his look-alike.

He sure as hell convinced me.” I released a broken laugh, and Rogue winced, lifting a hand to my cheek.

“He has a dagger that controls Puer Mortis—what else does it do? Does it control the dead…on the night when the veil is thin and the dead run rampant?”

Not to mention, he has our Puer Mortis.

Doran had spent this entire time hating himself for what he’d done—what he’d been forced to do, and he hadn’t had a choice. Worse, he didn’t seem to know he hadn’t had a choice. Helping me escape might have been the first true choice he ever made in this existence.

And now he was trapped with him once again. Once Adonis realized he wasn’t me…

I wheezed, my chest and lungs too tight. With comically bad timing, a drop of condensation dripped from the stone ceiling to hit my cheek.

I gasped a useless breath, and when no air came, I was drowning.

Rogue held my gaze as he slowly pulled Severance from my sheath and tossed it to someone.

I watched his mouth move as he whispered calm words, but I couldn’t hear them. Everything was too loud: the buzzing in my head, pounding in my ears, the panic rising in my chest. I clutched Rogue’s hand and held it to my cheek like a lifeline.

Who needs Adonis when my own body is determined to kill me?

When another drop fell, Rogue growled and spun us before it landed on my face.

Iaso’s eyes flared as she tried to dissipate my growing panic, but not even she could penetrate the spell-bound iron.

Fuck, we don’t have time for this.

My eyes prickled, my lungs going up in flames as they screamed for air but refused to accept any. I might as well be chained and underwater.

Between gasps, a strangled laugh bubbled up. “If Doran were here, he’d slap me back into reality.”

Every muscle in Rogue’s body went taut except the hand on my face. It remained gentle, his palm warm as his thumb tugged on my bottom lip. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

Now that I heard.

“With love,” I rasped with another broken chuckle. “A love tap.”

His eyes went up in flames. Heat rose in the tunnel.

Rogue’s innate protectiveness was satisfying in more ways than one, and as it curled low in my spine, I sucked in a lungful of air. While I calmed a bit, Rogue did not.

His anger only doubled as I turned away from him to face the Puer Mortis that Drakyth had backed into a wall with Severance at his throat.

Finley held no emotion on his face.

My lungs still raw, my cheeks hot, and fingers tingling, I forced out the words, “Why are you here? Did he tell you to follow us?”

He shook his head. “No, he only commanded us to consume—all but you two. He feeds us well.”

“They were a fail-safe,” I said to Rogue, disgust churning in my gut. “He not only used innocent people as a shield, but he sacrificed them as a distraction.”

Rogue seethed, fire flickering in and out around him as he struggled to hold control.

“You didn’t answer why you’re here,” Drakyth said, lifting Severance into the crook of his neck. “If not by his orders, why did you follow us? Why did you not fall into blood lust like the others?”

Finley’s lips twitched, and he ran his tongue over them again as if tasting the remnants of the blood he spilled.

“I did. I was in the throes of it until I spotted her.” He tossed his head in my direction.

To me, he said, “No one else has ever stirred any feeling of my past life, but you did. Did I love you? I certainly felt affection. Were we lovers, perhaps?”

Rogue snapped.

He lunged forward and grabbed Finley by the throat. Flames licked at his skin, caught in his hair, but Finley didn’t flinch. Instead, he stared at Rogue, his brows furrowed like he were working through a problem.

“I think I hated you,” he croaked. “Disdain, I think. Deep jealousy, too.”

“Believe me, I hated you, too,” Rogue growled, then took Severance from Drakyth.

He plunged the dagger toward Finley’s heart.

“Wait!”

Rogue froze, chest heaving, his jaw tight enough to break teeth. The tip of the dagger broke skin, but didn’t sink deep enough to reach the threads that bound Finley in his body.

“If you…If you’re not…” I palmed my chest. “If you’re not Godrick, then where…”

Finley licked his crusted lips, a look of shame crossing his features. My mouth opened, closed, and I staggered back.

The muscles of Rogue’s back rippled with a quick stab of his arm. An audible crack, a gasp from Finley, then Rogue ripped the blade free.

Finley melted into a corpse as Rogue wiped the steel on his pant leg. He walked toward me slowly, presumably to return Severance or calm me down or both, but I turned and sprinted back the way we’d come.

Rogue shouted my name. Footsteps pounded on the stone.

Someone grabbed my arm and spun me around. Gus dragged me back to the group while Rogue stood stone-still, staring daggers at where his hand touched my skin.

“No!” I wrenched my arm. “He’s still in there. We can’t just leave him.”

Light flickered over the stone walls, heat rising as flames crept toward us. “Let someone else go.”

Gus released me like I had burned him.

“No…need,” a strained voice echoed down the dark hallway.

I gasped and ran to him. He struggled, his hand braced on the wall. I slid under his arm and took his weight, wincing at the pain in my shoulder, but my hand met wet warmth.

Drakyth quickly took his weight from the other side, and Gus replaced my hold.

Godrick’s ratty, moth-eaten shirt had a streak of red down the front, starting at his collar. Jagged bites mangled his throat, his skin ashen and lips pale.

“Did it take you this long to find the exit?” Godrick released a tired laugh. “I thought you all would’ve been halfway to the battlefield by now.”