Page 16 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ROGUE

T he stone glowed bright.

I’d never felt such a blinding craze as I did in this moment, wild, obsessive determination.

Ara was here.

Her scent , Guardian said. I can smell her scent—and death. This land is stained by death.

I shifted into my dragon, and when the breeze swirled around us, I smelled her, too, the scent I’d been chasing for months. Wildflowers and rain in the faraway distance, but it was tainted with something dank—and blood.

Blood, death, and rot.

It was oppressively present, a suffocating smog everywhere around us, even though we stood in an empty field with nothing but snow. Each heavy step crunched with ice.

The farther we went from this field, the less I could smell her, and the dimmer the dagger glowed.

My heart hammered, the pressure building in my chest like it would explode at any minute, an enraging combination of frustration and desperation. I wanted to burn it all to the ground until nothing but embers remained. I craved destruction down to my very core, but I refrained.

If Delphia’s magic had taught me anything, it was that nothing was as it seemed. While I didn’t think Ara was standing before me out of sight, I didn’t know, and I would never risk her life.

I’d called another wyvern down to us after we’d received the dagger, and he’d arrived within hours, excited and bloodthirsty, but the area was isolated—no villages or animals, no life in general other than the endless trees on the outskirts. There had to be a reason for that.

The older wyvern landed in the clearing with a gust of air. He stretched his wings out before tucking them in along his navy body, armored scales marred with the scars he’d earned in the War of Brothers, side by side with Stryath.

There is not much life, he said.

Why though? If there weren’t people, wildlife should be abound.

Too much death.

Calypso had given me the dagger three days ago.

Three days, I’d been driven closer and closer to the edge of madness. Each night, I sliced those vertical scars on my back. Each night, I barely slept, and those few hours were ravaged with nightmares of Ara in every horrendous way.

Three agonizing days.

The wyverns sustained themselves on sea life, but I had no appetite. How could I be expected to eat when I was about to implode?

Calypso said the dungeons were called the Black Veins because they stretched through the earth like veins, and Ara’s scent was strongest here. We had to be over them, so where was the damned door?

Frustration coiled my muscles tighter with each fucking breath that I was forced to smell her and not see her—not find her.

The snow remained undisturbed, a fresh layer laid only hours before, and another storm rolled in as we searched the area again. The sky swirled with dense, low-hanging clouds, heavy with more snow to cover any potential trace or trail for us to follow.

Fuck.

There was no indication of life at all, only the scent it left behind: decay and blood, mingled heavily with the scent of Ara.

The undercurrent of blood—both new and old—hung over everything, as if death were the only thing that could exist in this Goddess-forsaken stretch of land.

Shifting down to my Fae form, I said, “She’s here. I know she is.”

Guardian grumbled, his own frustration mounting, and the unnamed navy wyvern answered him with a low rumble.

I retrieved my trousers from the satchel on Guardian’s back and yanked them on before walking to the middle of the clearing.

My bare feet stung against the frozen ground without the shield of scales or shoes, but I gritted my teeth and welcomed it. I was seconds from losing it, smoke curling from my skin.

A forest encircled the clearing, its shadows too dark, despite that the gangly trees were bare, and a smooth blanket of white covered the forest floor.

Turning slowly, I scanned the tree line until a ghost of movement caught my eye.

At the base of a massive tree trunk, thin, almost invisible waves of steam rose from an inconspicuous patch of snow.

Almost invisible.

I strode closer and dropped to one knee.

It wasn’t just a disturbance. It was the impression of four fingers, pressed into the snow… like someone had closed a hatch behind them.

I drove my flaming fist into the so-called ground. My knuckles struck wood, and a devilish smile curled across my lips.

My chest constricted, heart thundering. If Guardian or the nameless wyvern said anything, I didn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything beyond the blood pumping in my ears.

I should have stopped. I should have stepped back to devise a plan and think this through, but I did none of those things.

No, I felt along the door to the handle, ripped it open, melting the lock in the process, and ran forward blindly, wildly, like my fucking life depended on it.

Because it did.

She was in here, and she was my life.

My everything.

Her scent bloomed in my lungs like wildfire. Her scent was everywhere. Fresh.

And tainted with blood. Her blood.

The tunnel lit under my flickering gaze.

Scales rippled over my skin. My claws and fangs extended.

My vision tinted bloody red because I was ready to bathe in it once again.