Page 19 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

I slung him to the side, and his body hit the trunk of a blackened tree before he fell to the ground without his leg.

His blood ran down my maw as I dropped it unceremoniously, and he looked up at the wet thud. His eyes locked on it, his face devoid of color and jaw slack, before he slowly looked down at what remained of his limb.

The image of Ara’s face as she closed her eyes for the last time wouldn’t leave my head.

My mate, my love.

Dead.

I stalked forward, prepared to tear every limb from his body—to tear and burn and sling his remains into the air to feed my wyverns — but when his face snapped back to mine, glowing slitted eyes glared back through the smoke.

Despite the sounds of cracking joints, he pulled himself up, twitching and leaning on the tree trunk.

He fell forward again as his spine broke and curved, landing on his hands, red pooling under his skin before scales sliced through. Talons and canines extended, but every part of this…this shift was wrong, broken and misshapen.

“Dear Goddess above…” Iaso breathed before another s hluck sounded, followed by a gargling gasp.

I swiveled to find her standing directly behind me, a weapon planted in her back.

An arrow of sorts spread under her skin like a metal star, attached to a chain, the arms of that star far too large for her Fae form.

Blood dripped from four spikes, two on each side of her torso.

A sickening pit sank in my stomach when I realized that it had been meant for me, but hit her instead.

A dragon-sized weapon lodged in the back of a Fae.

How— why is she here?

Time slowed at the sound of a crank turning. I locked eyes with Iaso and ran forward, shifting down mid-stride.

She smiled weakly, reaching a trembling hand toward me before the chain tugged, and she released a gut-wrenching scream. She stumbled a few steps before her eyes rolled back and her body collapsed.

A burly human and I caught her at the same moment.

He didn’t flinch when my eyes flashed to his, wide and burning, my bloodied jaw holding teeth as sharp as razors.

He simply nodded once, and I released Iaso to grab the chain with sweltering heat.

Metal dripped onto the ground with a sizzle before the chain split, and the human lifted the rest of Iaso’s weight, carefully avoiding the star and its points.

I staggered back a step, then another.

Behind the human, another Fae came into focus, trembling as she stared at the blood pooling on the ground—Thana. Beyond her, a bruised and broken Delphia released a battle cry and brought her sword down on the final human soldier.

Red consumed everything: my vision, Iaso, the man’s shirt, as Iaso soaked him in seconds.

Ara was dead.

Iaso would be dead soon.

My heart shattered, my chest cracking open. I reached around to claw at the scars on my back and dug deeper until a guttural roar erupted from my throat.

It didn’t touch the pain burrowing into my soul.

I wouldn’t survive this.

I didn’t want to.

My soul was dying, my entity, my person.

Smother the Fae flame, an ancient wyvern growled.

The navy wyvern agreed. You are breaking, my King. Smother the Fae flame as your ancestors have done before you.

What does that mean? I screamed in my head at every wyvern.

They all snapped awake. Their presences skimmed along my mind, listening, waiting.

I felt it, the Fae half of myself, the ember that kept the man alive with rationale, compassion, and every other emotion that made me care. It tethered me to the rest of the Fae kind, but it dimmed.

Is that why Draigs are merciless?

Yes, several answered simultaneously.

Guardian’s hesitation emerged ahead of every other wyvern. It will be like the first shift with more awareness. You will know what you’re doing, yet you will not care. You will become ? —

“Guardian,” I cut him off before my skull cracked open to join my chest.

Someone shouted my name. Others shouted at each other.

Loud. It was all too loud.

No other Draig has ever relit it, he warned. No chosen Draig has ever smothered.

Will it stop this? This pain, this…torture?

Because that was what this was. A single second of breathing in a world in which Ara no longer existed was torturous, an agony I did not intend to survive.

I promised her all those months ago I would cut my heart from my chest and lay it in the grave with her, and it was already clawing its way out to her.

Yes, he answered.

Just like that, I stomped the small flame and ground the embers under the heel of my metaphorical boot.

My eyes closed, I inhaled slowly, and each emotion left me bit by bit until only anger and a deep-seated need for blood remained.

Adonis dared to touch my claimed—hurt my claimed. I would’ve eaten him for daring to breathe in the same vicinity as her, but now, she was dead, and she was fucking mine.

Fire flowed through my veins so viciously, it consumed my form as I turned to Adonis. A sickening smile pulled at my lips.

He’d run.

But fuck, I loved a chase.

How did a man with one leg run? Not quickly.

Each minute he prolonged his inevitable death was a minute added to his punishment. It would be brutal, bloody, and long.

One did not simply touch a claimed, especially not another shifter. He didn’t deserve to keep his hands, not even in death.

Yes, I would take them first, feed them to my wyverns, though I was certain they’d vomit them back up.

Nobody wanted rotten meat, and Adonis was rotten to his fucking core.

I followed the trail of blood to a shallow creek bed. I searched both directions and beyond it, then around the grounds, but the bastard seemingly disappeared.

My wyverns didn’t pick up on his scent, either.

“How?” I asked aloud. Keep searching. Find him, and when you do, bring him to me. Alive.

I started back underground when a hand grabbed my arm, and fire devoured their limb on instinct. He didn’t flinch. It seemed he felt nothing at all as he released me to pat and suffocate the flames.

With pale skin, unnervingly white eyes, and a healed bloody slash across his throat, Doran stood before me.

My eyes narrowed at him.

A Puer Mortis.

Doran was a Puer Mortis.

He wouldn’t have his memories. He wouldn’t know who I was, who any of us were, but he’d have acquired new skills, one of which…

My eyes shot back to where Ara had lain, dying in my arms. Nothing remained but a dark stain in the snow and an imprint of her body—of his body.

My heart roared in my ears. “Is she alive?”

“We’ve got somewhere to be,” was all he said before he turned to follow the human carrying Iaso.

I wrenched him by the shoulder and spun him back to me before jabbing a finger at the tunnels. “Is she down there?”

“No.” He stepped to the side, slipping from under my hand.

“Where?”

“King’s Port.”

Alive.

My claimed, alive, breathing—and not at my side.

I needed to collect what belonged to me.

She is alive, Guardian hummed, his relief intermingled with concern. She is alive, and you have smothered your humanity.

Come, was my only reply.

I shouted for the human to return with Iaso. He started to argue, but Guardian landed with a gust of air. It blew the man’s hair away from his face, his eyes wide as he studied the wyvern.

“She’ll never make it on foot,” I said. “We’ll take her.”

Why? Guardian asked. I will do so, but if you’ve smothered the flame, why do you care if she lives or dies?

Because my claimed does.

The human walked forward cautiously but without fear. Guardian lowered his head in a display of trust.

Iaso’s sister is there. Ara should be soon, if not already.

As Doran strode into the treeline, two women stared. Delphia’s gaze tracked her brother in utter shock while another unfamiliar woman stared at me, her face blanched and eyes wide—a look of fear. I had that effect on people.

Doran didn’t give Delphia a second glance, but her breath hitched, her feet anchored where she stood. I studied her for a moment, waiting for the hatred that never came.

With her body gaunt, busted lips trembling, and one black-and-blue fist, she just looked broken. Not worth my wrath.

Perhaps fate dealt her punishment.

Or perhaps I’d kill her later.

It seemed that smothering the flame didn’t take away all emotion. Only the ones that separated me from my father.

The ancient wyvern spoke, almost too much of a growl to understand. Some deem it a merciless state, bloodthirsty, cruel. Others call it clarity—whichever words fill their mouths and sate their morals. To a dragon, it’s freedom from the burden of humanity.

I’d been reduced to a predatory creature in the body of a Fae with just one tether left, and she wasn’t here.

I scanned the small clearing again, searching once more for any sign of Adonis. When I found none, I rolled my shoulders, sending a wave of pain through the broken skin where my wings should have been, and strode to the tunnel entrance.

Pick a human encampment, I silently commanded the wyverns throughout Auryna. Decimate it. No prisoners.

Almost two dozen beasts took flight, and I could nearly feel the thrum of growing human terror—fuel to my fire.

They have weapons of our caliber. Take heed, and destroy.

At the door, I glared into the darkness. The faint sound of life echoed through the hallway, and my lips curved up before I released the hottest fire I’d ever produced.

Whoever remained inside incinerated before they had a chance to scream. White flames raced clear to the other side of the dungeon and burst from every exit. The ground shook under our feet when stone started to crumble, walls collapsing.