Page 24 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

Outside, rain poured in heavy sheets. Thunder rumbled low and long until lightning cracked over the distant sea.

The door swung open, and people ran in, hoods drawn tight. More laughter ensued as they shook out their cloaks and coats, and nearby patrons threw their hands up to shield themselves.

One soaked cloak, a deep navy, clung to a smaller form, and when they removed their hood to reveal blonde hair, I darted forward.

I practically ran to her, blood pounding in my ears loud enough to drown out whatever Terran shouted behind me. Wading through the sea of tables and men, each step felt too slow, too small, but when I finally made it to her, I halted.

With her back to me, she pulled her cloak off and tucked it in her elbow as she spoke to Rys, who stared open-mouthed at me, eyes wide and forehead wrinkled.

She let out a confused laugh, and a cry clogged my throat. It was Livvy.

Rys spun her around.

Our eyes met.

Her soaked cloak fell to the floor.

“Ara?” she rasped, tears welling in her eyes.

When she staggered forward and threw her arms around me, I stiffened. My heart pounded into my chest, demanding to be released, demanding freedom. This was Livvy, for Goddess’s sake, but even her hold felt like a vise, chains, shackles.

When she finally pulled back, I inhaled a shaky breath, the tendons in my neck tight. I forced myself to relax as much as I could, but she…

She wasn’t thin. She wasn’t bruised or battered.

“You weren’t…down there? He didn’t… You’re not hurt?”

She looked healthy, soft, whole.

But she wouldn’t find the same thing in me. I hadn’t taken a second to look myself over, but I didn’t need to. I knew what I would see, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to face who or what stared back at me in my reflection.

Her horror came first, then tears. “Down there? Down where?”

My lips parted. Rusted, old gears turned in my head.

Another trick.

It was all just another trick.

I pressed my hand into my mouth and mumbled, “You were safe.”

I hadn’t felt my own tears rolling down my cheeks until a cry broke from my throat, and she lifted a hand toward me but stopped at my flinch. Her mouth pressed into a tight line, her chin wobbling as she forced her arm back down to her side.

I wanted a hug— needed a hug, but I hadn’t felt a gentle touch in so long, my body could no longer tell the difference.

My breath hitched on a choked sob, and I cursed, swallowing hard to shove it all down. I didn’t need air right now. I needed her. I needed my friend. I needed a hug. I needed…touch that didn’t hurt, that comforted and understood.

She turned over her shoulder to whisper a few words to Rys, who finally tore his eyes from me to give her a quick nod. He pulled out a cloak from his leather satchel and handed it to her before striding off into the blur of people around us.

She held it out, and another cry broke from my throat.

Wool. Dry wool.

I threw it over my shoulders and tugged the hood overhead. A shiver ran down my spine, and I pulled it tighter, closing my eyes, savoring the way it swallowed me.

“Let’s sit,” she said quietly.

I followed her to the closest table and slid into the booth, the old wood creaking beneath our weight.

“Are you all right?” I asked, although I didn’t know why.

With a hard bob of her throat, she tilted her head. “Are you all right?”

“I’m…” I averted my gaze. “I’m fine.”

I’m breathing. I guess that constitutes fine.

Blinking back the infernal burn in my eyes, I looked to where I had left Terran, but he’d disappeared into the crowd of people. Sitting straighter, I looked around the room.

I stood to peek around the back of the booth, still half hidden behind it, and finally spotted him.

In the back corner of the tavern, off to the left of the bar, he spoke to someone I couldn’t quite see.

In response to whatever he heard, he let out a ragged breath, his shoulders sagging as he ran a hand down his face.

“What is it?” Livvy asked. She hopped up onto her knees to look over the back of the booth. “Oh, thank Goddess.”

She shuffled out, and I followed her line of sight to another man, similar to Terran in stature. He stood taller than most, dipping his head to fit through the doorway. His black hair had been braided back from his face, but it was windblown; his jaw was lined with scruff.

The most striking feature, however, was the color of his eyes.

Blood red.

“Rogue!” Livvy shouted.

My heart skipped a beat. I slid out of the booth. Rogue… “Draki?”

No, it couldn’t be. Rogue Draki was a Draki. He had wings.

This man did not.

Regardless of who he was, time slowed when he turned his head in her direction. His attention bypassed her entirely and landed on me.

We locked eyes across the tavern.

He stilled, a lighthouse among a sea of movement, and I couldn’t look away, some deep part of me awestruck.

His lips parted, his eyes narrowing like he didn’t believe what he saw either.

My heart raced, ears ringing. Adrenaline prickled along my skin when my first instinct was to run—toward him or away from him, I wasn’t sure. A war waged inside my chest, a raging storm unsure whether to drift out to sea or ravage the coast.

When he took a step forward, though, I matched his with a backward one of my own. His gaze dropped to my feet, then my cheeks flamed as it crawled back up my body. His eyes flickered like fire, and I snapped from my stupor.

This was Rogue Draki, King of Ravaryn.

And I would not be captured again.

I turned on my heel and ran like my life depended on it, lithe enough to slip through the crowd, but heavy footsteps echoed mine, followed by the disgruntled shouts of people falling, chairs toppling.

A barmaid stepped into my path then, and I swerved around her, carefully avoiding her tray of glasses, but bumped into another group.

I mumbled weak apologies and spun toward the door, but my cloak snagged on something and slid clean off my body since I hadn’t tied it.

I started to turn back for it, but stopped when I saw it hooked beneath a chair.

My heart sank painfully. My jaw and fists clenched.

Not the cold.

My chest felt like it might explode as I threw the door open, and it slammed into the stone wall with a loud clatter. An icy breeze whipped through the doorway, sucking the breath from my lungs, and my body braced, muscles tense.

Anything but the cold.

I darted to the right, slipped down a small alley, and sprinted as the cold sank beneath my skin once again.

I burst through the other side of the alley, breathing heavily, my head on a swivel as I looked up and down the street. Passersby stopped to gawk or startled, stumbling out of the way as I flew past them, because I was being forced to run again, to flee again.

The storm thrashed in my rib cage, growing to match the rage boiling in my veins.

No, I will not flee.

Yet for some reason, my feet kept moving.

My sore feet pounded on stone, never slowing, never stopping. My soul had been so beaten, so fried and frayed, my body refused to do anything else.

I’d been made this way, deprived of light and warmth, starved and beaten, cut and sliced, chained like an animal, and drowned until I blacked out.

Tortured.

For three months, I’d been tortured.

Tears started falling at some point, but I hadn’t noticed, not until my cheeks were soaked and freezing. I wiped them away, but the movement opened the floodgates, and a sob broke free.

I couldn’t stop any of it.

Not the running.

Not the chase.

Not the capture.

Not the tears.

None of it.

Goddess damn it all, why did it have to be cold? Why? I silently screamed at whoever was listening: the Goddess, the realm itself, the damn season, fate. Why take the cloak? Why not allow me one fucking break?

“I’m so cold,” I cried, my words strangled. “And tired and hurt and afraid and hungry.”

But I refused to yield.

I couldn’t stop any of it, but I wouldn’t give up either.

If I had to spend every single day of my life running, then so fucking be it.

“Never. Again,” I whispered, tracing the scabs and scars around my wrists.

Footsteps pounded behind me. “Ara!”

I took the next turn, glancing over my shoulder, but thick, heavy heat slammed into my skin. My feet came to a screeching halt when I came face to face with a solid wall of fire.

My head whipped in both directions, searching for another outlet, but there was nowhere to go. No escape. I was surrounded by walls: stone on either side, fire in front, and my soon-to-be murderer at my back, eating the distance between us based on his approaching footfall.

I closed my eyes. As the heat enveloped me, I was grateful for at least that; it wasn’t brutally cold. If I couldn’t escape, I would die trying, and if I had to die, I’d rather burn than freeze.

Faster. Cozier, I thought, listening to the faint crackling of the flames— feeling the flames.

My eyes peeled open. Fire was pure energy, and it screamed at the starved feelers of my magic.

Rogue Draki’s sure steps grew closer, slower than before, yet no less frightening. My chest rose and fell too quickly, sweat beading along my forehead.

Then, I moved as fast as lightning. The wall dissipated in a flash of smoke when I ripped the energy from it, spun, and launched it at him. His entire body was thrown back when chains of blue electricity whipped around him: his throat, his torso, his ankles, his wrists. It would never be me again.

My chest heaved with each breath when I finally met his gaze and stumbled back a step at the intensity in it. He didn’t seem to mind the chains, didn’t fight them or even bother looking at them. No, it was worse. Much worse.

His gaze didn’t sway from me.

He took in every inch of my body, and I…

let him. I didn’t move. I didn’t run. I couldn’t have, even if I wanted to, because his expression twisted, baring his teeth, his eyes wide with…

fury. He jerked at my hold, the cords in his neck straining with effort, but when he couldn’t move, the ground scorched beneath his feet, smoke wafting from his skin.

He could burn me from there if he wanted to, chains or not.

But he didn’t, and I couldn’t understand why.

He just kept fucking staring, his gaze nearly tangible as it slid over my body, taking in every atrophied, bruised, damaged inch.

I averted my eyes, suddenly wishing I had the cloak to hide beneath. I felt flayed, exposed, but worst of all, ashamed. A disgusting pit sank in my stomach, and I just wanted him to stop looking . He didn’t know me, and I didn’t do anything to him. He didn’t have the right to look this…angry.

“Say something, Ara,” he said, his voice low, dangerous. “Say anything.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know my name?”

His entire body stilled. Even his magic ceased, and the temperature dropped without it.

When shivers started to wrack my form again, my fingers shaking, I clenched my fists and crossed my arms over my chest, refusing to let him see but silently wishing he’d get angry enough for his magic to run rampant again.

There we remained for Goddess knew how long: me, too tired to move, too tired to run, my head swimming, and him, seemingly unperturbed by the chains I still held him in, but clearly struck by…something.

“How?” I asked again, my throat raw and heart racing.

His chest rose and fell, but he didn’t answer me.

“Why are you following me? Why did you chase me? How do you know my name?” The questions poured from me but ceased when I realized he wasn’t going to answer. “I will not be captured again.”

“Captured?” he asked, confusion furrowing between his brows.

“No. Never again.”

He stared until understanding dawned on his expression—understanding of what, I didn’t know, but he pieced something together. Heat reached me again, hotter than before, and I stifled a sob of relief.

His forearms rippled as he forced his fists to unclench, the tendons in his neck taut. “My name is?—”

“Rogue Draki.”

“And I will not hurt you.”

I studied his expression, and something told me he meant it, but it didn’t matter, because a sensation stirred in my chest.

An ember sparked, a small flame within my heart. My lips parted when warmth spread down to my extremities, touching and caressing every frozen inch of my body. I vaguely heard his sigh of relief, a grateful curse muttered under his breath as a tug emerged from deep within the cavity of my chest.

That tug pulled me forward a step, but my head spun. I swayed, stumbling another step as black crept into my vision. When the world dipped beneath me, my body failed, my eyes rolling back, but before I hit stone, I fell into more warmth, solid and strong, nearly hot.

Home.

Something deep in my soul felt at home.

For the first time in months, I slipped into the darkness without fear. The tension left my body, and I sagged into the warmth, letting it carry my exhausted soul into a dreamless sleep.