Page 28 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ROGUE

M y knuckles rubbed my sternum, up and down, before I realized they moved out of habit and dropped my hand. There was no pain beneath them. Not this time.

Smothering the Fae flame, as the wyverns had called it, made sure of that. It freed me from everything: fear, sadness, guilt, hurt. It felt as though all that remained were my selfish desires, and I knew, deep in my gut, nothing could stand in my way, not when the consequences didn’t matter.

Well, I had one desire, to be exact, and she lay across from me, asleep in my shirt.

Reclining in the chair, I propped my feet on the foot of her bed and sipped from the glass of whiskey. Ara rolled onto her back with a sigh, the blanket falling below her waist, her long hair splayed around her form, her chest rising on a slow inhale.

I was right in choosing her to be my claimed. Trinkets be damned; I had her. Even my beastly form recognized she was too beautiful to be anything other than treasure. She had to be made differently than the rest of us, cut from the very lightning she wields, destined to radiate—destined for me.

Her body had become frail and thin over the past months, but the bruises had faded beneath the healing salve I’d applied, as had the marks along her wrists and ankles, the swelling in her wrist, and the cuts on the soles of her feet.

No one else would leave a scar on her skin. That silver lightning on her forearm, the scar she earned, the scar she chose when she saved me, would be the only scar she ever kept.

I took another long sip of whiskey, savoring the burn as it slid down my throat. At least I felt that in my chest.

She’d lain in this bed for nearly four days before she woke, each one longer than the previous. Tension mounted in my chest until it felt like I might explode, and the others pressing to keep her under surveillance only pushed me further and further to the edge.

She was my claimed. Mine. They didn’t understand that—well, they hadn’t. They did now.

I would be her guard. I would stay with her day and night until we figured out exactly what he did to her. She was mine, and mine alone, to watch, to hold, to touch. I did not give a single fuck if this ended in my destruction as long as it was at her hands.

These three months had broken some deep, fundamental part of me. Any and every piece of my being that had belonged to Ravaryn was shattered and replaced. There was nothing left but my devotion to her, my claimed. I wanted our kingdom to be safe for her, Adonis dead for her, the war ended for her.

Nothing else mattered, and I would not hesitate to bathe the world in blood before I ever separated from her again. I would never take another breath that didn’t smell of rain and wildflowers.

When she woke, however, she’d been scared of me—not surprising, considering she didn’t remember me, but she was still cautious around me two days later.

My patience was saved exclusively for her, but Goddess be damned if she didn’t take every single ounce of it.

I’d kept her confined to this room as she slowly regained her strength and tested every angle I could think of, only to confirm that not a single memory of me remained. Everything we’d done together had been reworked or just…erased.

Every part of us, obliterated.

I wanted to rage, to shift and burn and destroy everything Adonis had ever touched, but that would mean leaving her here—one thing not even the Goddess herself could force me to do.

Heat rose in my veins until smoke wafted from my skin, and I clenched the wooden armrests of the chair, burning hand prints into them.

I wanted to reduce the realm to ash until only we remained, so I could claim her again and again without interruption. I wanted to cover her in bite marks until I wormed my way back into her damned soul, until she couldn’t be separated from me again.

She’d saved me, and she didn’t even remember doing it.

The armrest crumbled into ash, and I lifted my hand, glaring as the black dust fell to the floor.

She stirred in her sleep, and I cursed under my breath. She’d been resting all day, but as the sun set on the horizon, casting the room in golden warmth despite the ice outside, it was time for her to wake.

When a soft knock sounded from the door, I took another long drag of whiskey, frowning when I finished it. Another knock, and I jerked to my feet at the same moment Ara sat up in the bed, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was tussled, her silver eyes half-lidded, and cheeks flushed.

I stared for a beat too long, and she blinked a few times.

“What?” she asked.

I spun toward the door and yanked it open. “Leave.”

Livvy shoved past me, her expression nearly frantic. When she spotted Ara, she released a shaky breath and sprinted to the bed. “Oh, thank Goddess. I was so fucking worried about you.”

Ara scrambled from under the blankets and sat on her knees. When Livvy moved to hug Ara, though, a subtle movement—a faint flinch in Ara’s posture stopped her. I paused, my brows furrowed as I studied her. She met my gaze for a split second before quickly looking back at Livvy.

Ara flinched at Livvy’s advancement.

But she hadn’t at mine.

A sick satisfaction filled my chest, matched by an equal measure of hatred as I was once again reminded why Adonis didn’t deserve to keep his hands.

When Lee cleared his throat behind me, I turned to face him. He stood at the threshold, his expression guarded as he dipped his chin in greeting. I stepped aside, motioning for him to enter.

“Nothing yet?” he whispered.

I shook my head, and he released a sigh.

“He’s had you locked away in here and wouldn’t let any of us in,” Livvy said, and I wanted to strangle her when Ara’s eyes shot to me with renewed anger.

“We didn’t know what your intentions would be,” I said. She opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off and corrected myself. “We didn’t know what Adonis’s intentions would be.”

She averted her gaze to the window. “We still don’t.”

I strode across the room and sat beside her, tucking two fingers beneath her chin. “We’ll figure it out.”

She held my gaze before clearing her throat and pulling away from my touch, but I pinched her chin between my thumb and forefinger and forced her attention back to me.

She whispered, “It’s only a matter of time before I do something, betray someone, hurt someone.”

“I will not let that happen,” I said, and I meant it. That would hurt her, and I would never let anything hurt my claimed again, not even herself.

She nodded and sat back, pulling the blankets up over her legs. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but that was fine. She didn’t have to.

“How are you feeling?” Livvy asked.

Ara forced a smile. “Better.”

Better was an exaggeration. Her stomach handled broths well enough but struggled with solid food, and her sleep was wracked with nightmares. She’d woken with screams more times than not, though she didn’t seem to remember when she came to.

Lee rested a hand on Livvy’s shoulder, and she leaned into his touch. I ground my teeth. It should’ve been the other way around. Adonis should have kidnapped his own mate—taken his own mate’s memories.

Hell, he could’ve taken everyone’s memory as long as he left Ara’s.

I silently cursed the Goddess and all of her stars for this sick twist of fate. It wasn’t so long ago I cursed her for gifting me a human mate, but it seemed that was only part of the joke, because this was much, much worse.

The bed dipped under Lee’s weight as he sat beside Livvy, and I immediately threw an arm out to shove him off. The women eyed me, but I couldn’t be bothered to care.

He was not sitting on Ara’s bed. He was lucky to be breathing her air.

“I thought you were down there…with me,” Ara replied to Livvy after shooting daggers in my direction. “I…didn’t at first, but then, he told me you were, and I saw you—or I thought I did.”

Ara’s fingers laced around her wrists, rubbing where her wounds used to be. She glanced down, momentarily confused when she found smooth skin, and dropped her hands.

I started to pull her into my lap, but resisted the urge. She didn’t want nor need my comfort—or rather, she didn’t know she needed my comfort. Yet.

Wait. Tension coiled in my chest, heat rising. “When did you see her?”

Ara licked her dry lips. “I don’t know when exactly. A few days before my escape.”

“Before he took the spell-bound chains off or after?”

She stared at me for a moment, head tilted. “Before.”

Anger boiled in my veins, the shift threatening to claw its way free. My fiery eyes reflected in Ara’s silver. “A Puer Mortis, then.”

I knew exactly who it was.

“Me,” a voice said. Doran stood in the doorway like a ghost, pale and expressionless.

“What did you do?” Ara asked, her voice too calm, lethal—the calm before a storm. “I-I let him…He tricked me into letting him into my head with— you ? What did you do?”

Doran’s jaw clenched, the first and only display of emotion. “What I was told.”

Before I could burn him alive, Lee strode across the room and punched him in the face, hard enough to send him flying into the door, which broke off the hinges.

Both it and Doran fell back into the hallway with a loud thud, his eyes wide and a faint, awe-struck on his lips, his teeth red with the blood pouring from his shattered cheek.

Good thing Doran was a Puer Mortis, or he’d be dead on the spot. Lee had always been an invaluable soldier because his power was one of the most sought-after: strength.

Lee didn’t stop there. He jerked Doran up by his shirt and hit him again and again, but Doran never stayed down—not that Lee would’ve let him, apparently. He stumbled and stood every time, though he displayed no sign of pain, despite the blood and sounds of breaking bones.

That was when I realized he was letting Lee do this. He hadn’t so much as raised a defensive hand.

His entire skull should’ve been caved in, broken into pieces on the floor. Doran should’ve been dead , yet he wasn’t even breathing heavily when Lee finally stopped.