Page 35 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

I painstakingly clawed myself awake.

When my eyes finally opened, the room was too dark—dark enough that my nightmare still burned in my vision.

I ran my hands over my face, slick with sweat, a dull ache in my temples. I tried to relax, but lightning cracked outside, and I choked down a scream. A storm welled, tossing the seas, and us with it.

We’d left port, then.

At the distant rumble of thunder, I dispersed the storm before it could wake anyone else.

I pressed my palms into my eyes as flashes of the nightmare played out: grimy claws in my head and chains on my extremities, promises of pain and ice and water.

My entire body was rendered immovable, shackled to the metal table.

The dagger strapped to his hip, bloodstone shining, was the last thing I saw before he tipped that bucket?—

My palms dug into my sockets until I saw stars. Real.

Blankets, two of them, were pulled up to my shoulders, one made of scratchy wool, the other soft fur. Real.

I glanced out the porthole. The moon broke through the clouds, low and heavy on the horizon, a thick fog over the waves. Real… I think.

Our room was cloaked in shadow, pierced only by the dim light of a dying fire. It smoldered in a metal brazier in the corner, painting the wooden beams in shades of red and orange.

Rogue stirred at my side, and I stilled, not even daring to breathe.

Memories of the night before rushed back, hazy and mortifying. My cheeks burned—but sparks lit in my lower belly.

His chest rose on a deep breath.

Oh, Goddess.

When he didn’t move again, I inched away and rolled off the edge of the bed. The balls of my feet hit the floor, and I froze, bracing for the reaction that never came. With my heart in my throat, I stood…and stumbled into the bedpost.

I silently cursed and steadied myself, wide eyes locked on Rogue’s still form. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the blanket had fallen below his waist.

My head slowly tilted.

Both of his magical marks were intersected by the scar stretching from under his left ear down to his right hip. The wyvern encircled his throat, and the six-pointed sun in the center of his chest.

“Remarkably real.” I covered my mouth and mumbled into my palm, “What is wrong with me?”

I took a hesitant step to the door, made sure I wouldn’t fall on my ass, then booked it out.

That damned sea Fae rum.

Once in the hallway, I silently closed the door and backed away with my hands up, biting my lip as I waited for him to rip it open again. When I hit the opposite wall, I sagged into it and dropped my face to my hands.

I touched myself in front of Rogue Draki—and he liked it. I liked it.

“Fuck,” I whispered, scrunching my eyes.

“How can I steal you when you already belong to me?”

I did not belong to Rogue Draki, despite what he and everyone else thought, and those words should’ve rung alarm bells. Hearing them from any other mouth would’ve had me running for my life, or taking someone else’s. It would’ve provoked a visceral reaction.

Well, Rogue had caused a visceral reaction.

The wrong kind. The sick kind.

“Oh, Goddess.” I pulled my hands away from my burning face and gaped at them.

He sucked my fingers.

He sucked the taste of me from my fingers.

I swallowed hard, the heat in my cheeks crawling down my neck.

My gaze slid back to the door, and the feelers of my magic reached for him of their own volition. He still slept, sprawled across the bed, his body large and familiar, his mouth warm, his tongue?—

I blinked. “No.”

Picking a direction, I walked away as fast as my drunk, land legs could go, sliding my hand along the wall for balance.

I forgot what it was like to walk on a ship without sea legs.

“Difficult while sober,” I muttered. “Practically impossible now.”

I recognized Ewan’s ship, but I couldn’t remember how I knew it was his.

My first instinct was that I’d never been here before, but I knew the halls carved through the belly.

I knew if I turned and headed in the opposite direction, I’d find Iaso’s room.

I could find my way to the closest hatch with my eyes closed, just as I knew the next room on the right held the barrels of alcohol.

I’d been in that room before. Cried and drank in that room.

Over what or who, I couldn’t be sure, but I could guess.

It had been a winter night, too. I remembered talking to the moon captured by a frosted porthole, the frozen seas beyond, and the next morning, sunrise sparked on the ice-crusted ship.

My fingers wrapped around the doorknob, but I paused at the sound of movement inside—footsteps, then voices.

“Thank the Goddess, she didn’t,” Thana said, “but she ingested the poison, Delphia. Would you have blamed me if it had killed her? Would you have hated me?”

She ingested the poison.

Me. I ingested the poison.

I uncoiled my fingers from the knob. The ground swayed beneath my feet, and I wasn’t sure if it was the ship or my consciousness.

Why are they talking about that?

Delphia replied, her voice raw and slurred, “I could never hate you, aster.”

Aster? I pulled my lips between my teeth.

“Then, I need you to hate yourself a little less,” Thana pleaded. “If only for my sake. I can’t live like this, but I can’t live without you, and I won’t leave you like this.”

“Please. Stop watching. Stop trying to save me. Just go .”

“No, I won’t. I never will. You didn’t make that choice, and it is not your fault someone else did. Yes, Alden, Ara, and Rogue had horrible things done to them, but so did you .”

My throat tightened. A numbness settled over body and mind, ringing in my ears.

“Delphia…helped him?”

I staggered away from the door one step at a time. I made it three steps before I came to a halt, too frozen, too numb to move another inch. My blurred eyes fell to the floor.

A rug ran the length of the hallway, a path worn into the fibers from steady footfall, and my feet were… bare.

“Is this real?” fell from my lips, strangled by my tight throat.

I’m barefoot.

No shoes. No socks.

Toes cold. Numb. Tingling.

My fingers tingled, too. Static climbed my limbs, my skin crawling.

“I’ve forgotten what it feels like to believe I deserve to be alive.” Delphia’s voice broke as she choked out, “He should’ve just killed me. It would’ve been less painful.”

That struck me like a bolt to the heart and knocked me back another step. Tears welled in my eyes, not for Delphia or the truth in her words, but for my own deep understanding of them.

Death would hurt less.

I didn’t bother staying for what Thana said next, nor did I go in to confront a guilty, inebriated Delphia. I didn’t go back to Rogue, though a small part of me wanted to. Knew I’d be safe there.

“Safe,” I scoffed.

I tried to appeal to his empathy, his rationale, but he didn’t seem to have any. I played along in his twisted game, but I didn’t know him. No matter what we once were, he was a stranger now.

He was a stranger, but some remnant of my heart or soul remembered. He was unfamiliar, but his voice in my ears wasn’t. His hands on my skin, his warmth, his presence was entirely familiar—yet, I had no memory of ever growing familiar with these things.

My fingers knotted in the hair at my temples, a cry of frustration crawling up my throat.

My mind said run . My heart said to him.

I wanted to claw out of my own skull.

I wanted darkness. Nothingness. Rest. I wanted to forget more than I’d already been forced to. I wanted to forget it all.

I walked on numb legs and followed wherever the ship led me. When I came to a door, my magic’s feelers slipped underneath, and my brows furrowed, breath hitching. The back of my throat burned as I silently turned the knob and opened the door.

Livvy jerked up, her blonde hair a tangled halo around her head. Her gaze found me immediately, and my chin quivered, eyes blurring as I stood in her doorway, hand fisted in my blouse.

She kicked Lee and Rys out of the bed. I avoided their heavy gazes as they stepped out without a word. The moment the door clicked shut, I climbed into her bed—but then, she moved to hug me, and I flinched.

That small, involuntary movement sent cracks through my crumbling resolve.

I lay my head on a pillow, tucked my bare feet under the blanket, and curled into a tight ball. A sob ripped through the seams of my crudely stitched existence, and I silently begged for a hug, for comfort, for anything to stop this, to fix this, to fix me .

Livvy cried too, murmuring soft words as she scooted as close as she possibly could without touching me.

She eventually hummed a lullaby her mother taught her, the same lullaby my mother sang to me, and my grandmother sang to her.

The familiar melody threaded through the chaos like light through a cracked door, and I clung to it. The sobs eased until they were reduced to hiccuping breaths, my swollen eyes too heavy to open.

Seconds, minutes, hours later, the door flung open. A wave of heat flooded the room, carrying the scent of smoke and an evergreen forest in summer.

“Don’t burn the ship down,” a male voice grumbled.

The heat faded, but warmer arms slipped beneath my shoulders and legs.

I didn’t open my eyes. Not when he cradled me to his chest. Not when I lay my head on his shoulder. Not when we strode down the hall and Livvy called out, “I love you.”

Not even when I mumbled a quiet, “Is this real?”

His hold tightened. “As real as the stars.”

“How do we know the stars are real?”

As we entered our room, he kicked the door shut, and a fire roared to life in the corner.

“Because I’ve seen them,” he said, lying me on the bed.

He pulled the blankets up to my shoulders, and I forced my eyes open. I stared for a few beats before he realized and cupped my face, his fingers splayed in my hair.

“We’ve all seen the stars,” I whispered.

He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Not like I have.”

“What does that mean?”

I gasped when he climbed over me and plopped down on the other side of the bed.