Page 41 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ROGUE

I hadn’t left my room in weeks, but the manor?

I couldn’t remember the last time I went outside.

When Father led me out the back door, I threw an arm over my face, squinting.

The sun was blindingly bright, but I smiled, not caring that it reopened the cracks in my dry lips.

Ignoring the sting, I licked away the tiny droplets of blood that formed and dropped my hand as I let my head fall back with a sigh.

My wings shuffled behind me, stretching out before tucking back in.

It was so warm.

How had I forgotten that?

My room had a window, but it only offered morning sunlight, and that didn’t compare to this.

I wanted to linger for a few minutes, but a hand grabbed my bicep and jerked me forward.

Foolish.

I needed to pay better attention. I was always an inconvenience, messing up, doing things wrong, getting in the way, but I was working on it. I would get better.

My stomach knotted as he led me farther and farther away. When we stepped into the woods, my foot hooked on a root, and I stumbled a step but managed to catch myself before I hit the ground. My eyes locked on Father’s back.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I thanked the Goddess and all her stars that he’d let go of my arm before I did that.

Foolish, foolish, foolish.

I kept my eyes on the forest floor while I fell back in line behind him, making sure to take large steps over roots and holes.

I always wanted to leave my room; I never wanted what happened when I left my room.

It wasn’t always the same.

Sometimes it was just yelling, screaming, ranting about things I didn’t understand, his breath thick and vile with the smell of alcohol.

Other times…

Other times, he didn’t stop with words. He couldn’t express his anger well enough, loud enough, harsh enough.

Sometimes, he needed to physically remind me how disappointing the world was—how disappointing I was.

But my thirteenth birthday was coming.

I inhaled a deep breath when my heart felt like it might beat out of my chest. It swelled with too many feelings sometimes, feelings I worked on leashing. I needed to do more, feel less.

That was what Father always said: do more, feel less.

Well, I would do more soon.

My shift was coming, then I could finally prove I was worth something. He would finally see me as his son, a Draki.

The first fire-wielding dragon— that he was excited for, nearly proud of. I could see it in his eyes when he talked about it, and I clung to that hope.

Soon, I would be worth something.

Though that wasn’t for almost a year and not the reason we were trekking through the forest now.

A bad man was coming to take me. That was why.

When Father had told me, I couldn’t control the fear that seeped into my bones. I barely managed to stop myself from burning the house down.

A bad man? I’d asked myself once he left. A bad man? Does that… Does that mean Father is the good man?

My magic flew out of control, feeding on my fear, so I did the only thing I could think of.

I submerged myself in the bath the maids had left a few hours prior, cold after sitting for so long. I held my head underwater until it went fuzzy and my lungs burned. I held until stars sparked behind my eyelids and darkness crept into my vision.

My body went limp at some point, but so did my magic. I didn’t remember much after that. I didn’t drown, though, and I didn’t burn the manor down. That was all that mattered.

The thought of a worse man was enough to have me chomping at the bit to get out of there. I wanted to be as far away as possible when that man came, far, far out of his reach.

That fear filled my chest again, and sparks lit at my fingertips in response. I tried to stifle them; I shook my hands, clenched my fists, patted them on my trousers.

Oh, Goddess, no.

No, no, no.

They flared, flames curling over my hands, my forearms.

Please.

Please stop.

Please, please, please ? —

“Stop,” escaped my mouth, whispered but aloud, and it all turned to ice in my veins.

Father came to a halt.

My heart thundered, sweat beading above my lip, throat burning, eyes stinging. I begged that to stop, too. If he saw tears— Oh, Goddess.

Worse.

It would be so much worse.

I blinked back the emotion and swallowed hard, standing straight, eyes down as Father turned around. His gaze was heavy, and I flinched under it, then silently cursed myself, closing my eyes in resignation.

I didn’t make a sound when the back of his hand connected with my cheek in a hard crack, my only reaction being my head snapping to the side.

Not even my breathing wavered, and I was proud of that.

He continued forward without a word, and I exhaled a breath of relief, licking the blood from the corner of my lip, my fingers probing my cheek to make sure my skin hadn’t split anywhere else. My eye would probably be swollen shut soon, black and blue by tomorrow, but I only got one hit this time.

He let me off easy.

I’d do better next time.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur. By the time we stopped to make camp, it didn’t matter that the ground was hard and cold; I was half asleep before I lay down, tucking my elbow beneath my head.

My eyes closed, then snapped open again, and I wasn’t a kid anymore.

I woke from that memory, only to be thrust into another, except it wasn’t mine. I watched something I’d never seen before, something I wasn’t there for.

These weren’t my eyes.

I wasn’t in my body.

No, I looked through another’s eyes as he followed behind a winged man, down a dark hallway.

Not just any hallway. These were the secret passageways through our manor, and this wasn’t my body, and that wasn’t my father I followed, his body too large, wings too scarred.

What is happening?

We climbed the spiral staircase, and my heart thundered, mind racing as we strode down the hall and stopped at a door.

My door.

“This should be his,” the winged male whispered under his breath.

My hand—the hand of the body I currently inhabited—lifted to pat his shoulder once, and he turned the knob. The door swung open silently, revealing my room, and I froze.

It was as if I were seeing it for the first time.

Was this where I’d grown up?

This room? This… prison?

I wanted to look away, yet I was forced to take in every corner of the room with excruciating detail.

The longer I stared, the more something nagged at me. Something was wrong.

My heart sank into the pit of my stomach.

It was empty. I wasn’t here.

This wasn’t just some memory. This was the memory of the “bad man” who’d come to kidnap me.

This was the night our house burned down.

Shluck.

The winged man flinched, then stilled as his face slowly lowered to the arrow protruding from his abdomen.

Oh, fuck ? —

I jerked forward and ripped him back into the hallway, slamming the door shut at the same moment a body hit the door furiously, again and again.

It was my father. I knew it in my bones, recognized the way he hit the door, the sound it made. It was burned into my memory, though he’d never been on that side of it.

We sprinted back the way we came. As we spilled out of the hallway, another arrow whizzed past, sinking into the wood near the man’s face. He whipped toward me, blood pouring from his sliced brow, and I recognized him.

Only Draki’s have wings.

This man was a Draki.

Yet, this man had told me his name was Terran.

There was no Draki named Terran.

Only one other Draki was alive during my father’s time, and his name was Drakyth.

Drakyth was still alive.

I shoved him out the back door, screaming, “Go!”

He hesitated before he shot into the sky with a grunt, his shirt soaked with blood, each thrust of his wings contorting his face in pain. I didn’t know when he’d lose those wings, but if it truly was at my father’s hands, this night was the reason why.

I sprinted toward the forest as another arrow zipped past. Blood spilled down my sleeve, but I didn’t feel the pain.

The next arrow planted in my calf, and I slammed into the ground.

The last arrow sank into my shoulder, and a roar tore from my throat— his throat, as his shoulder blade shattered.

Lightning struck everywhere: the ground, the trees, the house, me.

Fire erupted, large and hungry, rapidly consuming the manor’s roof, flames burning so hot that not even the sudden rain could douse it.

My father stepped out, holding the bow with a sickening grin. His next words spoiled in my gut, his favorite kind of promise: the kind that ensured bloodshed.

“A house for house, Vaelor.”

Vaelor?

Vaelor was the one who tried to kidnap me—save me?

All those years ago, I’d run from the bad man. I’d been grateful that my father took me away from the manor, so I was safe.

I’d run from Vaelor Wrynwood, the Kind King.

I could’ve been saved. Vaelor tried to save me.

Drakyth tried to save me—my own blood, my grandfather.

They tried to save me, and not even a year later, my father tried to kill me himself.

Roaring filled my skull, deafening and painful.

My vision exploded with white, and a body was wrapped around mine so tightly I could hardly breathe.