Page 8 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

L ivvy was here.

I’d gone three months without seeing her, but here she was. Adonis chained her directly in front of me, not even bothering to wipe the decay stain off the wall or clear Rogue’s bones before doing so.

She stood—or rather, hung unconscious among Rogue’s bones.

His fucking bones .

I couldn’t focus on that horror, though, because of what he had done to her in place of me. Both of her eyes were black and blue, swollen beyond recognition. Blood had dried beneath her nose and over her mouth.

Worst of all, the sight that made me lean over as far as I could to vomit stomach acid on the floor was the carving on her lower stomach: A.D. Her shirt had been cut short so the initials were on clear display.

I vowed to slit his throat if he ever came near her again. I vowed to offer him to her so she could slit his throat.

My lip trembled as a deep hatred took root in my chest, but not for Adonis. No, this hatred sat side by side with his, matched his, but reflected inward like I’d set up daggers inside my chest, aimed at my heart, and inching closer with each beat.

“I promised her,” I managed through the cry cinching my throat. “I promised. ”

Yet, here she was, at his mercy again.

I ground my teeth, trying to swallow down the rising emotion, but it only burned my eyes instead. I wiped my cheek with my shoulder as quickly as the tears fell, forcing myself to look at her, to see the pain she’d suffered.

Footsteps echoed through the tunnel before Adonis emerged from the shadows, his grin smug and eyes bright.

He walked slowly with his arms behind his back like he were merely strolling by an oddity, and my hands itched to strangle him.

I wanted to watch the life leave his eyes bit by bit. I wanted to swallow his vile energy and use it to revive him, only to kill again. I wanted to kill him over and over and over in every possible way.

My chest heaved but not in fear or anticipation—in rage.

The only emotion he evoked in me.

The only emotion I could allow. Anger was easiest.

He slid his finger along Livvy’s cheek, and I lunged forward before being snapped back by the chains. My head hit the stone with a hard crack, stars sparking in my vision.

“Do not touch her,” I croaked.

His laughter swirled around me, and I craved a knife to shove in my ears, a necessary sacrifice to never hear that again.

“Now, Ara, isn’t it a bit silly at this point?”

His eyes slid to mine, rich with humor.

Drown. I want to drown him until they’re dull and lifeless.

He turned away from Livvy to run that same finger along my cheek. I jerked my face away, and the dungeon spun at the movement, my stomach rolling, but a sick satisfaction curved my lips when I felt the bandage around one finger.

I’d bit it below the knuckle, and?—

My eyes peeled open. Five full fingers touched my cheek.

“What?” I breathed. “How…”

I winced as he probed the back of my skull. He pulled his hand back to reveal blood, watching the red roll down his fingers until they started to tremble. My mouth twisted in a grimace as he lifted my shirt and used it as a rag, carefully wiping his hand.

“I don’t like blood, mutt.”

My glare slid to Livvy. There was dried blood on her face and a gruesome carving in her abdomen, still scabbed but jagged. It would’ve been messy work—work he hadn’t done.

No, he had others do his dirty work like a fucking… “Coward.”

“I may be a coward, but at least I’m not dead.” He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was just another display meant to unnerve me, but we’d played this game before.

“Rogue isn’t dead, and strangely enough, neither am I.”

Adonis cocked his head. “Isn’t he?”

“No. He isn’t.” It was my turn to smile, but mine wasn’t forced. I’d heard him. Rogue was close enough that I heard him, and he would find us.

All we had to do was survive. For now.

Adonis turned, and my stomach dropped. He picked through Rogue’s bones until he found one satisfactory and plucked it from the pile.

Bile climbed my throat.

The bone was thin, barely as long as a quill, and Adonis twirled it through his fingers. Sweat broke out along my spine.

“If he’s not dead, then he certainly wishes he were.”

My gut wrenched when he lifted the bone to my face. He traced my cheekbone, my eyebrow, down my nose. When it touched my lip, I jerked to the side and retched, but my stomach was too empty to bring up anything.

Tears poured as my abdomen heaved again and again. When it finally stopped, I fell back against the wall with my eyes closed, breathing heavily.

The clatter of bones forced my eyes open. Adonis had tossed it back down with the others, a pile of bones on the floor of some forgotten dungeon.

I sucked in a shaky breath. Those were his wings.

Adonis used my shirt to wipe his hands again, then scanned my body in a way that made me recoil.

He lifted a hand again before noticing his red-stained cuticles and the color beneath his nails.

His fingers shook, and he curled them into a tight fist before unsheathing his dagger.

As he ran it under his nails, cleaning out my blood with a scowl, the torchlight caught the stone in the hilt, illuminating the swirling red within it.

“Don’t you think we would have made a better match?” he asked.

When I didn’t answer, he sighed and turned the dagger on me. I held my breath, every muscle tensed, when he ran the tip of the blade over my cheek, careful not to break skin as he followed the same path he had with the bone.

“Truthfully, it’d make all of this so much easier,” he murmured. The blade paused in the hollow beneath my eye, and I braced myself to lose it. “The silver-eyed moon, at my beck and call.”

Every instinct screamed to run, my throat tight, a bitter tang in my mouth, but all I could manage was the half step backward, pressing myself into the wall. The inch I gained wasn’t enough.

He lowered the dagger but tilted his head to appraise me like an animal, a thing to be owned. “I think Vaelor would have approved of us together.”

My head jerked like I’d been slapped. I had no words, only blinding disgust as he spewed his words.

“I can control the mind, and you can control the body, the mighty Storm Bringer.” He scoffed. “In the form of a mutt . What a disappointment.”

“I would never be with you.” Even saying the words aloud made me want to vomit again. I wanted to scrub my mouth until my tongue was raw.

“Pity.” He chuckled. “Though I do wonder why him. Why Rogue? Is he not everything our father was?”

I held his gaze with my chin high, my muscles taut as I tugged on the chains again, a growl building in my throat. I pulled until the metal bit into my skin, and warmth flowed down my arms. He took a step back, his eyes tracking the rivulets rolling down to my shoulders.

It was I who stepped closer this time, despite the chains pulling my shoulders at an awkward angle, glaring into his wide eyes. “You should thank the Goddess I got your brother instead, because if fate had paired me with you, I’d slit my own throat, just to bathe you in my blood.”

His face blanched so fiercely, I thought he might faint, but his mouth pressed into a tight line, his spine stiff. “I’d bathe in yours just like I did your father’s.”

Darkness flickered behind his eyes, something akin to regret, but it disappeared just as quickly, swallowed whole by his sickening grin.

I shrank back, shaking my head. “What does that mean?”

He turned on his heel and strode down the hall with his fists balled at his sides.

“What does that mean?” I shouted again, but no answer came. “What does that mean?”

No response came. Nothing but my own echo and its accompanying panic.

“What does it mean?” I whispered, my voice crumbling into a cry as I looked up. The ceiling remained as black as usual, lined with the same stone as the walls and floor, but the world existed up there. “Where are you, Rogue?”

My lungs burned, my heart hammering into my sternum as if it could escape this catastrophe.

Stars sparked in my vision, and my head fell back to the stone, pain blooming from the wound. My cheeks stung from the cold, soaked with tears or blood, and I licked my cracked lips, tasting both salt and copper.

When darkness came to claim me—to save me from the ever-present darkness of this fucking dungeon—I welcomed it with open arms.

At least here I could dream of Rogue, of home, of warmth.

Here, I could pretend.