Page 86 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ROGUE

O ne hundred and sixty-two hours.

Just under seven days.

One week.

We had one week to find Severance, though, the thought had occurred to me: what if we just…

didn’t? He couldn’t complete the ritual without it, but the Goddess herself had spoken to Ara.

To Iaso’s knowledge, she had never interfered in the dealings of mortals, so her advice was not to be taken lightly.

So, here we were, chasing down the smallest crumbs of a weapon that no one had ever laid eyes on—no one alive, anyway.

My grip tightened around the flask, courtesy of Mors, the owner of the bookstore we’d taken up residence in for the past ten hours.

Ten hours down. Nothing gained. Yet.

To save time, we traveled by lightning, and Ara managed to hold both Doran and me, though the positioning had involved a lot of awkwardly entangled limbs.

We’d wrapped ourselves around her, her arms tight around our necks, and I restrained the urge to remove his hands from both her body and his for touching her.

Everyone else stayed at Draig Hearth, namely, Iaso and Calypso. Calypso had become Iaso’s new test subject, a reluctant volunteer, and they were currently perfecting a stronger version of the tonic Iaso used to temporarily sever magic and mate bonds.

I had hoped the tonic would cut Adonis’s connection to his mother’s power if she were severed from it herself. Perhaps it would, but it’d be impossible to tell, and it wouldn’t matter in the end. It would stop him from growing stronger, but it wouldn’t take the power he’d already stolen.

He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to fucking breathe.

Adonis manipulated her for years , reducing Ara’s entire life to his puppet strings. Her life. Elora’s. Vaelor’s. Alden’s.

Doran’s.

Mine.

Ara managed to snip those strings by recovering their past and giving us an advantage he wasn’t aware of, but nothing could undo the damage already done, and he did so much.

Over the past twenty-seven years, he’d managed to unravel her family, dislodge an entire royal bloodline, and…

I lifted the flask to my lips and took a long drink.

His plan required her to have a fully bonded mate, and he knew what that would mean for her. Every Fae did. He knew the devastation it’d wreak on her soul to kill me, and he laid his trap, anyway.

There were moments I wished she hadn’t gotten her memories back, not if she had to remember him and all that he did, too. She didn’t need her memories of me this badly. We could’ve made new ones, happier ones.

Her memories of me weren’t worth the ghost they brought with them. I wasn’t worth the look that clouded her eyes sometimes, when she went still and stared at some obscure point on the floor. The first time it happened, I thought it was another flashback, but no.

Just when she started to outrun his reach, he found a new way to haunt her.

I’d flay him with his own dagger and see if his insides were as black as his soul. If they weren’t, they would be when I was finished with him—black and charred to a crisp.

He knew she was alive, but he didn’t know she remembered me or him. For all he knew, I held her hostage. I’d done it before.

Hell, I’d do it again.

Tracking her across the room, I rolled my neck and took another swig, the strong whiskey burning its way down my throat. She stood beside Mors and Doran, gesturing between books, mouth moving fluidly as she spoke.

I could kidnap her now.

We could leave. Run. Escape to some forgotten corner of the realm. The Hearth, maybe?

I took another gulp of whiskey and leaned on the wall, arms crossed.

No, she’d never go for that, and then, I would actually be kidnapping her. Again. Guardian would side with her, which wouldn’t seem logical or physically possible. They couldn’t even speak, yet I knew he would bring her back. She’d find a way to communicate that much to him.

Fuck.

She remembered everything, but she hadn’t shared everything with me. The small pieces of memory she’d hidden from me were still locked behind tightly sealed lips, but I’d begun to deduce what she’d left out—what made guilt overwhelm her so viciously, it brought me to my knees.

She hadn’t revealed who Adonis planned to trade my life for.

Maybe he never told her.

Maybe she just hadn’t remembered yet.

Or maybe she wouldn’t let herself say it.

Maybe she had figured it out, but couldn’t say it.

That scared me most, because I had my suspicions, and the longer she went without saying his name, the surer I was.

Adonis Draki, the kid rescued off the street by whom?

The boy raised by Drakyth and who?

The terrified, half-grown man tricked into killing one of only two people he actually cared for—and who was that again?

Oh, right.

Vaelor fucking Wrynwood.

Ara’s father.

Elora’s mate.

The beloved Kind King.

He certainly deserved my life more than me, but fuck, I hadn’t gotten a chance to live it yet. All I wanted was a chance with Ara. A real chance. A real life.

Quirking a brow, I lifted the flask to Vaelor. Maybe we can try again next century, under the next liminal moon?

I paused, then gawked wide-eyed at the flask, half empty in my hand. “What the fuck is in this?”

The warmth of alcohol swam in my veins and head. Too late to care now.

“Old man, Vaelor,” I sighed with a shake of my head, reclining on the wall.

“Ara says our realms coincide with each other, that you can see us over here.” I narrowed my eyes and scanned the room for any ghostly movement.

Nope. Nothing. “I knew that couldn’t be right…

In any case, do you think you’d approve of us together? ”

I didn’t know why I waited for a response. None came, for obvious reasons, but I took it as a good sign. I nodded, lifted the flask to him again, and took another sip, mulling the taste over.

It tasted like regular whiskey. Maybe this was just a combination of alcohol and sleep deprivation.

“I think I could win you over, given the chance. You did try to save me once—or once, that I know of.” I tipped my head to the side. “But you saved us when we almost got ourselves killed in the lightning, so that makes two. Thank you for that.”

Another salute with the flask. Another sip.

“Is that really what he wants? To trade me for you?” I whispered more to myself.

“I used to want a brother, you know. Any sibling, really. Just a friend. But that house… Well, you know. You saw it.” I slid down the wall and rested my elbows on my knees.

“Fuck, I wanted a brother more than anything—but then again, no, I didn’t.

” I barked out a laugh. “Who would want their sibling to suffer that kind of life? Not me. No, I didn’t want to be alone, but I wasn’t that selfish. ”

I hummed out a sound, then stared wide-eyed at the flask again.

My eyes darted to the others and found Ara first. She’d settled in an oversized chair, folded in a way that could not be comfortable, her gaze flying over the book in her hands.

Mors scanned a stack of old tomes, jotting down titles, only popping his head up when he caught my stare. I lifted the flask in question, but he merely gave me a toothy smile and a thumbs-up.

Doran stood at his side—he hadn’t left his side since our arrival. Mors was the first Puer Mortis Doran had ever met, and I was certain he had a thousand questions for him.

I returned my attention to my silent, invisible drinking partner. “You’re a good listener, you know that?”

No answer came, and I silently applauded him.

My head lolled to the side toward Ara, and I grimaced when a hideous creature hopped into her lap. “What, in Goddess’s name, is that ?”

It swiped along her hand and curled up on her blanket, purring as she ran her hand down its back.

“Is that…a cat ?” My eyes widened in horror. “Why is it missing fur like that? And half its tail? It has to be two decades old. At least. How are you still alive?”

It ignored me and closed its eyes as she petted it, pausing only to turn the page or sip her coffee.

“She really is too good for me,” I murmured.

“Stunning. Brilliant. I’ve never met someone so…

stubbornly alive before, so determined and strong-willed, no matter the task.

Selfless, to a fault—you really need to lecture her on reigning in her forgiveness, but I think she gets that from Elora, so they’ll probably walk all over you, too. ”

I sucked in a slow breath, my head growing fuzzier, my eyelids heavier.

“Whatever she puts her mind to, she does. Fighting me. Fighting for me. Saving me. Saving herself. Loving me. Loving Ravaryn. I know our people will be in good hands with her, because she’s never been anything less than…good. She’s just so good.”

If I fall asleep right now, I’ll have nightmares of that cat.

I couldn’t fight it, though. My eyes closed and refused to reopen as I sank into the deepest sleep I’d ever experienced.

Only then did I finally hear his reply.

“Goddess be damned, my boy.” Vaelor grinned, slapping a hand on my shoulder. “First things first, if you think I’ll ever trade my life for yours, you’re more foolish than I realized, and secondly, tell Mors to never give you that much elixir again.”

I just stared. At him. At his hand on my shoulder. At him again. “Am I dead?”

“No.” He stifled a laugh by clearing his throat.

We stood in the library, in the same spot I’d fallen asleep, yet now it was empty and silent. Ara was gone, left in the realm of the…living? Conscious?

I ran a hand through my hair with a silent groan.

Even in the realm of the…sleeping, I’m exhausted.

Fate had a sick, cruel sense of humor, and she hated me.

With his hand on my shoulder, he pivoted me to the table. “Now, listen, because I’ve got a lot to say, and not a lot of time to say it.”

Mors’ books had been replaced with different ones, some splayed open, parchment scattered. Candles of various sizes speckled the surface, burning but not flickering. The air was too still here.

In the center was a framed painting of two daggers.

I snapped alert, exhaustion chased from my bones. “Are those?—”

“Yes.” He planted his hands on the table and hovered over the artwork.

“Ever since Ara visited, we’ve been doing our own research.

Much harder here without magic, but that’s neither here nor there.

Father has been here researching any and everything he could about the weapon that can kill anything?—”

“Sacrifice.”

His eyes met mine. “Yes, Sacrifice. He chased down this. Didn’t think much of it until…” He grabbed another frame, smaller, older, holding a decrepit piece of parchment. “The ritual in the Blood and the Broken isn’t complete.”

I skimmed the words, but my head spun, a dull roar in my ears. “That…doesn’t sound like a ritual.”

“No, it doesn’t.”