Page 87 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

D oran dropped Rogue on the couch.

“Thank you.” I pulled a blanket over him and glanced up at Mors. “Thank you, too. He hasn’t slept more than a few hours in days.”

“Oh, of course,” Mors replied with a curious smile. “In the meantime, I thought you’d both fare well with some nourishment. My mate should be by right about…”

He glanced over his shoulder when a woman walked in with a basket. Long white hair flowed behind her, a stark contrast to the black velvet dress she wore.

She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her until she grew close enough for the unnatural green in her irises to brighten.

“You own Fate’s Offering,” I said.

“Aye, dear, I do.” She set her basket on the table and looked at Doran. “I’m also the mother of the Puer Mortis ritual. Couldn’t lose my Morsy here. Tell me, what is your name?”

“Doran.” He shook her hand, but his movements were stiff.

I didn’t need to read his mind to know he wasn’t happy to meet her.

His disdain might as well have been written on his forehead.

He hadn’t wanted to become what he was, but maybe these two could change his mind.

It was inevitable that something or someone would, because he quite literally had forever to come to terms with what he’d become.

“Nice to meet you.” She grinned, but when she turned to me, her smile faltered.

“And you. I heard the last time you were in Canyon, it didn’t end so well.

I do hope you’re all right.” Her eyes dropped to my hands, where I still had both my mother’s ring and the one this woman had given me.

She gestured to the silver locket ring. “Did you have use of this yet?”

“No,” I said. “And yes, I’m fine…for now. We’re here under distressing circumstances.”

“Ah, yes, I’ve heard that, too.” She flipped the lid open to her basket and pulled out several containers, the most puzzling the metal decanter that looked to be older than Canyon itself, made with a dull black metal and a stopper of bone.

She handed it to Doran without so much as a second thought. “Here you go, deary.”

He hesitated before taking it. “I don’t?—”

“That, you do.” She met his gaze. “But not here. Take it wherever you feel comfortable.”

His brows pulled together, and he started to shake his head.

“Fear not, they’re animal.”

My eyes widened. “Animal… souls?”

“Oh, aye.” She held another plate out for me and plopped a massive cinnamon roll on it.

I took it, but didn’t look away from the decanter Doran now clutched with both hands. His chest rose and fell quickly, tendons bulging in his neck.

He flinched when Mors rested a hand on his shoulder. “It won’t always be like this. Once you’ve consumed enough, you’ll start to feel…normal.”

Doran sagged on an exhale. “That doesn’t seem possible.”

“It seems that way, but it most certainly is.” He turned Doran by the shoulder and pointed up to a corner on the third floor. “I have a room up there you can go to if you like. It’s comfortable and silent. No one will bother you.”

“Thank you.” He nodded, but looked from Rogue to me.

He didn’t have to verbalize his concern. We both saw what was happening. With Rogue asleep and Doran gone, I would be essentially alone.

I forced a smile and shooed him away. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

He glanced at the elders and slowly moved toward the stairs. As he climbed, he met my gaze one last time, and I gave him a subtle nod.

They wanted me alone, and I wanted to know why.

I sat on the couch at Rogue’s feet, plate in my lap, and watched Doran disappear.

“It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the woman said, gesturing to my untouched roll. She lifted her own to her mouth and took a bite.

“I wasn’t worried,” I said with a breathy laugh, “but I am now.”

Mors sat, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “Don’t scare the poor girl. She’s been through enough.”

“I’m not trying to.” She waved her hand through the air. “It really isn’t poisoned, though, don’t eat it if you’d prefer. It makes no difference to me.”

I slid the plate onto the table. “What do you want? You were all too happy to help me put Rogue to sleep. You sent Doran off. What do you want with me?”

She nearly choked on a bite she’d taken. Taking a sip from her flask, she shared a look with Mors.

“Smart girl,” she mused, setting her plate on the table. She opened her mouth to continue but paused, tilting her head as if listening, then turned to the doorway.

Another woman entered, her eyes just as unnaturally green, her curly white hair pinned to the top of her head.

“Hello, sister,” she said. “Hello, Mors. Ara.”

“How do you know my name?” I sat straighter, muscles tensed. “What is this?”

“We’re to help you,” she said. “I’m a seer, of sorts.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Sparks licked beneath my skin, my heart pounding as I was suddenly surrounded by three powerful people. Mors’s energy was a mirror to Doran’s, but the two women felt different from other Fae.

Older.

Much older.

My skin tingled, and a collective gasp sounded—including my own—as blood red scales started at my right hand. They climbed my arm, over my shoulder, and encircled my throat before moving down my other arm and torso.

Rogue hadn’t so much as flinched, but his magic had responded to my distress.

They all stared, either shocked or in awe of my newfound armor.

Mors’s mate laughed and clapped her hands. “Magnificent.”

“I didn’t think it would work so well,” her sister murmured, strolling closer, tilting her head each way as she studied the dragonscale.

My blood chilled. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s time to introduce yourselves,” Mors said. “She’s clearly uncomfortable.”

His mate took a deep breath and leaned forward in her chair. “My name is Fate.”

“And I’m Destiny,” her sister said.

I stared at them both before a laugh suddenly escaped me, and I slapped a hand over my mouth, cheeks flushed. “Sorry, your mother certainly had a way with names.”

Destiny let out an amused huff. “Names were once given as a quiet hope for what a child might become.”

“Our mother was one of the original seers, and she wanted us to be powerful, unending, and unavoidable.”

Fate and Destiny—the two forces a seer was born to both fear and trust.

Wait. Born to one of the original seers?

“How old are you two?”

Destiny’s laugh caught me by surprise. I flinched, and she waved a hand through the air. “Didn’t your mother teach you that’s a rather rude question to ask a lady?”

Fate ignored my question altogether. “I must admit, I find it fascinating that Adrastus carried on such an ancient tradition with Rogue.” I stiffened, but then, she added, “Good Goddess above, I’ve never seen a parent fail so spectacularly. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Rogue is anything but.”

Mors sighed. “Sometimes, seers don’t just watch the future unfold. They walk ahead of it.”

“Ah, yes,” Fate said, patting his hand. “I may have…course corrected your blood oath.” My mouth fell open, and she raised her hand, pinching her thumb and forefinger. “Only a tad. Just a little extra…oomph.”

“ You did this? How?”

“I have a hand in all connections.”

“But why?—”

“Because you were both ready,” Destiny interjected. “Just as you are now.”

My breaths sawed in and out, and I looked to Mors. “Does Iaso know this?”

He shook his head.

“Why?” I shook my head to clear the confusion, blood roaring in my ears. Rogue’s protective dragonscale consumed more of my abdomen beneath my shirt. “Why now? Why us?”

“Because this is the moment we were meant to intervene.” Destiny waved her hand in dismissal and lifted her thick skirts as she took the seat across from me. “Now, tell me. Is Adonis still deriving his ideas from that damned book?”

I rubbed my forehead. “What?”

My instincts rang alarm bells, the feelers of my magic recoiling at the feel of them. Not human. Not entirely Fae.

The flesh of a Fae without the soul.

Mors leaned an inch closer and murmured, “Breathe, girl. They cannot harm you, and you cannot harm them. You’re safe.”

I sucked in a breath, not realizing I started wheezing, and reality settled all around me. I caught glimpses of people as they strolled by the doorway. Two people entered and sat at a table across the room, too far to overhear, but they could see us.

“You’ve spent time with Adonis,” Fate said. “Did he show you the journal?”

“ The Blood and the Broken ? Yes.”

Destiny released a long groan and whirled to her sister. “The imbecile. I told him it wasn’t a damned ritual, and he went on with it anyway, writing that fucking book, and now, look. I told him this would happen.”

“What?” I asked.

Fate answered, “Around seven hundred years ago, we used to have a friend?—”

“Acquaintance,” Destiny seethed.

Fate narrowed her eyes. “We had an acquaintance who happened to be both seer and veil walker. He wrote several books that he grew filthy rich by distributing, and they were informative in the beginning. As time went on, though, spending so much time going back and forth, his mind deteriorated. When that happened, his writing slowed, as did his income, and he started to?—”

“Steal,” Destiny interrupted. “He stole from other seers, researchers, philosophers, anyone he could, but even that wasn’t enough.

He kept crossing through the veil until he finally fractured his mind.

” She scoffed. “Good riddance, too, because he remained completely indifferent to the fallout of sharing such things. Some matters shouldn’t be shared or known, especially prophecies. ”

“For this exact reason,” Fate said.

I licked my lips, my mouth drier than sand. “Prophecies?”

Destiny met my gaze, her green eyes bright. “ My prophecy. It came to me over two millennia ago. I didn’t know who it referred to at the time, but the moment a Goddess lay with a dragon, it fell into place.”

“The ritual he found…isn’t a ritual?”

“No, it’s not.”

The room threatened to spin, and I clutched the arm of the chair. “But it is about us?”