Page 94 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ARA

I accept all offers.

- Ara

“ M ost of the wyverns have already left the mainland,” Rogue said, “and the Bloodsworn should be in position by midday.”

“I wish we could understand his reasoning for this…this madness.” My thoughts fell from my lips, unbridled this early in the morning. Ice beaded on my eyelashes, and I wiped them with my gloves. “I fucking hate winter. I hate the cold. I hate?—”

Rogue laughed, the sound rich and warm, and I wanted to cuddle up in it and sleep for a week. He threw an arm over my shoulders, pulling me into his side. A shiver rolled down my spine at the heat.

“He thought we were friends. Genuine friends.” Rogue tensed at my side, and I rubbed my hands over his abdomen. “When Vaelor died, something…broke in him. The way he rationalizes things… He stretches and contorts reality to fit into his delusion.”

“People do a lot of things to avoid grief, especially guilty grief,” Rogue said. “The pain gets too loud. He silenced his with obsession.”

I pulled my freezing lips between my teeth and shook my head.

He glanced sidelong at me. “What?”

“Don’t humanize him.”

Rogue’s chest heaved with a sigh, a cloud of white swirling between us. “I’m not. He’s much too far gone for that.”

I averted my gaze to the pale skies, its blue leeched of color. A long stretch of sparkling white lay before us, halved by the worn road, bare trees reaching through the haze.

Rogue’s fingers curled under my jaw, and he forced my eyes back on him.

“Death is too kind for him, but allowing him to live is a disservice to us, to you. He’s a monster who’s tried to take everything, but we won’t let him take what matters.

” He flattened a hand over my heart, and it thumped wildly under his palm.

“He can never take your heart—your sweet, resilient, way too fucking forgiving heart. So, don’t let him. ”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who are you? And what have you done with my husband?”

His pupils narrowed to slits, eyes flashing. A deep growl crawled up his throat and curled low in my belly. Lowering his mouth to my ear, he skimmed his lips over the shell, rounded under a glamour.

“Oh, I am your husband,” he whispered, “and my wife is the only one who could ever do anything to me—mind you, she has. Blind hatred filled me yesterday. Today, it’s joined by the faintest hint of pity.

You see, my wife has this nasty habit of empathy, and I fear it’s bleeding into me in all the worst ways. ”

He bit my ear, and I gasped, fingers digging into his biceps, but his next words shot a bolt through my heart.

“It could’ve just as easily been me.” Humor gone, he ran the pad of his thumb over the ring he’d given me, pausing on the stones.

“I found myself staring at your hand last night, at this ring on your dainty little finger, envisioning the lifetime it’ll witness as decades pass, and it suddenly occurred to me the only reason I’m not exactly like him is because you became my obsession.

I turned all that rage and hurt and darkness on you, and instead of getting lost in it with me, you struck a match, and we found our way together. ”

I tipped my head, brows knitting together as I lifted a hand to his face.

“That’s not true, love. You two are not cut from the same cloth.

Hell, there isn’t even a single stitch in you that mirrors in him.

You were fighting for your kingdom long before I came along—selfless to a fault, despite what you tell yourself up there.

” I tapped on his temple. “Don’t forget, you saved me, too. You may have been lost, but so was I.”

A faint grin on his lips, he said, “If you say so.”

“I do say so. I say you’re selfless and a much better man than you give yourself credit for. You care, and you learn, and that is all a kingdom could ever ask of her king.”

When his smile faltered, I surged forward to steal a kiss. He caught my head before I could pull back and held me there until I sagged into his chest.

“You know, there was a time I cursed the Goddess for giving me a mate. Now, I curse her for not leading me to you sooner.”

“Who needs sooner when we have centuries ahead of us?” I looped my hand through his and led him forward. “Because you’re truly and thoroughly stuck with me now. In love. Mated. Married.”

He groaned, and I glanced back to find his head tipped to the sky, eyes closed. “If I were a worse man…”

I quirked a brow. “If you were a worse man, what?”

He smirked and yanked me to him. As I hit his chest, my feet slipped on the ice, and he caught me with a hand to my lower back, our faces inches from each other.

“If I were a worse man, I’d fuck you right here, especially that sweet, sweet mouth.” My lips parted, and his smirk deepened into an infuriating grin. “But my wife doesn’t like the cold, so I won’t.”

He set me on my own two feet, but I stared blankly, tipping my head to the side. I mean…I could be persuaded.

“Yet,” he added, then it was he who guided me toward the village.

A stiff wind sobered my straying thoughts, flakes of ice swirling in the air, and Rogue pulled the fur-lined hood of my cloak over my head. I started to thank him, but the words died on my tongue when a building peeked out of the winter haze.

The sign above the door creaked back and forth, the metal frosted over, sparkling from the faint candlelight inside.

Asha’s Library had always been my favorite escape, yet a knot tightened in my gut at the sight of it.

An elderly woman threw the door open and stumbled out in her night robe, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “You… You…”

I nodded, my throat hot. A smile spread across her face until she looked past my shoulder, and her eyes flared.

Glancing left and right, Asha stepped aside and gestured for us to come in. We entered cautiously, my heart pounding out of my chest, only to find another familiar face.

“Gus?” I shrieked. “What are you doing here? Do you…read?”

Gus, the steadfast weapons master who devoted a decade to teaching me how to defend myself, stared in disbelief. “What in Goddess’s name?”

He strode forward and threw an arm around my shoulders.

The room grew hotter, and I stifled a laugh when Asha asked, “Oh, did you get the fire going again?”

She halted when she spied the smoldering logs. A heartbeat passed, and she pursed her lips, turning back to me slowly. She held my gaze, blinked, then looked to Rogue.

She scanned his face and body before quirking a brow at me. “That’s a large man.”

“Yes, he is.”

“That’s not a human man,” she said.

With a hint of amusement, Rogue answered, “No, I’m not.”

“Oh, Goddess above, I knew it,” Gus said. “I fucking knew it. You were kidnapped by the Fae.” He froze, jaw slack, and I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes. “The Fae? ”

“We thought you were dead, girl,” Asha said, her voice low. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“I assumed so,” I sighed.

Rogue stood at my back and placed a hand on my shoulder. “We don’t have much time.”

“Right,” I said. “Did either of you receive an invitation to the ball tonight?”

They both nodded.

Asha swiped the parchment from a nearby table and held it up. “Oh, yes. Most everyone in the village did, though he has required formal wear, which makes it?—”

“Don’t go,” I interrupted.

She lowered the invitation. “Why not?”

“It’s a deterrent—we think. A deterrent at its best.”

“A trap at its worst,” Rogue added.

I studied their faces, remembering the web of lies I’d been spun in. “Do you…know that there’s been an ongoing war between Auryna and Ravaryn?”

Confusion flitted across Asha’s features, but Gus’s turned grim.

“Well, I know that there’s been an increase in the frequency of skirmishes, but a war?” Asha scoffed. “That’s not something easily hidden.”

Rogue dropped the glamour over both of us.

Asha, the poor woman, looked to be struck by a bolt of lightning. She stilled with wide eyes and tilted her head to look at my ears. Gus stood equally as shocked, but he’d seemed discombobulated since the moment we walked in.

“There is a war,” Rogue said, “but we intend to end it tonight. My men are a few miles east. Adonis—King Adon is hosting his first ever ball, and we believe it’s so that we don’t sack the capital on our way through.”

“Why would that deter you?” Gus cleared his throat and palmed the sword at his hip. “ Your men?”

“Well, our army.” He squeezed my shoulder, and I glanced up at Rogue with a faint smile. “He knows we won’t attack a palace full of innocent people—people who are none the wiser, clearly.”

Asha gasped and pointed at Rogue’s face. “Blood red eyes.”

Gus stiffened.

“Where are your wings, demon king?” Asha backed into the table slowly. Without taking her eyes off Rogue, she felt along the table until she palmed a silver letter opener, followed by the metallic ring of Gus’s sword being unsheathed.

“I wouldn’t,” I warned Gus.

With his eyes glued to Rogue, he motioned for me to get behind him, and I rolled my eyes.

They saw the shell of Ara Starrin, but she died a long time ago.

Energy simmered in my eyes, and blue-white sparks crawled down the length of his blade, reflecting on the polished metal. He flinched and flung the sword forward when they licked at his fingertips.

A loud clang pierced the air as it clattered to the ground between us.

“Do not threaten my husband again. I won’t be so forgiving next time.”

Rogue’s presence sweltered against my back, and satisfaction rolled through me.

“What?” Gus breathed.

“Your husband?” Asha dropped her makeshift weapon on the table and scrambled forward. She took my hands, seemingly unafraid of the magic I’d just wielded. “Oh, thank Goddess. It would’ve been a shame to kill such a beautiful man.”

“A true pity,” I mused, shaking my head. I could practically feel the heat burning in Rogue’s cheeks—wait, no. I could feel it, courtesy of our blood oath, and a wide grin spread across my face. “He is a beautiful man.”