Page 97 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

The tension in my chest dispersed. “Together.”

“Forever.”

He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead before finding Drakyth and Lee, motioning for Doran to join them. Drakyth leaned over to grab Godrick by the shoulder and tugged him into the group, too, leaving Asha awestruck at the five of them.

As Rogue spoke, Godrick nodded and began removing his weapons and armor.

I scanned the room for Mother.

She paced in the corner near Iaso and Calypso, ignoring their bickering as she gnawed on her bottom lip until we locked eyes. She slipped past the others and threw her arms around me so tightly, they shook.

“I’m going to be all right.” I held her by the shoulders. “We have the weapons, the blood oath, and the advantage. We will make it out alive.”

“I know you will, because you’re a fighter—a survivor.” She gave me a quick squeeze. “You’ll both survive.”

Thana eased closer, then. “Can I help get you ready? For old time’s sake.”

“Please.” I looked at Mother expectantly, but she nudged me toward Thana.

“You two go.” Her throat bobbed, and she glanced around the room. “I think I’ll hunt down a cup of coffee or tea—something potent.”

I followed Thana as she swiped the gown from the couch and accepted a satchel from Delphia, who’d joined the five men discussing Gus and Auryna’s rebellion.

Thana gave Delphia a quick wave, shut the door, and I found myself drifting back to the dressmaker’s shop, contemplating the simplicity of choice with Asha’s words in my ears.

We chose to be here, to dress in frivolous clothing and put on a front to infiltrate his precious party. I chose to let Thana swipe a deep red over my lips, rouge my cheeks, and pin my hair. Then, I was laced back into the gown Asha mended in record time.

They were all choices—choices we made or allowed others to make for us.

I chose to be here. Rogue chose to be here.

All of our family chose to be here.

We chose this fight, long before we knew of a prophecy or Adonis’s immortality or manipulation. Sure, he upped the difficulty of what needed to be done, but it still needed to be done.

He had to die, and he’d do so at our hands.

Thana handed me a leather sheath, and I looped it around my upper thigh before tucking Severance in. I ran my thumb over the storm’s eye in its pommel and pushed a faint wisp of magic into it. The dagger sang in response, the stone glowing for a heartbeat.

All it would take was two swipes.

One to sever his connection to Calypso.

One to wound his mortal body.

Two cuts, and it was over.

I dropped my skirts and rolled my shoulders, lifting my chin.

Thana settled the masquerade mask over my face. “Delphia bought them at a well-to-do shop in the village square.” She moved out of sight to tie the ribbon behind my head. “Well, she says she bought them.”

We had gone our separate ways at sunrise with our respective tasks, and acquiring masks had been Delphia’s, but I didn’t expect this .

My lips parted as I traced the intricate swirls.

A shimmering storm cloud covered the top half of my face, and crystal raindrops dangled from delicate chains to drip down my cheeks. Beneath the mask and black shadow Thana swiped across my eyelids, the silver in my eyes faded to a haunted silver-white, almost that of the moon.

The look paired beautifully with the gown, a mass of raven fabric that cinched my waist and lifted my cleavage, but the skirt was a true testament to the designer.

As if plucked from the night sky and encapsulated with golden thread, constellations climbed from the floor to my hips, where they broke and scattered into sporadic stars over the bodice.

“Ara, love, they’re…” Mother entered and came to a slow halt. Her eyes trailed over the dress. “Wherever did you find that?”

“Asha found it among the dressmaker’s belongings.”

She released an amused hum and sat in the closest chair, her fingers covering her mouth. “I wore a very similar one—if not that exact one—the first time I told your father I loved him.” With a quiet laugh, she tipped her head to the side. “Naturally, he ran away like a coward.”

Thana said a few words I didn’t catch as I stared at my reflection until I blurred into a younger version of my mother, blissful and love-drunk.

In this gown.

I couldn’t wear it. I would undoubtedly ruin it—stain it with blood, at the very least. Shaking my head, I lifted my arms to loosen the corset strings, but Mother stopped my hand.

“Wear it,” she murmured. “The memory lies with me, not the fabric.”

As she turned away, I caught her elbow. “This nightmare ends tonight.”

Her throat bobbed. “Be careful. I know you must go, but please come back. Return to me.”

I gave her arm a quick squeeze. “Always.”

She tried and failed to hide her wince, and I wondered how many times Vaelor vowed the very same.

The truth suddenly pushed at my lips, demanding to be spoken. Vaelor could return to her. He could fulfill all the promises he made—at the expense of Rogue’s life.

But I couldn’t do that, and Mother would never ask me to. She would never allow me to. So, I swallowed the words down and threw my arms around her.

Another choice made.

While Vaelor couldn’t fulfill his promise, I could.

Another knock sounded on the door, and Edana peeked in.

“I have something for you,” she said, her voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “May I come in?”

My mind stalled, momentarily confused, before I motioned for her to enter.

She lifted her arm to reveal two bangles on her wrist. “Spell-bound iron.”

Before I could respond—before I could think of how I should respond, she tugged on one, and a clasp clicked open. Holding it up, she opened and closed it a few times.

“I didn’t have much else to do in the past few days, so…” She shrugged her shoulders. “Spell-bound iron will keep Adonis out of our heads, but it would also prevent us from using our own magic. Hence, the clasp. We can pick and choose when to shield.”

She held it out, and I took it cautiously, not wanting to seem ungrateful, but the idea of putting this on my body—this spell-bound iron on my wrist felt awfully close to a shackle.

The bracelet sat in my palm as I surveyed it with a neutral expression, despite every instinct in my body screaming to drop it.

A spell-bound iron bracelet truly was a great idea.

But to the right mind, so were collars and shackles.

“T-thank you,” I managed.

A subtle smile curved her lips. “You’re welcome. I’ve already given everyone else theirs.” Her hands encased mine, and she closed my fingers around the bracelet. “Whether you decide to wear it or not, be vigilant tonight. Keep your head on a swivel, and don’t let him anywhere near it.”

She patted my hand and slipped out into the main room.

I unfurled my fingers to inspect the bracelet again. Her craftsmanship was stunning, the band delicate and thin—but smelted from spell-bound iron.

Off.

Off. Off. Off.

I was seconds from throwing it against the wall before a chain sprouted from it and locked onto my wrist when Mother jumped up.

She shuffled through my belongings and whipped out the storm’s eye dagger from where I’d tucked it in my folded clothes. “She’s the blacksmith Vaelor commissioned to make these and the ring.”

“I know,” I said, confused. “She told us when we bought the matching dagger in Canyon.”

That was before we knew she was Rogue’s mother. My heart ached, and I ran the pad of my thumb over the cold metal circle.

“No, no.” Mother pointed to the stone in the pommel. “Storm’s eye. Vaelor chose it for a reason. He said a storm bringer can transfer energy into it that another Fae can draw out. Whoever holds the stone—or whatever it’s bound in—can use it as an energy reserve.”

I tossed the bracelet onto the table and lifted the hand with Mother’s ring on it. Just like I had with Severance, I pushed a faint wisp of energy into it.

The stone flickered.

My heart leaped into my throat, and I pushed more power into the ring. When it glowed a brilliant white, I withdrew my magic, and the stone faded back to its normal appearance, but the energy remained.

It held my energy.

My hands shook as I lifted my eyes to Mother, to the dagger in her hands. Without moving, I filled it with energy, too—and the one tucked in Rogue’s sheath in the next room, sitting opposite Sacrifice.

Mother thrust the weapon at Thana. “Try.”

Her wide eyes flashed between Mother and me as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt. Both the dagger and the ring looked as they always did, but my energy simmered beneath the surface with a familiar hum.

The look of concentration on Thana’s face bled into shock when veins of white crawled beneath the skin of her forearm. A pulse of energy encircled her irises.

I pressed my lips together, fighting a hopeful smile, and Thana released a breathy laugh.

Suddenly, Mother took my hands, and I was taken aback by the intensity in her eyes.

“Your father didn’t like to take energy from other things, other people.

He said it felt too wrong in his skin, too foreign, but you will.

You don’t have a stone to pull from, so you will take from everything else.

Everyone. Without regret. Without a second thought.

Because when the time comes, Adonis will not pause. He will not hesitate.”

A bolt of energy shot through me.

Not mine.

Hers.

It pulled my spine straighter, chin higher.

“You do not break, Ara. You bend, but never the knee. You never surrender. Not to any man. You will take and take and take , just as he has taken from you until there is no one left. No one but you and those who kneel to you. Do you understand?”

A renewed strength rushed through my veins and filled my chest. “I understand.”

I would take everything from him, and it would be simple, because he only cared about one thing.

His entire existence warped around this resurrection.

“I’ll make it right, I swear,” he’d sobbed to the sky—to Vaelor. “I’ll fix it somehow, someway. Whatever it takes. I-I’ll fix it, and the world will be right again, and we’ll go back to the way things were.”

Twenty-seven years, he waited for this moment, this celestial event, this combination of souls and weapons—eleven of which, he spent grooming me to complete the mating ritual with my fated mate, so that I could later sacrifice him.

Twenty-seven years that we’d render obsolete in less than twelve hours.

That was all it would take. One night.

Then, the sun would rise on his corpse.

Leaving the iron bracelet on the table, I hooked my elbow through Mother’s and led us to the main room.

The sight of Rogue knocked the wind from my lungs.

Mother slid her arm from mine and disappeared into the blur the room had become.

A wolfish grin spread across Rogue’s face as he admired the mask and gown, but his focus returned to my eyes, seemingly mesmerized. Flame flickered in his irises, his pupils narrowed to slits.

He was dressed entirely in black, his tailcoat, waistcoat, and trousers cut in clean lines, each piece simple in design but impeccably tailored. A plain black mask obscured most of his face, leaving only the sharp line of his jaw and the curve of his mouth visible, but his hair?—

Cupping the nape of my neck, he whispered, “You truly are the most stunning creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“You…cut your hair.”

I reached up and ran my fingers through the soft, black waves brushed away from his face—they were real.

He cut his hair.

“Careful, little storm,” he whispered with a smirk, his eyes still very much slitted and fiery. “We have a kingdom to save, but if you keep looking at me like that, I might just forget why we’re here.”

He cut his hair.

My hand moved to cover my mouth, but he caught it and pressed his lips to my knuckles. “You’ve already deprived me of half your face. Don’t take your lips from me, too.”