Page 98 of The Last One Standing (Rogue X Ara #4)

ROGUE

O ne hour and fifty-seven minutes until dark.

Far beyond the castle and the steady flow of people, the sun sank on the horizon, swelling as it smoldered into a deep orange.

I rolled my shoulders, muscles tense, as I followed a few feet beyond Ara and Doran. They stood arm in arm, and my eyes kept drifting back to those few inches where their arms touched.

He’d kept his hair— my hair long, and it reached past my shoulders, brushed until smooth. With a sigh, I ran my fingers through my chopped strands for the hundredth time.

It had to be done. The length was too recognizable.

Knowing that did nothing to ease my deep discomfort as Iaso cut and clipped, and I watched the hair I fought for fall to the floor.

“Hair is a hindrance,” Adrastus would say. “A hindrance for whores. Not men. Not my son.”

But I grew older, larger, angrier, and restraining me for a simple haircut became less feasible.

Then, on my thirteenth birthday, he nearly slashed me in half himself. That was the last time he or anyone at his command ever cut any part of me.

The raw wound across my throat and torso still oozed the first time I refused an order, even one as simple as a haircut.

I’d crawled to Iaso’s chambers that night, bloodied and bruised, with my hair.

It only took a few times before Adrastus gave up and rejected my existence entirely, and I realized he wasn’t all-powerful.

I had power, too. Yet, I found it difficult to distinguish that power from the strands I left behind in Asha’s home.

That was until Ara appeared, and I met her silver gaze, the lighthouse on the shore of home— my home that Doran touched.

I clenched my jaw.

A human bumped into me, and I inhaled a deep breath. Humans were everywhere, too giddy and excited for the night ahead, made evident by the constant roar of chatter and laughter.

Giddy, excited, and foolish.

Hundreds of people strolled through the front gates, wrapped in wealth and completely unaware of personal space.

Well-crafted coats and cloaks billowed in the gust of wind that whipped through the bailey, pulled tight again by hands laden with gold and diamonds.

Jewels sparkled on every neck and wrist.

Another stiff wind rolled clouds in, blotting out the sun.

Ara glanced over her shoulder as they climbed the entryway steps, her black cloak in stark contrast to her pale skin. Her wine-red lips curved in a sly smile, then she turned and handed the guard the invitation that arrived only hours ago—a discreet invitation that matched every other.

My chest tightened when they stepped over the threshold and disappeared from sight. I was seconds away from shoving my way in when grumbling started behind me.

I turned to find Gus weaving his way through the crowd. He grinned and waved with a flask in hand, oblivious to their displeasure.

When he finally reached my side, he clapped a hand on my shoulder and muttered, “Try not to look so angry.”

I leaned down. “If you don’t remove your hand from my shoulder, I will remove it from your body.”

Smile still in place, he slid his hand off as we ascended the steps. “We’re supposed to be excited, remember?”

“I just watched my wife walk into this death trap,” I murmured. Two people stood ahead of us. “You’re lucky we’re not going up in flames.”

His face paled, but that fucking smile remained. He took a swig from the metal flask and wiped his mouth. “I think I forgot who you were for a moment.”

One person left.

“Well, we do have more pressing issues at hand than my identity.”

I smirked down at the guard and handed him my invitation, courtesy of Asha’s friend. He waved me through, and just like that, they invited a fox into the hen house—though that wasn’t exactly true.

There were already foxes here, masquerading as hens.

One of them spotted me as soon as we entered the ballroom. Ara released a breath, but mine caught in my throat.

Hazy blue light poured over her, and she glowed like a dream bathed in moonlight, her silver eyes luminous beneath the mask.

I forced myself to look away, following the light to the stained-glass wall. Shards of blue in every shade fractured the sunlight into twilight, and at its center sat a silvery-white moon, a perfect reflection of Ara’s electrified eyes.

Opposite the glass, a towering wall of mirrors stretched from floor to ceiling. Hundreds of candles lined its length, their flames flickering in the reflection.

Something overcame me in that moment: an entity, a possession, a new emotion. A beast crawled beneath my skin and up my throat, and I charged toward my mate, my love, my wife.

Her eyes widened. With a faint shake of her head, she turned in the opposite direction, Doran in tow.

My knuckles cracked from how tightly I clenched them. If this damned bracelet weren’t locked around my wrist, everything would burn—every person between me and her.

A cautious hand—a brave hand on my arm stopped me before I rammed through bodies, magic or not.

I whirled to find Godrick, hidden behind a similar mask to my own, his brown eyes and salt-and-pepper hair all that remained visible.

With great difficulty, I let Ara slip into the crowd but tracked her every movement. She glanced over her shoulder at me every few seconds, and her silver eyes caught the pale light, an entrancing silver, a beautiful silver…

I blinked. Glanced down at myself, then at Godrick.

He tipped his head to the balcony, and I followed him up the narrow staircase without tearing my eyes from Ara. She stood in the center of the dance floor, surrounded by people—an ethereal creature in a pool of monotony.

Doran stood tall at her side, towering over them all, identical to me, and my lips twitched with a grin. At least we looked damned good together.

Not simply a match. Counterparts.

Ara was born to two gentle, loving parents, beautiful and soft, and while she had become a weapon of her own making, sharp and relentless, she could be as loving and gentle in the right circumstances. She was beauty, in all ways—mind, body, and soul.

And then, there was I, the child born of brutality, and every part of my being reflected that: my size, my bloodline, my scar-riddled skin, even my magic.

Standing next to her lithe form, glowing under the false moonlight, I looked like a beast, a creature sent from hell to cut down anyone who looked at her.

I would.

I would cut down anyone who dared look at her, starting with the man who stood thirty feet beyond her, tucked in the shadows against the wall.

Adonis watched her with a disgusting grin on his face, oblivious to my existence. Ara hadn’t noticed him from what I could tell, but she had turned her attention to Doran.

My chest heaved. Sacrifice hummed in its sheath.

A dull roar overtook the string quartet’s music, the crowd’s chatter, the sound of heeled shoes on stone floors, even my own thoughts.

Godrick grabbed my arm, and this bracelet saved more than one life tonight. I jerked from his grasp and gripped the railing with both hands, knuckles white.

“You can’t openly stare daggers at him without giving away your identity,” he whispered forcibly. “He won’t hurt her here.”

With Godrick on my left, Gus appeared on my right, another masked man at his side.

Gus gestured to his lapel and the white flower pinned there. “You can trust anyone with a flower like this.”

“Aye,” the man said, a flower pinned to his coat. “We have men posted at every exit. A few more have infiltrated the guard and acquired their uniform. Those men will have the flower pinned to their cloak like a lady’s favor.”

I scanned the room, spying more than a dozen white flowers on various people: men, women, wealthy, not so wealthy. The guard closest to Adonis eyed us with a subtle dip of his chin, a white flower peeking from the inside of his cloak and a broadsword at his hip.

So close to Adonis, yet useless without the power of the twin blades.

“And the others?” I asked Godrick.

“Delphia got them inside, though I don’t know where they are now. I explained where the secret chambers were and how to access the doors. They should be lying in wait long before Adonis moves to leave.”

Delphia wore Ara’s ring, infused with enough power to sustain her shield for twice as long as she could last on her own, but both she and Ara were the only two unprotected by spell-bound iron, which left them vulnerable. Even the human men had spelled pieces—or they should.

All spells called upon the realm’s magic, and similar to sending letters through the fire, this one only required the right words and intention, both of which I explained to Gus.

“Iron?” I asked, and he nodded, as did his friend. “Good.”

I turned my attention back over the dance floor and the man beyond it, casually reclining on the opposite side of the room. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Ara, his gaze feral, almost…possessive.

A snap sounded somewhere inside me, a sharp lance to my insides.

Another fucking hand grabbed my wrist.

“You are either foolish,” I growled, “or you have a death wish.”

Godrick stared flatly and tugged me back to where we had been standing. I’d already made it down three steps; I hadn’t even realized I moved.

“What’s triggering you?” he asked, low enough for only me to hear. “You know the plan—you and Ara created the damned plan. Why are you trying to send it all up in smoke?”

I swallowed hard. “His very close focus on Ara. He’s…watching her like a pet. A very enthralling, beautiful pet.”

Mutt , he called her. His little mutt.

His.

He called her his.

Red fog rolled over my vision.

Godrick snapped his fingers in front of my face. “So?”

“So?” I repeated, anger flushing my skin. “So? So , I want to rip out his throat, but only after I remove his eyes and hands for daring to lay them on what’s mine .”

“You can’t.”

“I can.”

“Not without jeopardizing a thousand more lives, including some of our own.” Godrick’s throat bobbed. “You know what we’re here to do, so let’s do that: the well-thought-out, less bloody plan.”

Adonis hated blood.

Let’s bathe in it.

My jaw clenched. That feral anger thrashed in my chest, clawing at the bars of my rib cage.

Godrick’s eyes flitted between mine, brows knitted. “What’s wrong? Something’s happened since Asha’s.”

Teeth gnashed at the inescapable prison my Fae form had become, a storm of scales and fury battering against bone.

Not anger, I realized.

A dragon. Backed into a corner by this spell-bound bracelet and locked behind iron bars with a dagger that sang of blood—a dagger that wasn’t limited by the bracelet.

“What’s wrong?” Godrick asked again.

My fingers curled around the rail. “I’ve become an animal caged.”

My wrist held the key, but I couldn’t bring myself to remove it, afraid that if I did, my shift would rip free out of hungry desperation.

“What does that mean?” Gus asked, his tone panicked. He looked to Godrick. “What does that mean?”

Godrick stared at me. Seconds passed. His throat bobbed with a hard swallow, then he turned his eyes to the hundreds of humans below as he whispered, “What will happen if you take the iron off?”

“I…don’t know,” I murmured. “It’s a double-edged sword. The longer it’s on, the longer I watch her down there, the worse it’ll get, but if I take it off, the dams will burst.”

Godrick nodded.

Take it off.

My fingers circled the metal band.

Take it off.

I hesitated. Fire boiled in my veins, an ancient growl grinding down my uncertainty.

Take. It. Off.

Another thought struck like lightning, and my gaze flashed to the windows, obstructed by blue.

The liminal moon hadn’t risen yet, but I couldn’t hear or feel my wyverns.

The iron severed our minds—the iron I wore because I had to.

Because Adonis wanted to take everything from me. My kingdom. My family. My wyverns. My life.

The one who chose me.

My skin burned. The scars marring it itched, the long line from my neck down across my torso on the verge of splitting.

“She chose me, ” I growled, but it sounded distant, foreign.

My attention slid back to where Adonis had stood, but the shadows were empty. My feet moved of their own accord.

I searched the crowded dance floor and made it halfway down the stairs before I spotted him. Adonis maneuvered through the swaying bodies with ease, straight for Ara.

My mate.

My claimed.

My wife.