The First Loss: Vaelor x Elora (Rogue X Ara Book 3)

Chapter 17

Iset my empty glass on the bar, the clank barely audible over the bustling tavern. The bone chandeliers overhead were lit, the flickering growing stronger as the sun sank on the horizon, shifting the room from glowing orange to soft shadows.

Orrys met my gaze, his snakes stationary along his neck and arms as he grinned and gave a quick wave. His partner, Correnyk, was also behind the bar, passing out drinks at lightning speed, his laugh loud and rambunctious—an interesting sight, considering he was a warrior, both tall and muscular.

Orrys strolled over and swiped a bottle from under the counter before tipping it upside down to pour the brown liquid in my glass. He filled it much more than was customary, but I was thankful.

“What number is this now? Three? Four?” He lifted a dark brow, his one-sided smile growing curious.

“Six,” I replied flatly, and both of his brows shot up.

“What’s got you in knots today?” He set the bottle down and reached under the bar to pull out a glass of his own which he filled and sipped from.

“Not a what.” I took a long drag and relished the burn as the whiskey slid down my throat. “A who.”

“Interesting,” Orrys said. “I’ve never known you to be bothered by anything, much less anyone.”

“I know,” I replied.

Problems only existed to be solved, and I understood that, which allowed me the ability to step back and look at it from every angle. Every problem had a solution.

But this? She wasn’t a problem. She was the solution, and I was the problem. How could I even begin to solve a problem that resided in my own deep-rooted faults? How could I view that objectively and with a level head? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be solved or fixed or whatever the fuck I needed.

Damn it all.

I took another long drink from the glass, swallowing once, twice, three times, and then, it was empty.

Orrys whistled and wiped the bar with his rag. “Whoever tied those knots must be an expert,” he whispered with a laugh, “because you’re inexplicably bound.”

I glared at him, but he merely laughed again before joining Correnyk’s side to tend to the rest of their many patrons.

The more I thought about his words, however, the more a laugh bubbled in my chest until I couldn’t contain it any longer. I dropped my forehead to my palm, my elbow rested on the bar as my chest shook with silent laughter.

She was so far from an expert in tying knots that she couldn’t even tie a horse to a tree, but he was right. She sure had me thoroughly bound. My hands were nearly tied behind my back at this point, and perhaps it was the alcohol swimming in my veins, but I almost wanted to cave. It almost felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

We’d been here less than a day, and she’d already managed to see straight through my feeble attempts. In that stairwell, I’d wanted to crawl under a rock when she looked at me, like she’d seen through my skull and into to my mind, freely reading my thoughts like they were hers for the taking.

I didn’t know what or how or when, but something clicked for her in that damned keep. I watched the shift in her expression when it registered for her, and I knew she knew something about me that maybe I didn’t even understand.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like being read like an open book by this small, fragile human—this delicate, kind, loving human woman. But of course, she could read me, because she saw people. She saw souls, not strangers or the potential for hurt or doubt.

She saw each and every person in the best possible light, because she lived for now. She lived to love and be loved. She’d told me that once.

“Nothing is certain, so why be afraid? Someone could love you as deeply as they could hurt you, and I choose to be loved. The rest can go to hell, because I won’t accept it, and neither should you.”

Like the epitome of naivety, I had chosen to reply with: “I derive my expectations from experience, Elora. I envy your hope, although I fear it may be based in your own innocence.”

Where was my so-called experience now when I needed it most? I felt a twinge of embarrassment even recalling the letter, because she so clearly outmatched me in this situation.

Here I was, running away from her with my tail tucked between my legs, all because I was scared.

She could live with her heart while I had to live with my brain…but I hadn’t when I was Wryn, not with her. I had allowed her optimism to bleed into me during our yearly meetings. I smiled with her and shoved the fear from my heart so her laughter and bravery could fill it, if only for those few hours—because it was only a few hours. I could pretend to be something, someone I wasn’t.

When I was Wryn, I was an artist. I was free.

My heart ached deeply to be that fearless person. I wanted to be free. I wanted to travel with her and paint every landscape we passed through. I wanted to sketch her expression over and over, a different version for every emotion. I wanted to see the light in her sky-blue eyes when she saw the infinite stars, when she saw the Silver Hollow and the Marsh for the first time. I wanted to see her awe when she walked through Canyon and ran her fingers over every trinket laid out on the tables.

I wanted to be free, but I couldn’t be. This was my sacrifice. I was an artistic soul shoved into the role of a king, and I had changed everything about myself to be the best possible ruler.

Where I was carefree, I became rules and safety.

Where I was impulsive, I became steady.

Where I was Wryn, I became Vaelor.

I became the man Ravaryn needed, because I had to. Because they deserved it. These people had been through enough after the War of Brothers, and I wanted—needed to offer them peace. I wanted peace.

So, that was what I did: poured myself into my kingdom until there was nothing left. I might have lost bits and pieces of myself along the way, but I’d always accepted that, because they were given to my people.

But she made me want to be selfish.

I was being rational, logical, in an attempt to correct the mistake I’d made. My people were thousands, and I was only one. One life sacrificed for a kingdom. It was a sacrifice I had agreed to hundreds of years ago and one I would not falter in, even now.

If I could be nothing but a king, then I couldn’t also be hers.

I couldn’t be selfish.

But damn it all, I almost wanted to be.

What then, though? If I were to give in, I’d only be subjecting myself to inevitable pain. That deep, aching reminder had been etched into my chest over two hundred years ago—unyielding, unending, unfading.

I was bound to my fear the way she was bound to her love. Two sides of the same coin, destined to be near but never touching, never one, never whole.

We were destined for almost.

Releasing a deep sigh, I lifted my head from my palm, only to take another long draw of whiskey, because when I truly thought about it, I would be selfish no matter what choice I made. I could be selfish and love her, or I could be selfish and not love her. No matter which way I looked at it, someone would be left with a little less of me.

Loud, familiar giggling reached my ears then, snapping me from my inebriated thoughts, and my heart sank so low, I thought it might have hit my stomach. I knew before I turned who I’d find, but what I didn’t expect was quite literally everything else.

Time slowed around me, and my sight narrowed to her, my shining beacon.

Arm in arm with Iaso, she was no longer in trousers, or even one of her gowns from Auryna. No, this dress was undeniably Fae. Made of soft, flowing emerald silk and free of any kind of corset, it looked to be tied around her waist before two strips reached up over her breasts and tied at the back of her neck, while many more strips fell down to sway around her legs.

It revealed more of her skin than I’d ever seen, her shoulders and chest bare to unveil cascading freckles, and I knew if she turned, I’d be able to follow those same freckles down her bare spine.

Her hair—Goddess, her damned hair—was long and loose, caressing her waist with soft waves. Her pale cheeks were tinted pink like she’d been in the sun just a minute too long.

But it was her smile that enraptured me most—wide and genuine. I wished it was directed at me like it had been so many times before.

Breathtaking.Literally, as I sucked in a deep gulp of air like I’d forgotten to breathe the moment I laid eyes on her. Time resumed, the chatter of people and beginning of the next song fading back into existence.

Who would’ve thought a human could fall so into place in a Fae tavern?

Although, fall into place wasn’t exactly the right terminology, because she didn’t blend in in the slightest. I didn’t know if Elora had ever been able to blend in anywhere.

I highly doubted it.

Minutes passed, hours, perhaps days, and my eyes hadn’t left her. I’d reclined back on the bar, glass of whiskey in hand, mouth tilted up in a smirk.

Two mugs of caramel mead, and Elora was a goner. Her skin was flushed as she danced with Iaso and a few other women, swaying her hips to the beat of the music, moving more sensually than I’d ever seen.

While one hand took a shot glass from Iaso, her other slid along her hips, her waist, her chest. A sheen of sweat had formed along her spine, bare to me from her Fae dress, and I found myself wanting to lick a trail up to her neck.

I took a large gulp of whiskey and adjusted myself.

Then, she glanced over her shoulder, looking directly at me as she downed her shot and fucking winked.

The little nymph knew I was watching her.

I slid off the stool and disappeared into the crowd around her. I kept my eyes on her and caught her expression when she realized I’d moved.

She looked around for a moment before turning back to Iaso with a shrug and a smile. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back, her hands sliding into her hair as her hips resumed their infernal swaying again.

Fucking spellbinding is what it is—what she is.

I might have had more whiskey than blood running through my veins tonight, because it was making my every decision with no regard for tomorrow. The moment Iaso walked away, I stepped into Elora from behind. She gasped as my hands slipped around her waist, one trailing upward between her breasts, my thumb grazing her nipple.

Her chest rose and fell quickly, but when she realized it was me, she relaxed and moved her hips again, against mine, purposefully, slowly, teasing.

I ran a thumb along her bottom lip before slipping it into her mouth. She squeaked, and I opened her mouth wider, enjoying the sight as blood rushed into her already flushed cheeks.

Goddess, I want to do so many things to this damned mouth.

“Dear, sweet Elora, if you wanted to put on a show, all you had to was ask.” Her breath hitched, and I bit back a groan as I slipped my thumb from her lips to wrap my hand around her throat and pull her flush with my chest. “You’d put on such a pretty show, wouldn’t you?”

Her skin was hot beneath my touch, and I nipped her throat before releasing her and stepping off to the side. She didn’t spin around or look for me. Instead, she merely stood there, dazed, eyes wide and lips parted, until Iaso returned with another round of shots for them. Elora took both, one after the other.

Iaso’s laugh reached my ears, and I grinned to myself as I made my way back to the bar.

Before I even had the chance to order another drink, a letter materialized in my fist. I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly before glancing left and right and unfolding it.

One woman. Two children.

Blackburn, south of Main. Small house, black door.

Drunk and unconscious. Wielder of large flames.

I crushed the letter in my fist as a pulse of energy sizzled down my forearm to consume the evidence. The parchment immediately caught fire, and I dropped it to the stone floor to stomp out the flames under my boot, leaving an indistinguishable blackened smudge.

As I strode around the bar to the back exit, I pulled a vial from my pocket and downed Iaso’s cure to clear my senses as much as it could, even knowing the alcohol would burn out of my system the second lightning took my form.

With one last long glance at Elora, I watched as she held her hand up so Iaso could spin beneath it to the quickening music, despite that Iaso was over six inches taller and had to duck each time with Elora standing on her tiptoes to reach as high as she could.

Their faces were so painfully happy and content, my heart ached when I had to pull my gaze away.

I stepped out behind the tavern, and the door slammed shut behind me, cutting off the sounds from inside. A storm brewed unnaturally quickly overhead, black and heavy against the already darkening sky. Lightning raced across the horizon, and I knew without a doubt, it’d be seen in the skies above Blackburn—my calling card to let them know help was coming.

When the lightning came close, I stuck my hand into the air and disappeared into it with my destination in mind.

It didn’t take long to find the house after I was dropped in Blackburn. The mother clutched her children, covering them both with a large coat as they stood outside under the overhang of their cottage to avoid the rain.

When she heard my approach, her face snapped in my direction before crumbling in relief. A sob broke from her lips, and she tightened her hold on her children, her legs wobbling until she fell to her knees and buried her face in their chests.

I sprinted over and placed a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her gaze to me, igniting a newfound rage in my chest. Rain pounded against the wooden roof, the dull roar loud enough to drown out the relentless rumbling thunder.

The same wind whistling through the nearby trees whipped her hair around her, but the dim light from inside illuminated her face enough for me to see why I’d been summoned. She was bruised, swollen, and bleeding in some places.

My eyes flitted to her children: two girls, no older than six, with their hair crudely cut to the scalp. Their eyes, while not bruised like their mother’s, were red and blood-shot like they’d been sobbing.

My heart broke, shattered, and burned for them.

I dropped to one knee and tilted my head to the side as one girl peeked around her mother’s arm—which I now noticed bore a blackened handprint on her bare forearm, blistered and bubbled.

For such a young child, her warm brown eyes looked tired.

I offered her a gentle smile and extended a hand slowly. “What do you say we get you three out of here, hmm?”

She eyed it cautiously, edging backwards, but her mom held her in place before moving her hands to their cheeks.

With one palm on each of them, her eyes flitted back and forth between their tear-stained faces, a tear of her own falling to drip onto her tattered dress as she forced a shaky smile. “He’ll take us to safety, baby. All of us.”

“All of us?” the one with brown eyes asked and peeked at her shy sister.

The smaller one’s blue eyes rounded, her lip beginning to tremble again. “I-I don’t want us all to come. Just us three, Mama. Not him. Not Daddy. H-he can stay and sleep.”

“No,” I interjected, my throat tight and burning. “Not Daddy. Just you three, and I’m going to take you somewhere beautiful, where you can frolic in the flowers and eat pastries and play and swim all day.”

A choked sound left their mother, a hand flying to cover her mouth as she met my gaze. She nodded fiercely, her one and only word barely audible but desperate. “Please.”

“Hold onto them.” She wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders and pulled them into her embrace. They both wrapped their tiny arms around her waist tightly as I stepped in front of them to wrap mine around them as well. I grabbed their mother’s wrists on either side to enforce the hold. “Don’t let go, no matter what happens or how you feel. Keep contact with me. No matter what. Do you understand?”

She nodded with the determination of a mother—fierce and protective.

“This is not going to feel good. They’ll probably fall unconscious when we drop, but it’s normal, all right? It happens every time with children this small.”

She nodded again, swallowing hard.

“I will get you to safety, and he will never touch you again.”

Then, it all happened within seconds.

Lightning struck me in the back, and I strained, holding onto them as tightly as I could to pull them with me. Energy consumed our forms within the same second that I urged another bolt to strike the thatch roof of the house. Flames burst to life and raced down the main beams. The bastard would be dead in minutes. Wielder of flames or not, no one was impervious to smoke inhalation, and he was too inebriated to get himself out.

Not three seconds later, we dropped at the estate outside Rainsmyre, all soaked to the bone and trembling. The girls fell limp to the ground, their mother gasping as she caved to her knees. She gently checked each of their faces and laid her head on their chests one at a time to listen for heartbeats before swiveling to the right and retching.

I staggered on my feet, the world spinning. For a moment, grass became sky, the sky falling below me, and I staggered before my hands and knees hit the ground with a thud.

Black crept into my vision, my skin growing cold, but a hand gripped my chin to tilt my head back and held a vial to my lips. I swallowed its contents gratefully, knowing it would be Iaso’s tonic to refill my magic’s well as much as possible.

“Thank you…Drak,” I mumbled breathlessly as I rolled onto my back and laid flat on the cool grass with my arms out to the side. I took slow, even breaths to steady the world around me.

“Thank you, Vaelor. I’ll bring you another soon,” he replied, but his sights had already turned to his new residents. He extended a hand to the woman, who took it cautiously, and pulled her to her feet. “Welcome to the Sanctuary.”

Another form came into view, sprinting around the estate. He halted before us and braced his hands on his hips, his bare chest heaving with each ragged breath. “Need any help?”

“May we carry your girls to your room?” Drak asked gently, slouching at the shoulders to appear less threatening, but it didn’t do much; it never did. He towered over men, his red-black wings massive. “They may not wake for some time.”

She worried her bottom lip, her forehead creasing, but she nodded. Drak slid his hand beneath the neck and knees of the older girl while the young man did the same for the smaller one. His back was revealed to me, the two vertical scars between his shoulder blades reflecting silver under the moonlight.

“You’re safe now,” one of the men whispered, but ringing in my ears made it impossible to distinguish which.

When they stepped away, I shifted my gaze to the dark expanse above, dreaming of blue skies and cinnamon and apples. Thousands of stars twinkled before multiplying and fading into nothingness as I slipped further under.

When it was impossible to keep them open any longer, I closed my eyes, vaguely hearing the others along with the sound of a door clicking open.

“My name is Drakyth.”

“And my name is Adon.”

The door shut, and the world went black.