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

Chapter 24

Elora was sound asleep—and wonderfully naked—when I slipped out of bed the next morning.

I had to pause in appreciation of her. The sun thought so too, it seemed, as it kissed her bare skin, pale and freckled, practically glowing against the emerald bedspread pulled down to her hips.

Leaning over, I slid her long, red hair over her shoulder to reveal my mark, scabbed but permanent. It would heal but never leave. My chest squeezed at the sight, energy racing under my skin, urging to spark, to lick, to consume.

I had never felt anything so right. The stars had aligned beautifully when they made her for me and me for her. Fate had never made a more perfect pairing, and I knew that in my bones. The world knew it, the Goddess, the stars, fate. To deny it would be to deny the truth.

In the corner of the room was a small table of discarded art supplies: charcoal, cracked and crumbling from the ages, and a pile of sketch pads, seemingly untouched by the years or my mother as the pages were blank.

A small area of the desk had been cleared, the art supplies replaced by a stack of letters with a quill lying on top as a makeshift paperweight. Quietly, I slid the quill over and lifted a page, smiling at the name signed at the bottom: Alivia.

So my efforts hadn’t been in vain.

After replacing it and the quill, I grabbed some supplies and returned to the chair across from Elora.

She needed to be sketched, just as much as I needed to sketch her—far too ethereal to not be preserved on parchment, a Goddess among men sent to bless my eyes and mine alone.

She was fire and blue skies, fierce and gentle, kind and headstrong, passionate and lost in a world that didn’t deserve her.

I marked her form onto the parchment: her lines and curves, her freckles, her locks and closed eyes, her faint, sleepy smile, but no medium could ever capture what made her extraordinary. I knew that as I had tried many, many times. Every time I witnessed her features in a new light, viewed from a different angle or lifted in a different emotion, my soul insisted I depict her over and over. My nook was chock full of her, but the portraits were never right.

I couldn’t capture her laugh. I couldn’t draw her heart or mind or the way she teased. I couldn’t infuse her cinnamon vanilla scent into the parchment or recreate the way her auburn hair sparked under the sunlight. I couldn’t put her on paper in the same way she existed before my eyes, and it was maddening.

But I never stopped trying. My hands would never allow for that. They itched to continue, to paint and sketch, to touch and explore.

It would never be enough.

I would never have enough. I wanted to be consumed by her, in thought and body and heart and soul and art.

Every part of me, hers.

The chest-tightening, breath-stealing panic was still present when I thought of the future, so I simply…didn’t think of it, and when I couldn’t escape it, I gazed at her. I watched her chest rise and fall, counting her even breaths.

I was so damned tired of being afraid, and I wanted to let myself have this, have her without living every moment grieving the loss that hadn’t happened.

She was here.

She was alive, and she was mine—finally. After years of want, of longing and denial, she was mine, and I’d be damned if I let something as simple as fear tear her from me now.

It was as if her blood on my tongue had seeped some of her bravery into me as well, her soul strengthening mine in the ways it needed, filling gaps and holes. Where I was broken, she healed. I just hoped I could do the same for her.

I’d been honored when she’d shared her parents’ deaths with me because I knew the weight that held. Speaking it aloud was difficult, dragging up and verbalizing memories that our hearts naturally wanted to keep buried. It was hard and painful but necessary—something my father still had yet to do.

But buried wounds could not heal. They needed to be aired out; otherwise, they would only fester, and an infection of the soul was lethal.

Even I hadn’t been entirely successful in healing—clearly, though I was trying. We were both trying, and that was all we could do.

When I was semi-satisfied with the sketch, I laid it on the nightstand and strolled to the bedroom door. It was closed, shutting us off from the rest of the house, but it was time I saw it.

We’d been too…occupied last night for me to look around, but I knew what I would see with the light of day pouring in every window: dust and decay, abandonment. This house had not been touched since she’d passed, and the fact that it still stood, much less was livable, was a miracle.

I exhaled slowly and pulled the door open.

I didn’t make a single step over the threshold before my jaw fell slack, Elora’s warmth filling my chest all over again.

There was no dust, no decay. It didn’t appear abandoned at all. In fact, the only sign of damage was the back door boarded with slats of wood, replacing the glass that had once been there.

The cottage was small and open. From the bedroom door, I could see all the way to the other side of the house, and every single inch between me and the kitchen on the far end was clean, every surface dusted, the floors and walls wiped. The curtains were pulled open with new potted plants sitting beneath them—namely, a freshly sprouted woman’s revenge.

My throat tightened more with each hesitant step I took through the room. In the corner, my mother’s canvases had been organized, dusted, and lined into neat piles. A few had been hung on the walls, the largest being our painting of an apple tree.

I swallowed hard as I neared it and ran my finger over the old paint to feel the strokes and bumps—the marks my mother’s hand had made. I’d been young when we’d painted this; so young that all I was able to do was paint the red blobs she turned into apples.

It had been hung on the wall beside the window that framed that very tree—young at the time but now, massive and thriving.

My body was torn between crying and laughing when the front door swung open. I whirled around to see Father entering with a smile and a basket of ingredients.

He stopped mid-step when he found me instead of Elora, whom I assumed he expected. Closing the door, he sighed. “I guess it’s about time we visited, hmm?”

My eyes widened. He had never been even partially okay when Mother was involved, but here he was, entering her cottage and smiling.

My chest constricted, and I had to force air into my lungs, but where it usually only did so in panic, this was…different. This was warm rather than icy, swelling rather than tightening.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” I replied.

He placed the basket on the table, and we sat in the seats on either side. I peeked inside and lifted a brow at him.

“Elora is teaching me how to make cinnamon rolls,” he said, his cheeks tinting pink.

“Mama’s favorite?” I asked with a breath laugh.

He nodded, shifting his gaze about the room, taking in every detail. “She’s really fixed this place up.”

I tensed, expecting the look to return to his eyes, for him to fall into his grief again. “Father…”

“I think Elora broke something, or perhaps healed something in me,” he whispered, and I fell back in my seat, speechless. “We’ve decided grief never shrinks. It never leaves or lessens, but that’s all right because our world—our life grows larger to make room for it and more. Ara is never gone from here.” He tapped his chest. “But that doesn’t mean I have to wait with one foot in the grave for the day my body finally decides to join her.”

Two hundred years he’d been grieving in silence. For two hundred years, the briefest mention of Mother sent him right back, and two weeks with Elora had cracked him wide open and then stitched him back together.

I blinked away the burn in my eyes, my chest heaving.

I had never loved her more than I did in this moment.

He looked at me, eyes brimming with tears, and I noticed his face was slightly sunburned. Glancing down, I found dirt beneath his fingernails. He’d been working in Mother’s garden.

Damn it all, Elora is…everything.

“I’m not betraying her by living, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that. I’m sorry, son, so sorry.”

I offered him a shaky smile and shook my head. “Don’t apologize for loving her.”

He nodded and chuckled, a broken sound that shook loose his welling tears. They slipped past his lashes, and he turned away to wipe his eyes with his palms.

He sighed and stood to carry the basket to the kitchen counter where he pulled out and lined up the ingredients, including a short, handwritten list from Elora. “She didn’t tell me whose death she still mourned, but their loss must be deep too. She understands. As much as I wished she didn’t know this pain, she does.”

“I know,” I whispered. For someone who was the embodiment of sunshine, she knew pain and loss in a way I would have never expected.

“Who’s ready for a baking lesson?” Elora’s voice startled us both, and we whipped around like two schoolboys caught doing something we shouldn’t. Her eyes widened, shifting between the two of us. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No.” I snapped from my stupor, striding across the room to throw my arms around her in a tight embrace. She giggled and swatted at my sides, but I merely tightened my hold.

When I whispered, “Thank you,” she softened and wrapped her arms around my waist in return.

“For what?” she whispered back.

“Everything.” I kissed the top of her head and released one arm to swivel her toward the kitchen. “And yes, love, we’re ready to learn.”

Unfortunately, it turned out we weren’t as ready as we thought. The only cinnamon rolls that made it out alive were Elora’s. Mine somehow came out flatter than when they went in, and Father’s were salty—excessively so. In fact, it tasted like the only sugar that made it in was the sprinkling on top.

Thank the Goddess, Elora was able to roll twice as many as we had in the same amount of time because we were starving by the time the scent of warm cinnamon filled the house.

She’d chuckled at our pitiful attempts, then fully cackled at our expressions. “Second time’s the charm.”

Father wiped his forehead, smearing the white powder into his hair. “I thought it was the third time’s the charm?”

She lifted a brow. “Do you want it to be the third?”

“I want it to be the first,” he grumbled with a chuckle as he tossed his rolls in the trash.

Elora braced her hands on the counter and lifted herself up to sit. Pulled like a moth to a flame, I inched closer until I reclined on my elbows beside her. A soft giddiness had settled in my chest for the first time in years, and I didn’t stop to question it. My smile was effortless, easy, inescapable.

My arm skimmed her leg, and she shifted a tad closer.

“Imagine Mama seeing this. She’d be…amused, to say the least.” As soon as the words slipped from my mouth, I paused, afraid Father would sink. I lifted my eyes to him, body tense.

His arms fell to the side as he looked down at himself, an apron tied around his waist, coated in a layer of flour. I didn’t even dare to breathe while I waited for some kind of reaction, good or bad, but then, he laughed.

My mouth curved into a smile as Father doubled over to brace his hands on his knees. He laughed and laughed until he gasped for breath, clutching at his abdomen. I couldn’t help but join him, and amid the mirth, Elora placed a hand on my cheek and turned me to face her.

With flushed cheeks and misty eyes, she kissed my forehead once before whispering, “He’s happy.”

We both swiveled to Father when he said, “She would have laughed at us much sooner than Elora, shamelessly and adoringly.”

Thiswas my father, and I was so relieved to finally, finally have him back, to be able to speak of my mother and hopefully reminisce one day. I was ready to hear stories, share memories, and speak her back into existence—if only in our hearts. She didn’t deserve to be clumped in with pain and fear. Mother didn’t even belong in the vicinity of those.

Much like Elora, she’d been made of warmth and smiles, of bravery and love. It was time her memory felt like her, even if it was tinted with nostalgia and a strange form of homesickness.

What had Father said? “Grief never shrinks.” Our lives only grew to accommodate more.

My arm wound around Elora’s waist, her long hair tickling my forearm, and my heart swelled, willingly burning in her flames.

But it was all snuffed out when a letter materialized in the fist of my free hand. Suppressing a sigh, I discreetly slid my arm from around her.

I exited the room with the excuse of relieving myself before unfolding the letter with a sinking pit in my gut. No matter what words the parchment held, I knew I’d have to leave. Drak didn’t send letters for any other reason.

But my eyes slid closed, my head falling back as soon as I read it, because it wasn’t from Drakyth at all.

It was from Rya, which meant it would be a long day ahead, and I needed to leave now.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath. Energy sparked the dry page, and it burned quickly.

With another steeling breath, I turned the knob and opened the door to find Father and Elora eating the last two rolls. Under better circumstances, I would’ve teased them for not waiting on me, but I couldn’t even bring myself to smile as I was leaving much, much sooner than I wanted.

“I just received correspondence from my general.” My heart sank at the lies falling on Elora’s ears. “Apparently, there was a spat between a few men, and he wants me to deal out punishment.”

She swallowed her bite, kicking her dangling feet, and cocked a brow as she asked, “And your general can’t do that himself?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” I avoided her gaze as I answered, grabbing a tunic from the back of a chair. I slid it overhead and strode to the door. Turning back with my hand on the knob, I added, “I’ll see you both soon.”

“See you soon,” Father echoed, but Elora hopped down from the counter.

I walked out before she could say anything else, pretending not to notice her moving toward me, but of course, she had no quarrel reopening the door and following me out.

She shut the door behind her and jogged after me. “Why don’t I believe you?”

I stumbled over my own damned foot and internally groaned.

She laughed and her following footsteps stopped. “That’s what I thought.”

I glanced back at her, my brows pulling together. “Please understand I wouldn’t be leaving if it wasn’t important.”

Her expression softened before she closed the remaining distance between us and craned her neck to look up at me. “Vaelor, I can’t do anymore secrets.”

My heart broke, shattered. I’d kept nothing but secrets for years, and here I was, forcing them on her once again. Perhaps I could have told her of the Sanctuary, but this wasn’t that. This wasn’t rescuing children or providing safe haven. This was entirely different, and I didn’t want her to have to witness this.

I placed a palm on her cheek, and she closed her eyes, holding my hand there with both of hers. “I’m sorry, love.”

Her eyes snapped open, and I saw…betrayal. She clenched her jaw and dropped her hands away.

“You will not lie to me again, Vaelor.”

“I won’t lie to you, but neither can I tell you the truth.” I took a step back, followed by another, knowing this looked like running. She must be thinking that, feeling it, and I wanted to retch at the thought. “I have to go, sun ray, but please forgive me. I will return to you as soon as I can.”

She matched me step for step, the hurt her eyes sparking into rage. “No. No, you gave yourself to me, and?—”

Her words stopped when lightning raced across the sky.

“I’m sorry, love,” I whispered and lifted my gaze and hand to the sky—which was why I didn’t see her sprint at me full force.

Lightning struck at the same moment her hand wrapped around my wrist. Her scream drowned out the crackling energy, and I gripped her forearm as tightly as I could.