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

Chapter 25

As soon as we landed at the Oasis, she crumpled to the ground, limp and unconscious, and I lunged forward to catch her head before it cracked on the hard ground.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, slamming my hand into the dirt.

“Did you receive—” Fauna’s rushing steps stopped when she saw us. “Is that Elora?”

“Yes,” I seethed. Even staring at her face as she was now, I wanted to scold her. I wanted to bend her over my knee and bring my hand down on her ass over and over until it was red and heated beneath my palm. When she was healed and safe, I would do exactly that.

That was dangerous—so fucking dangerous. If my grip on her had slipped, she would have been lost to the skies, her physical form gone.

She would have been stuck on the other side of the veil, essentially dead but worse—a living soul left in the realm of the dead.

“Here’s the blood.” Fauna handed me a vial. “Do you want to leave her here?”

“No.” The word left me on reflex. I should leave her here. It would be easier, safer, but if Elora was so dead set on finding out, willing to risk her life, then so be it. “No, I’ll bring her. Do you have one of Iaso’s tonics?”

Fauna nodded and darted for her office.

The rage held me upright for now, but if I were to carry us both to Canyon without replenishing my well, nothing would keep me awake. I’d hit the ground unconscious, just like Elora.

“Grab two if you have them,” I shouted to Fauna.

When she returned, I quickly downed one before dropping to a knee and tilting Elora’s head back to pour a tonic into her mouth slowly. “I’m not sure if it’ll help her, but if she’s already like this after one trip, I have no idea how long she’ll be out in Canyon.”

I handed the vials back, placed the other vial of blood in my pocket, and slid my hands under Elora to lift her. Holding her tightly against my body, I gave Fauna a sharp nod, and lightning struck again.

We landed outside Canyon’s borders within seconds to find Augustus waiting, his blue hair so dark, it appeared nearly black. He did a double take when he saw Elora hanging limply in my arms.

“I’ll explain later,” I said, groaning deeply when I realized Elora hadn’t completed Canyon’s oath. Damn it all, I should have left her in Nautia. “Is she draining him already?”

“Yes,” Augustus replied as I followed him down the narrow alley leading to the spelled entrance, stone walls reaching high into the sky on either side.

“The process has already begun.” Mors stepped from the other side of the spell wall. His wispy white hair was braided back, his white eyes reflecting orange from the flickering candle in his hand.

“Can she take the oath without being awake?” I asked him. Because Mors was the oldest being in Canyon, other than his wife and her sister, he would know if anyone did.

He sniffed, stepping closer. My hands tightened around her, but I let him. When he neared her face, he moved her hair to reveal the mark before lifting his gaze to meet mine in question. He didn’t say anything, but I nodded regardless.

“Your souls are merged, and yours has said the oath. All she must do is share her blood. The words are not necessary this day.”

He stepped back and pulled a dagger from his robes. He lifted her hand, and her body didn’t so much as flinch as Mors slid the tip along her palm. He lifted her hand to me, and I blew the blood, which turned to dust and sank into the six-pointed sun etched into the wall. It glowed a burning red above us before the wall disappeared entirely.

We followed Mors and Augustus to Rya’s room, deep within Canyon, down the winding caves carved from the stone. The room was lit with dozens of candles, bright enough to reveal the dead man hanging upside down with his throat slit, the trembling woman in the corner, and Rya as she swiveled from her table upon our entrance.

I laid Elora down on a bench covered in furs, handed Rya the vial of blood from the creature of night, and turned to the woman. I crouched down before her, shielding her line of sight from her husband’s body. Her eyes flashed to mine, wild and wide, as she continued to rock back and forth with her arms wrapped around her legs.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” I whispered.

“Y-yes,” she said with a quick nod.

“He won’t remember you,” I said slowly.

She stopped rocking, letting loose a long breath. “But he’ll feel me. He’ll know he loved me in this life, and that’s all I need. We can make new memories, but I can’t make a new him.”

“That…is a very good point.” That was the reason all loved ones asked to do this. They couldn’t bear to lose their partners, but they sacrificed much to do so. Her husband would never be the same, and she knew that—or thought she did. For her sake, I hoped so.

She gave me a shaky smile and leaned forward to whisper, “Although, I didn’t think the process would be quite so…gruesome.”

“I know.” I nodded, glancing back over my shoulder to find the bucket of blood only halfway full beneath him. “Would you like to step out while we finish the process? I’ll retrieve you before he wakes.”

Her eyes darted back to her husband, and she winced, resuming her rocking. I shifted a step to the right to shield her from the sight once again.

“Would that make me weak?” she whispered, more to herself than me.

“No. When he died, you could have fallen to the floor. You could have fallen apart, but instead, you acted quickly. You found Rya and started the process before it was too late. You’ve been nothing but strong, and if he loves you as much as you love him, I think he’d want you to step away and rest. I don’t think he’d want you to see this.”

Her face crumbled while I spoke, tears falling, forehead wrinkling, lips trembling. She inhaled sharply and nodded. When I extended a hand, she took it, and I pulled her to her feet before guiding her to the room next door—a sleeping chamber stocked with mead and whiskey. I showed her where everything was, but she collapsed on the bed before I had even closed the door behind me.

It wasn’t long after that the man’s body had been sat upright against the wall, the wound on his throat stitched nearly all the way closed.

Rya lifted the necessary concoction: the blood of the creature of night mixed with the blood of many Fae. She never specified how many people had to contribute to create the “blood of many,” and I didn’t ask. As long as she got it willingly, I didn’t care either way, but that was why they did this in Canyon, because blood couldn’t be spilled with ill intent here. It had to be given.

She dipped a long tube in the bowl and sucked the other end until the dark liquid started to run through before she slid the tube into the man’s neck.

The blood would replace the Fae’s essence, overloading his system with so many different identities that the body itself no longer registered as one person. He would have no scent, no memories, no pupils or irises, no distinguishable markers other than the face he was born with and the feelings of his past life.

He wouldn’t remember who his wife was, but his soul would remember the love he felt for her. That could never be removed or forgotten, regardless of what form he took.

Rya’s daughter joined us in the other room, quiet as always. I didn’t know her name, as they never shared it. I had never even heard her voice, but her hair was recognizable—violet, her eyes two orbs of amethyst.

She stayed silent, her expression flat. I’d never seen her any other way. I had always gotten the impression she disliked her role, but she never complained or refused. Her mother had given her ample opportunity to resign as the soul weaver, but she always returned.

“You must decide—do you want to do this? Once she starts, she must finish,” Augustus asked the one only Rya and Mors could see.

Their small family was all gifted by death in some way, and they used it beautifully. Death magic, while typically shunned, wasn’t always dark and terrifying, even if it appeared so. Augustus could speak and hear the souls while his wife could see them. Their daughter… Well, she weaved, just as her moniker implied.

Augustus nodded along as he listened to the soul before he turned to his daughter and wife. “He’s sure.”

“Does he understand what it means, though?” Mors asked. “That this is what he will be?”

He turned to the invisible man and motioned to his eyes and long canines, his blackened shadows escaping his fingertips to swirl up his forearms. His face flickered and rippled, shifting from his own to mine, Rya’s, the man’s wife, then to the soul’s—a mirror image of the one staring at us with dead eyes, reclined on the wall and drained of color.

“You will become a Puer Mortis. You will be no one and everyone, and you will never die. You will watch the sun set on the end of the world with me, along with every other undead. You will no longer crave food, but blood, although it will not sustain you. Rather, it will destroy you. You will crave your downfall for centuries, and it will not cease until you consume enough souls—animal, human, or Fae. Do you truly understand this?”

I knew Mors was only asking because he hadn’t understood when he was turned. He had been the first of his kind, turned by his wife, so the rules and consequences were unknown, and he’d had to learn to navigate them all without help.

Augustus’ head swiveled to the soul, listening. “He understands. Anything to hold his wife again.”

All eyes shifted to their daughter, and she nodded. She reached forward and plucked a glowing string out of thin air, visible only in the reflection of her purple eyes—the soul’s life thread. Her other hand disappeared into the man’s chest and wrenched his heart out. It wasn’t his physical heart, but a glowing one, the counterpart to his life thread, intangible to everyone but her.

With a deep breath, she took her needle, threaded the invisible string, and began stitching it into the man’s heart. Augustus flinched, then winced and strode from the room. The soul must be screaming as the weaver sewed him back into his body, and by the time she finished, he would no longer know who or what he was.

It didn’t take long, but it was always taxing on her. Neither she nor the newly-formed Puer Mortis woke for over twelve hours—and horrifically, neither did Elora.

It wasn’t until late in the night that she finally stirred, and naturally, when she woke to see a dead man with a throat stitched back together, she screamed. The shrill sound echoed through the cave system, and the creature’s eyes snapped open—whiter than Mors, nearly glowing. He sucked in a ragged breath, and his wife rushed to his side, shushing him.

I slapped a hand over Elora’s mouth as she continued to scream, squirming and kicking under my hold until I dragged her from the room. She mumbled something into my hand before biting my finger, and I dropped her with a stifled groan. She fell to the ground and shuffled away, her brows furrowed and mouth downturned in anger.

“Elora, stop,” I whispered forcibly as I grabbed her ankle and yanked her back. She started to shout again, and I covered her mouth, flipping her until her back was pressed into my chest. I lowered my mouth to her ear to whisper, “If you bite me again, I will bite you back.”

Her breath hitched, and she stilled. I walked her into another sleeping chamber and kicked the door shut before I led her to the bed. Her hips hit the mattress, and I bent her forward until her front was pressed into it as I leaned overtop her.

“Now do you see why I didn’t want you to know?” I nipped her earlobe, then her neck, moving lower.

When I sank my teeth into the mate mark, she moaned into my hand and arched her back. I ground my hips into her backside, and she whimpered.

“You could’ve hurt yourself—or worse, died.” I enunciated the word as anger pulsed through me once again. I bit harder, re-breaking the skin of her mark, and lapped at the drops of blood. “You don’t get to endanger what is mine, do you understand?”

She nearly sobbed and nodded, wiggling and squirming beneath me, grinding her hips into my hardening cock.

“Do you? Because I think I should make sure you know. I want it to be fucking instinct. Your safety comes before all else.”

I shifted to the side, keeping one hand over her mouth while my other caressed her backside before sliding down to hike her dress up. With it bunched around her waist, she was bared to me—no undergarments. I clicked my tongue and thrust two fingers into her hard, curling them into the spot that drove her mad, moving faster, mercilessly, until she writhed and screamed beneath me.

The only sounds in the room were her: her slickness, her moans, her heaving breaths.

Fucking beautiful.

When she was on the edge, her pussy clamping around me, her movements erratic, I ripped my fingers from her. She whipped her face to me, mouth hanging open like she wanted to protest, but froze, cheeks burning, when I brought my fingers to my mouth and sucked the taste of her from them. She whimpered before burying her face in the mattress, and I let her, merely kissing the top of her head as I lifted my hand and came down on her ass in a hard crack. She stiffened, and a scream tore from her, somewhere between a cry and a moan, stifled by my hand and the blanket.

She didn’t try to flee, though, her only movements that of her heaving chest. She laid beneath me, brave and accepting of her fate, and I already wanted to praise her for it.

“You do not take risks.” Slap. “You do not jeopardize my mate’s life.” Slap. “You do not run headfirst into the unknown.” Slap. Slap. Slap.

Her skin was red and heated when I stopped to massage her ass with my palm and made a mental note to apply a soothing salve later. I slid my hand free of her mouth to move down her body and kneel behind her, widening her legs to reveal her pretty cunt, soaked and dripping.

“Do you understand?” I asked, kneading both of her swollen cheeks.

“Y-Yes,” she cried and inched her legs open farther. “I’m s-sorry, Vaelor.”

Leaning forward, I kissed her glowing cheek once, then the other, pressing my lips to every inch of her as I moved closer and closer to where she needed me. “Tell me you won’t do it again.”

“I won’t. I won’t. I—” She threw her head back and fisted the blanket as I swiped my tongue over her clit.

When I sucked that sweet little bud into my mouth, she stuttered and started spewing apologies, promises, anything she thought I wanted to hear, and I fucking loved it, her begging music to my ears.

“That’s my good girl,” I groaned into her and devoured what I’d been craving since last night.