Page 1 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

Lessia

M errick grinned at her as he opened his arms, and Lessia couldn’t help but break into a run to reach him where he stood upon one of the cliffs beneath her childhood home, his silver hair dancing around his face in the warm summer breeze.

The sun blasted her skin as she pushed herself to move faster, and she had to fight to keep her eyes from closing against the bright light as her feet dug into the sand to close the distance between them.

But as Merrick’s arms wrapped around her waist, she gave up and let her lids fall shut, allowing her other senses to take in the male she loved.

Merrick.

Her mate.

His wild scent whirled around her, and she couldn’t get enough of how it filled her nostrils—nor how it filled her with that sense of freedom, of casting off shackles, of being utterly and entirely herself.

“I missed you,” he murmured into her hair, and his heart began pumping faster, the drums tapping against her own chest and filling the air like a soft melody.

Pulling back, she finally opened her eyes to his, and the ones that usually held the darkness of the night sky were now nearly pure silver, the flecks appearing to whirl as they flickered over her.

“I missed you too,” she whispered before she crashed her lips against his.

The groan ripping from him nearly sent Lessia to her knees, and only because his strong arms held her did she not tumble down onto the white stone beneath them.

Gods, she had missed him so much.

Lessia wasn’t sure how long it’d been, but any time away from him was too long.

She’d gotten too used to him always being there.

I’m here.

I’m always here.

Lessia smiled against his mouth, interrupting the kiss, and when Merrick pulled back to search her eyes, she let her lips pull even wider until he also broke into a grin.

“I’ll never get used to that.” Merrick shook his head so wildly his hair flew around it, sparkling against the blue sky behind him. “I’ll never get used to you being mine.”

Lifting her hand to caress his cheek, her palm rasping against the silver stubble growing there, she responded, “I’m always yours. Always.”

Merrick brushed his lips against hers again. “As I’m always yours.”

“Are you coming or what? We’ve waited forever!” A voice broke through the clear air, and Lessia hadn’t thought her smile could go any wider, but her cheeks began hurting when her sister impatiently waved at them from behind Merrick’s tall frame before she sprinted up the trail toward their home.

After a final look at Merrick, who nodded and released her, she grabbed his hand and began dragging him the familiar path up to the stone house where she’d grown up—where she’d spent her first twelve years of life.

Large green bushes flanked the road, and the birdsong she remembered loving as a child filled her ears as copses of trees popped up on either side.

The sound of small animals rushing across the forest bed joined the chirping and the wind rustling the leaves, and Merrick pulled at her hand when a rabbit crossed their path, to stop her from stepping on it.

Lessia drank in every sound, every smell, every familiar curve of the road.

She’d missed this island so much.

Thirteen years…

That’s how long it’d been since she’d last been here.

Her favorite place.

Her home.

She felt Merrick’s eyes on her and quickly tried to shake the melancholy that had begun filling her upon remembering the night she’d left, upon remembering the mother who’d made this place a haven.

The mother who was no longer.

The hand wrapped around her own tightened its grip, and when it pulled her to a stop once more, gently tugging at her to turn around, she let it.

“It wasn’t your fault, Elessia.” Merrick tried for a smile, but the darkness that now filled his eyes betrayed him.

And when a second voice—another familiar one, but this one filled with anger and resentment and disgust—broke the gentle melody floating around them, his grin collapsed completely.

Lessia spun around even before her father could finish his sentence, her heart shattering at the twisted grimace on his face.

“Of course it was her fault.” Alarin took a step toward them, and Lessia’s blood ran cold when she realized his white tunic and breeches were splattered with something dark…

Something red?

Despite the warning blaring within her, Lessia sniffed the air.

Iron overtook all the summer scents that had twined around them before.

Blood. It was blood that painted her father’s clothing—blood that ran down his hands, dripping onto the light stone lining the path as he continued to walk toward them, his amber eyes crazed as they flitted between her and Merrick.

“She killed her sister. And then she killed her mother.” Alarin stopped a few feet away, but drops of spit still landed on her face as he forced the words out. “She’s a monster.”

“No.” Lessia stumbled toward him, but Merrick’s grip on her hand held her back. “No, Father. Frelina is alive! I just saw her.”

Her father’s face crumpled with pain, before his arm shot out behind him. “If she’s alive, how do you explain the graves?”

Lessia didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t stop herself from following her father’s shaking hand, and when it revealed two white stones—one with Frelina Rantzier carved into it and the other Miryn Rantzier , both with dark stains marring the shiny fronts—a scream burst from her lips.

“You should feel pain,” her father spat. “You killed my mate. My daughter. You should suffer like I have.”

No.

No, this was all wrong.

Lessia shook her head, barely able to see through the tears that welled up in her eyes.

Still, when her father unsheathed a sword hanging by his waist, she didn’t shrink back.

Instead, her eyes fixed on the graves of her sister and mother.

Two of the people she’d loved the most.

She did deserve this, didn’t she?

If they were dead…

If they’d truly left this realm to move on to the afterlife?

It must be her fault.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the sword flying through the air, the whistling sound brushing her ears, but it wasn’t until Merrick’s hand ripped from hers that she snapped her head up.

Tears spilled down her father’s cheeks as his arm fell to his side. “Now you’ll know.”

Know what? It was as if her thoughts refused to collaborate.

But then a gurgling sound—a horrible, wet, blood-curdling gurgling sound—reached her, just before a loud thump accompanied it.

Turning her cotton-filled head, she found Merrick’s body crumpling to the ground, the sword he ripped from his gut clinking as it fell to the stone. His arms and legs splayed out in strange positions across the grass-peppered path, almost as if he’d taken a great fall.

Lessia wasn’t certain if the sound that split the air came from her own mouth.

It was animalistic, a primal roar of pain that should break worlds apart, that should carry all the way to the Old World… perhaps even to the gods.

And when that thread she’d just begun to notice, the flicker of awareness between them, went dark, something broke inside her.

Hands flying to her chest, she fell to her knees beside her mate.

“Merrick!” Lessia’s voice sounded as if from far away, as if it wasn’t her own anymore, as if the pain was too great to let anything else in. “Merrick!”

She dropped her hands to his face and forced it her way, but the eyes that met hers…

There was no light behind them.

No dancing silver flecks.

No deep darkness.

And his face?

There were no hard lines that she loved to watch soften.

There was no twist of his mouth to hide a smile.

“Merrick!” She snapped her head down to his chest, but no heart thumped against it, and no air drove it up and down.

Another eerie, spine-rattling sound exploded through the air.

“Now you know,” her father echoed. “Now you know how it feels. What you did to me.”

She couldn’t look at him.

Not when anger began working its way through the pain.

Not when that anger turned to rage, and her magic flitted to life behind her eyes, burning under her skin.

He’d killed him.

Her father had killed Merrick.

A hiss flew through her clenched teeth.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she gripped Merrick’s bare arm to keep herself from storming toward her father and from allowing the voice in her mind to urge her to avenge her mate.

To kill like he’d been killed.

As Lessia dug her nails into Merrick’s smooth skin, something touched the edge of her consciousness.

Don’t lose focus.

Her forehead scrunched.

How many times do I need to tell you not to lose focus?

Merrick’s deep voice bounced within her mind, and her eyes flew open.

He still lay there beneath her, chest unmoving and face serene, the bloodied sword beside him and the wound it had caused still oozing blood, pumping it from his gut, and Lessia fought another cry weaving its way up her throat.

Focus, Merrick’s voice snapped.

I’m trying, she wanted to scream back, but the words caught in her throat when she dug her fingers further into his arm.

Her eyes trailed the golden skin.

The smooth golden skin.

As she released her grip, her eyes followed the marks her nails had left.

But…

There was no dark traitor mark.

She glanced at the other arm, but it was as smooth as the one she’d held—no raised scars, no black letters contrasting against his skin.

Lessia moved to look at her own arms, realizing with a start that the skin on them, too, was smooth and unbroken.

No traitor mark.

No outline of the blood oath she’d once sworn.

It… it wasn’t real.

This wasn’t real.

She pushed at her mind, forcing it to focus.

What was the last thing she remembered?

There had been water.

A ship.

The king.

Loche and Merrick standing before her.

Suffocation.

Something warm being pressed into her hand when cold lips collided with hers.

Pain shooting up that same arm when heavy wetness surrounded her.

She took a shallow breath.

The king had figured out she was the one the curse spoke of.

And this?

This wasn’t real.

She could see it now.