Page 20 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

His lips pulled at the sight, and they lifted farther when his gaze followed where hers had landed.

The king stood against the railing, Ydren and Raine closing in on him, and there was fear lacing his scent as his eyes darted toward Lessia and Merrick, who followed the Fae and wyvern closely. Ardow and the guard Lessia had released fell in step with them.

Seemed like it was the king’s turn to die, and Merrick wished for nothing more than to taunt him, but he kept his mouth shut.

This was Lessia’s moment.

They all halted when Lessia raised a hand, and she pulled Merrick with her when she took one more step to stand a bit ahead of the others.

“So here we are,” the king spat.

“So here we are,” Lessia echoed softly.

“I guess it was inevitable.” The king rested his arms on the railing, and Merrick kept a close look to ensure he wouldn’t try anything with the water that rushed below him. “You can’t fight the gods’ will.”

Something tugged at Lessia’s face, and a feeling—a very strange feeling—roiled within Merrick. His brows pulled as he stared at his mate—at the emotions fighting across her face.

“Oh, I think you can.” Lessia cocked her head. “But you did it wrong. You did exactly what they wanted you to. Played right into their hands… So stupid for the mighty regent.”

“Look at you, lecturing me like a child,” Rioner spat. “You’re exactly like your father.”

“Do not speak of him,” Lessia warned, her voice lowering. “You have no more right to do so.”

Ydren reinforced Lessia’s command with a growl that had her hot breath flying across the deck like the heat from the fire had before.

“As if a fucking halfling can tell me what rights I have.” Rioner let out a cold laugh. “What do you think will happen now? Your sister takes the throne? No… They will not accept her.”

Her sister? Merrick shared a look with Raine, and he didn’t like what began to form on his friend’s face.

“I don’t know,” Lessia admitted. “But it’ll be something better than your rule.”

Rioner seemed about to snap at her again when the guard she’d released from his oath called, “Just kill him! He’ll continue to spew his poison otherwise.”

Lessia didn’t even look over her shoulder at the guard. Instead, her grip on his hand tightened, and for the first time, no warmth raced from her skin to his.

Merrick’s eyes traveled across Lessia’s determined face to the king and back again.

A harsh laugh forced them back to Rioner.

“She hasn’t even told you.” The smile on Rioner’s face was genuine.

“Stop!” Lessia ordered, but the king ignored her.

“This is amazing!” He slapped his hands on his knees as more laughter bubbled out of him.

Merrick snarled softly, moving to place himself between the king and Lessia, not risking her for a second if this was the king’s way to distract them.

But even as he did so, a small voice within him started speaking up, a warning blaring at the despair he could now sense from Lessia.

He didn’t require another look at Raine to learn that he also had started to understand something was wrong. Truly wrong.

“What is going on?” that damned Ardow asked, his forehead creasing as he also took a step toward the king—as if that would help him understand better. “Lessia?”

His mate didn’t speak, and for the first time in a long time, real, hair-raising fear gripped the Death Whisperer.

Not anger.

Or rage.

Or desperation.

But awful, skin-crawling, blood-chilling fear.

The whispers always brushing his ears went quiet, their silence, which he usually sought, so deafening he almost wished for the roar of the fire to return.

He could feel it. Could smell it in the air. Could hear it in the waves. Could sense it in how the world stilled.

He knew whatever followed now… it’d be the end.

The king laughed again. “The Death Whisperer doesn’t even know his mate is destined to die with me.”

Merrick’s knees went out.

His vision began flickering, and something within him broke as the world around him exploded.

A torrent of water rose from the sea, and although everyone around him sprinted forward, including the vicious sea wyvern, it swallowed the king faster than they could blink.

The next moment, he was gone.

Merrick stayed on his knees.

This was what Lessia had kept from him.

He’d seen her on that other ship as she stared east, looking for her friends… The sorrow in her eyes had been there because she wasn’t certain she’d see them again.

It’s what he’d felt from her in her house… that deep need to be in control, the desperation as she’d clung to him.

Merrick’s eyes drew to the sky, and he cursed the gods then.

He’d questioned them before, sure. But he’d thought there always was a purpose—that perhaps he’d been given his gift to protect Lessia, to keep her alive…

But this?

He couldn’t even shake his head.

What was the purpose?

His gaze trailed across the deck as he fought with himself within his mind.

Raine tried to talk to him, but he didn’t respond. The wyvern used her wings to return to the sea, but he didn’t move. His eyes followed Lessia as she walked up to Torkher and slit his throat, silencing him so swiftly Merrick should have been proud.

But he couldn’t…

For the first time in his long life, he fucking… couldn’t.

He remained on his knees.

He heard Ardow ask Raine and the guard to join him in finding the others.

He remained on his knees.

But he met Lessia’s eyes as she walked up to him, and when she also knelt, wrapping her arms around him, he didn’t refuse her.

Instead, he folded her broken body against his broken heart and held her there.

They were both silent.

Because what was there to say?