Page 22 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

Lessia

M errick still hadn’t said a word.

If she hadn’t felt his heart thundering against her chest, she might have thought he had more serious injuries than the wound that had already begun clotting in his side.

Lessia tightened her arms around his neck.

It wasn’t a physical wound that kept the Death Whisperer on his knees.

No. It was a mental one. One that cut through hearts and souls and tissue without drawing blood. But one that would scar all the same.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his hair as he hugged her back, fighting the tears threatening to spill over.

Merrick only shook his head and held her closer, even though he was still careful not to press on any of her open wounds.

Gods, she loved him so much.

It felt as if it would choke her. It was as if it could drown out all else, leaving just him and her together in this mess that was their reality.

Even now… even finding out what she’d kept from him, he didn’t hold it against her.

The rage she could feel shifting within him wasn’t directed her way.

Lessia couldn’t help the sob that left her.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want to leave this world.

She just… didn’t.

“I won’t allow it.” Merrick finally moved, altering his position so his back leaned against one of the wooden masts and gently tugging her with him so she straddled him, his arms remaining around her as if he couldn’t stand having an inch of space between them.

“Merrick,” she started, but the look in his eyes made her swallow the words she’d planned to say.

The sharp darkness in his eyes was eerily similar to what she saw there when she became lazy as they trained.

Gently removing her arms from where they’d rested around his neck, Merrick laid her hands atop her thighs, and he spoke quietly as he pulled straps of fabric off the tunic he wore, using them to bind her bloodied wrist, then moved her broken bones into place—letting her take small breaths when pain shot up her arm before continuing.

“I won’t allow it, Elessia. I won’t. There will be a way. There is always a way. And we’ll find it. I promise you we’ll find it together.”

His eyes bore into hers.

“You’ve fought so bravely for so long. Please. Please just fight a little more.”

She followed the silver swirls within his eyes, relishing the sense of falling—the sense of freedom and love and safety—they always ignited in her.

“Please,” Merrick whispered when he finished, his hands moving to cup her cheeks. “Fight a little more for me?”

Lessia swallowed at the pain pulling at his sharp features—at the hope making the silver in the dark eyes before her glitter in the sun.

You and me.

She could see it so clearly.

How their life should be.

How their love should be.

The happiness.

The fun.

The excitement.

Everything they should have had.

It wasn’t fair.

But the world wasn’t fair, was it?

She’d learned that young. Had seen it in her own family. In the children on the streets of Vastala. Had heard it in the cries from the other prisoners in Rioner’s cellars. Had seen it in Ardow. In Amalise. In Loche. In Merrick.

In everyone she loved.

Lessia’s chin lowered of its own accord, and although it was only a small dip of agreement to his question, a rush of air left Merrick before he gripped her face more firmly and pressed his lips to hers.

“Thank you,” he whispered when he came up for air. “Thank you.”

She smiled against his lips. “People like you and me don’t get happy endings, do we?”

She’d meant the words to come out playfully, trying to lighten the heavy wall of air pressing against them from all sides, but somehow they didn’t. Something high-pitched worked its way into her tone, and the slight tremble was as clear as the sky above them.

Merrick stiffened in the way only full Fae could—like he was a statue, no blood flowing through his veins and no heart pumping life into his body.

Shifting so he could glare into her eyes, still with his fingers caressing every bit of the dirty skin on her face that he could reach, his nostrils flared.

“Perhaps we only get endings.” Merrick’s eyes searched hers, something in them flickering—an understanding, the way he always understood her, joining the night sky. “But let’s make that ending one for the fucking books, shall we?”

A tear made its way down her cheek at the same time as low laughter sprang from her lips. Merrick’s mouth twitched as well, and she couldn’t help but grin wider at how he tried to hide his smile—exactly like he’d done on Ellow during the election.

A low growl interrupted her giggling, and she looked up to find Ydren’s head bobbing above the railing behind her.

Lessia smiled at the beast as well.

She’d come.

She’d come for Lessia.

She’d come for all of them.

Lessia didn’t even have to start getting up before Merrick lifted her and gently set her on her feet. But as he motioned to stay back, she gripped his hand in one of her bandaged ones and dragged him with her to the sea wyvern.

Reaching out with her other hand—the broken one—she placed it cautiously on Ydren’s snout, forcing her features to remain soft when a sharp pain shot up her arm.

“Thank you.” Lessia met Ydren’s shiny eyes as the wyvern pressed into her hand. “Thank you for saving us.”

She didn’t know how, but it was as if Lessia could hear Ydren shake off the thank-you, as if… the wyvern shrugged her nonexistent shoulders.

“How did you know?” Lessia continued stroking the violet scales as she let her eyes wander across Ydren’s large body and the wings she’d not seen before but which now seemed so obvious.

Of course the leathery, shiny wings belonged to this magnificent creature.

Ydren bent her head toward Lessia’s left arm, and Lessia nearly jumped when the wyvern’s snout dragged against it, and it lit up—Lessia’s skin glowing like the sun above them.

“It’s the stone.” Merrick squeezed her hand when she continued staring at her skin with her mouth open. “It chose you.”

The stone?

Loche’s face, the rough kiss, flashed before her eyes.

He’d given it to her.

“It chose me?” Lessia echoed as she watched the warm glow fade when Ydren pulled back from touching her arm.

“It did. Of course it did.” Merrick’s eyes were pure silver now, and she fought the urge to look away when they swept over her with so much pride she almost couldn’t stand it. “When you touched water with the stone in your hand, it chose to merge with you. It deemed you worthy.”

“He’s right.” Raine’s voice rumbled across the deck, and Lessia spun around so quickly that Merrick’s hand was ripped from hers, and even Ydren let out a protesting noise.

Lessia threw Merrick a quick smile as he pulled her back, snaking his arm around her waist to keep her close as first Raine, then Ardow, then Kerym and his brother, and finally her sister and the guard exited the hatch.

Raine nodded toward Ydren. “The stones choose whether the Fae wielding them are worthy of their power. They haven’t worked since the R…

since your family abused them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time since the war centuries ago.

They’re absorbed within you—live with you until you die—allowing you to call upon the wyverns when you’re in need. ”

Lessia nodded slowly, glancing from Ydren back to the group.

She staggered when her gaze landed on her sister’s tear-stained face, more tears wanting to gloss her eyes when Frelina tried for something Lessia suspected should be a smile but which seemed more of a broken grimace.

Lessia was about to step toward her sister when Raine froze, then whirled around and put a muscular arm around her sister’s shoulders, pulling her small frame against his.

Sharing a quick look with Merrick, whose silver brows snapped together in the same way she expected her own did, she decided not to say anything.

If Raine wanted to protect her sister…

Who was she to interfere?

Instead, Lessia cleared her throat. “So… where are the rest of the wyverns, then?”

The voices she’d heard when Rioner was choking her must have been them. And there had been many.

Ydren made a soft sound, and something about it had the hair on Lessia’s arms rise.

Slowly turning away from the group, she found the wyvern’s eyes.

The seconds that passed seemed like they lasted an eternity, the cold that had begun running up and down Lessia’s arms spreading across her body.

“They’re not coming, are they?” she whispered when Ydren’s eyes clouded.

The creature shook her head so fast that droplets of water flew around her, and Lessia’s stomach sank.

She didn’t need to ask why. Like before, she could somehow feel what Ydren was thinking. The wyverns didn’t believe that Lessia was worthy. They thought the stone must have made a mistake.

One word echoed within her mind.

A warning.

Rantzier.

Rantzier.

Rantzier.

Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath.

It would be all right. They’d survived Rioner today, after all.

But you needn’t only survive Rioner but thousands of rebels and an entire nation of Oakgards’ Fae.

She swore at the voice bouncing against the walls in her mind.

“Fuck. If the wyverns aren’t coming, I think we have a problem.” Kerym’s curse had her eyes fly open again, and her gaze swept over the worried faces that must have started to realize the same thing she did.

Ardow’s pinched one.

Her sister’s devastated one.

Kerym’s worried one.

Thissian’s defeated one.

Raine’s hardened one.

The Fae soldier’s confused one.

But it was Merrick’s face…

The fear twisting his features. The fear—not for himself, not for his friends, not for this world, but for her—that had her say what she did next.

“Then I must go to them.”

Merrick seemed as if he was about to argue with her, a familiar vibration shaking his chest, but she captured his eyes and pierced them with her own.

“You made me promise to fight.” She didn’t care if the others heard their conversation. “This is me fighting.”