Page 65 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

“I…” she tried, but her eyes bulged as the male tightened his grip.

“You carry his fucking name! You and your sister and your uncle and anyone else left with the Rantzier blood are going to die. We’re going to display you like Rioner did us. A fucking example for others, hanging down the gates to his castle.”

She could feel her life draining.

A sense of tiredness, of warmth, wrapped around her as she started choking, and Frelina struggled to keep her eyes open when she realized the male was continuing to speak, but the words were lost on her, his moving mouth only occupying her gaze.

He wasn’t evil, she thought as she began drifting away, her body convulsing under his hard grip.

He was in pain.

Like all the rest of them.

And he thought she was to blame for it.

Somewhere around her, the screaming intensified, and Frelina found herself smiling when she pictured her mother and father running toward her, perhaps even in a field like the one outside their home.

Then something pressed against her mouth, and she pushed half-heartedly at a hard presence before her as the thing touching her lips pried them open, forcing warm air down her throat.

There was no strength left inside her, and she let whoever it was tilt her head back, continuing to make her chest rise and fall by blowing their breath into her.

It took a long time for her body to react, and when it did, the first thing that left her was a whine. Then a cough. Then something warm pressed against the side of her face, and the words “Breathe. Just breathe, please” brushed her ear.

She did as they told her, too tired to fight, even as the image of her parents faded and muddled.

“Breathe, little Rantzier. Breathe for me.”

Wetness pressed against her cheek, her nose, her forehead, and she wrinkled it when she started coming to, feeling hard ground and rocks digging into her lower half while her upper body rested on something soft.

“Look at me,” the person coaxed, and again she just followed the orders.

Eyes opening, she looked right into green-and-gold ones.

Her body relaxed as they swept over her face, and when Raine bent down to kiss her cheek, kiss her forehead, hugging her closer, she started crying.

Not the soft tears she found trickling down the red-haired Fae’s face, but full-on sobbing, with snot rushing out of her nose and panicked convulsions.

Raine just held her. He didn’t hush her, he didn’t say it was all going to be all right, he didn’t speak into her mind. He just let her cry.

“Th-they were… h-he was…” Frelina sobbed, and she didn’t know if it was from the relief of having been saved or from guilt as she found the male’s head severed from his body beside them, his eyes still raging, even in death.

“I know,” Raine finally whispered. “This… is what war does. It’s horrible and painful and fucking devastating.”

Frelina crushed her eyelids shut as she cried into his jacket, her hands fisting the leather as Raine strengthened his hold almost until it hurt.

Finally, finally, the sobs softened, and she pulled a breath into her hurting throat. Then another one, and another, until she could look up at Raine, finding his eyes already there for her.

For a long moment, he just stared at her.

“I thought I lost you,” he eventually said, something like surprise sneaking into his low tone. “I thought… I…” His eyes closed for a second before they bore into hers again. “I can’t lose you. I… don’t want to.”

Frelina didn’t think as she pulled at his jacket again so he fell right into her lips, the urgency making their teeth clatter together.

She didn’t care. She didn’t care that it was wet and salty.

She needed it.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered when he pulled back.

Then she opened her mind and let him see that she wanted him.

In every way she could have him.

What was the point in lying now? To him or herself?

She could hear the fighting, which didn’t take a single break around them. Could smell the death and despair.

“I…” Raine’s features sagged. “I don’t… I can’t…”

“I know,” she responded quickly. “Just… for now… Let’s… just pretend.”

Pretend until she died, and then he could pretend that this… whatever was between them wasn’t bigger than he realized.

She could see it in his eyes. Raine searched her face, and she could tell there was more he wanted to say, but instead he pressed his forehead against her own and sighed.

When she nodded, Raine got them both to her feet, and his hand didn’t release its grip on her own as they faced the fighting again, the swords and daggers clinking as they met each other and the humans screaming as the birds ripped chunks of their bodies or lifted them off the ground and threw them off the cliffs with their strong claws.

The scene before them was devastating, and it was clear… they were losing.

Quickly.

“We need to get out of here.” Zaddock’s face appeared to her left, and she didn’t have time to wonder where he’d come from when he pointed behind Venko, who stood beside him. “There is a hidden path over there. It’ll bring us to the ships.”

Frelina only now noticed the woman in his arms, and she pressed a hand to her chest in relief, her neck bending back, when Amalise’s blue eyes opened to her own.

The blonde looked from Frelina up to Zaddock’s chiseled features, and she had the gall to grimace. “You’re the one who saved me? I will never hear the end of this.”

Loche’s right-hand man only smiled at her. “Come on. They’re not doing so fine down there either.”

Frelina caught the look Zaddock cast Kerym’s way, and something within her froze as the former took a shuddering breath before waving for them all to follow Venko as he started down a narrow, rocky path.

While she was glad Kerym seemed able to move again, when Raine squeezed her hand, she knew, somehow she knew, it would only get worse from here.