Page 7 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

“Tell me, halfling, how long did it take you to forgive him for all he’s done to you?” Rioner asked, a hint of humor playing in his tone.

While Lessia could tell her father stiffened again, the air filling with the taste of confusion, she refused to respond.

Refused to give in to this one thing.

She would break for the king.

Gladly. It was what she had been trying to do every hour of the past days.

But not for this. Because if Merrick heard this was the moment she broke…

She bit her lip so hard it muted the pain within her.

She couldn’t go there.

A hand laced around her arm, and she winced when the nails broke through her already sore skin.

“Your king asked you a question,” Torkher spat. “Answer.”

Lessia didn’t even bother giving him a shake; she only kept her chin up.

Then her head slammed to the side, the ringing in it joined by Kerym’s and her father’s outraged screams.

“Answer!” Torkher screamed into her face, his vile breath fanning over her.

She remained quiet.

Another blinding strike had the back of her head slam into the wall so hard the crack echoed in the room. Or perhaps it was all in her head. Lessia didn’t really know.

“Answer!”

She kept her lips firmly shut.

“Stop this!” her father screamed at the same time as Frelina whimpered.

But when Kerym’s soft words reached Lessia’s ears, she realized her sister wasn’t making noises of pain for herself.

“She’ll be all right, little Lina. Your sister is strong.”

Kerym was right, Lessia thought as another fist crashed into her already broken ribs.

She was strong.

Because of Merrick.

Huffing a breath, she tried not to let her body coil farther in, but the pain wouldn’t allow her to straighten her back.

“May I?”

She vaguely heard Torkher utter the question, but when her body was roughly shifted to the side and her shackles clinked, she realized he must have asked whether he could free her to get better access.

That’s what he liked to do when they were alone too.

Having her strapped to something didn’t allow him to hurt her everywhere .

“Fuck!” Kerym exclaimed when she was dragged away from his side.

“Lessia!” Frelina cried, the sound making Lessia’s knees buckle.

But the Fae guard only tightened his grip, his arms sliding in under hers to drag her across the hard floor.

Pain pulsated in the darkness of her blindfold, and when Torkher released her, she tumbled to the wet wooden planks beneath her.

“Keep her conscious,” the king warned. “I do not wish to have to come back. Especially if Merrick is on the way… we need to move quickly.”

A low sound rumbled in the Fae’s chest, and Lessia couldn’t help but whimper when he ripped her tunic off, the scent of iron telling her the force opened some of the wounds from yesterday that the fabric had clung to.

“I want him to come,” Torkher hissed into her ear as something cold and sharp played across her exposed back. “See, I want him to find your broken body and know exactly who did this to you.”

The blade dug into her skin, and Lessia couldn’t stop another scream when Torkher broke down the mental shield she’d managed to keep up for the past few days.

She was standing over her own naked and broken body, and the pain slicing through her was like nothing she’d ever felt before.

It was like a thousand daggers striking at once.

Like a fire blistering across every inch of her skin.

Like a darkness that swallowed the world, never to allow the sun to shine its soft light on it again.

With her hands on her knees, she tried to breathe.

But it wasn’t possible.

Neither was the scream she tried to force from her lips.

Instead, her eyes widened when they snagged on large, golden-tan hands, and she quickly straightened.

Behind the pale and bruised body was a lake, and as she stared at her reflection, she realized she wasn’t Lessia at all.

It was the Death Whisperer that stared back at her.

Her mouth fell open, her eyes returning to her own body.

Merrick was carved into every bit of skin visible from this position, and she started shaking her head.

No.

No.

He couldn’t see her like this.

No.

“Enough, Rioner!” Her father’s growl cracked the image before her eyes, and for the first time in her life, she was grateful when darkness once again surrounded her.

But her face crumbled when she realized that even though the image wasn’t real, the sharp kisses of pain dancing across her back were, and so was the metallic scent of blood that whirled all around her.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Alarin begged. “Please, just stop this. Please. ”

She wanted to tell him no—to be quiet.

But she couldn’t.

Not when fighting to keep the magic invading her mind out.

Not when fighting to stay awake, to not let the other, thicker darkness lurking at the edges of her eyes win.

She didn’t even have the energy to wince when more letters were carved into her skin, the movements fast and determined, almost as if Torkher had done this before.

“Please!” Her father was crying now, and it was all she could do just to stay alive when a low cry left Kerym as well, a deeper one following it.

Rioner laughed again, and she briefly wondered whether one practiced the evil sound that penetrated what was usually something merry.

“You can’t handle this, brother?” the king taunted. “She was with me for years . Years when she believed no one was coming for her. You left her. This serves you right.”

Lessia braced herself when the familiar sound of water rushed into the room.

Droplets stung the wounds on her skin, and she bit down another whimper, knowing exactly what was coming, when Torkher stepped back.

The rushing inched closer, the sound roaring in her ears.

“Rioner, please . I beg you! I’ll do anything! Anything!” Alarin’s desperate voice barely carried over the sloshing sounds, and Lessia swallowed, quickly pulling in whatever air she could through her broken nose and dry mouth.

You’re strong enough.

Merrick’s voice drowned the sounds around her.

Do you want me to tell you no one—mate or not—has loved anyone the way I love you? That I would laugh as the world fell apart as long as you stood by my side? That even if I could only have one fucking night—one night pretending you’re mine—I’d take it?

“I love you,” she whispered back, trying to be grateful for the two nights they’d had.

It was at least more than one, she argued with the Merrick she’d conjured in her mind when he frowned at her.

Then the water swallowed her.

But not like it had when she dove from that boat to escape Ydren.

No, this water was invasive, forcing itself through her nose, through her mouth, filling her lungs in what felt like mere seconds.

Even her eyes brimmed with water, washing the image of the beautiful Merrick away.

She couldn’t stop her body from trying to pull air into the now water-heavy lungs, nor when it convulsed from being unable to do so.

Shards of wood pierced her skin as she rolled on the floor, desperately trying to escape the king’s magic, and she thought she should have appreciated it when Ydren was the only thing she needed to fear from the sea.

Lessia tried to focus on Merrick’s lips and his words when she panicked in that cell in Ellow, but her mind snapped to another mouth, one that had pressed against hers right before the sea swallowed her last time.

A vague memory fought its way through her frantic mind from her last seconds on the ship in Ellow, and it wasn’t the water that made her jerk when something warm traveled up her arm.

Loche…

He’d… he’d given her the stone.

But where was it?

The warmth spread from her arm across her shoulders, to her other arm, quickly making its way through her body, and then… then something other than crashing waves filled her ears.

Voices.

Low mumbling voices speaking to each other with words that Lessia couldn’t make out.

Voices of which she wasn’t certain who—or what—they belonged to.

But she didn’t care when the darkness pressed on her mind.

Instead, she screamed in their direction, begging that her gut feeling was true: “Please help me. Help us! Help Havlands.”