Page 111 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

What everyone…

She was going to kill this stupid Fae.

Taking a step toward him, Frelina seethed, “Why am I so angry?”

She took another step as her vision colored scarlet.

“Why am I so angry?” she repeated.

“Yes, do tell,” Raine responded calmly, only watching her as she closed the distance between them, nearing him where he now leaned on his elbows against the wooden wyvern in the bow.

“Because of you,” Frelina spat. “You’re so fucking stupid. You’re only focusing on forgetting—drinking your damned liquor and floating away in your clouded mind while the rest of us—” She had to clear her throat as her voice broke, and it made her even angrier.

Spit flew from her mouth as she took another step toward him, almost standing chest to chest now.

But she didn’t care.

“While the rest of us what?” Raine shot her a lopsided smile that had Frelina lift her hand to smack him.

Unfortunately, he was faster, and he caught the hand as it slashed toward his cheek.

As he held on to her, forcing her body to fully align with his, she could barely see from the anger that overtook her.

“You don’t get it!” she screamed. “The rest of us are trying to remember every moment we have left! Can’t you see Merrick is nearly breaking? That Elessia is barely holding it together? And still they’re both stronger than you are! Elessia is twenty-five years old! Did you know that?”

Frelina was crying now, but it didn’t matter; she continued, her words coming out clipped and jumbled. They just needed to get out.

“She is going to die!” she cried. “Do you not understand that? She is walking, talking, going on missions, speaking to fucking wyverns! Instead of hiding away in her misery like you are!”

Raine’s smile faded, but he didn’t push her off. Instead, he remained quiet, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist as she yelled at him, his chest moving steadily against her wild one.

“You have lived, Raine!” Her voice cracked with every beat of her heart, and she wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but it seemed as if Raine pulled her closer yet.

She could at least smell his whiskey-and-wood scent clearly now.

“You… you have loved.” Frelina blinked against the tears in her eyes, feeling her cheeks sting from the salt of the ones that had already escaped. “You even found your mate! You have lived while the rest of us… we’ll…” A hiccup interrupted her, and she swallowed. “I’ll die without any of that. I’ll die having lived twenty-four years on an island with only my parents and my sister and…” Another hiccup. “A healer that came once in a while.”

An arm wrapped around her. Then another, and her hand fell to his chest when Raine let it go.

As he tried to pull her into the embrace, she slammed the hand against his chest. “Stop it.”

It felt good.

It helped.

Frelina lifted her other one and struck it as well against his leather-clad muscles when he tugged at her again. “Stop!”

Smack.

“Stop!”

Smack.

“Stop!”

Smack.

Raine just let her take out her frustrations, his arms loosely lying across her back.