Page 24 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

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.”

Chapter 5

Merrick

Please help me!

Merrick jolted upright in the cramped cot he’d tried to get a few hours’ sleep in when Lessia’s voice exploded within his mind.

I’m here!

I’m coming for you!

Fuck, hold on!

He tried to scream back at her with all his might, but he had no idea whether she could hear him, and he almost lost it when the only thing that joined the anger within him was fear—pure, vein-chilling dread—that couldn’t come from anything other than his mate.

She was terrified.

Fuck! Merrick threw the blankets to the floor as he flew from the small bed, ignoring Raine’s moan as he accidentally bumped into his cot on his way up to the deck.

He needed to get out of here.

He needed…

Merrick slammed a hand into the damp wall as he climbed the rickety stairs.

He just needed to be with her.

Preferably after killing every fucking bastard who ever hurt her.

We’ll help.