Page 28 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

Merrick didn’t know Loche’s whole story, but he’d seen enough during the election to know his upbringing couldn’t have been close to the ones of those snotty human nobles.

Perhaps not even close to the comfortable life he expected Venko had led before getting tangled in this mess.

Loche let out another strangled breath.

Flicking his eyes to the sky where the sun fought with dark clouds wanting to cover it, Merrick sighed.

As he moved his gaze back down, he couldn’t help but take a step toward the human.

“She will.” Merrick sighed again as he put a hand on Loche’s shoulder. “She will kill him. I’ll make sure of it.”

Loche nodded, and for a few beats, silence layered around them as they watched the sun slowly rise.

The wind was warmer again, the scents filling it those of wet cliffs and burned grass—the smells Merrick knew still wafted from Korina.

If he squinted, he could make out the towering island ahead, the black cliffs skirting its entire border, the slippery, steep stone seemingly impossible to scale.

But Merrick knew better. There were several hidden paths—one with stairs, and a few with meandering, narrow trails, where one misstep would cause someone to fall to their death.

He’d taken one of those paths in the war, and he scowled remembering how slick it had been from all the shifter blood running down it.

He could almost smell it.

The death.

The destruction of every town.

The fear that had permeated the air as the shifters realized no one—not even women or children—would be spared.

Merrick dropped his hand from the regent’s shoulder.

For him, it felt like yesterday that the last fucking war had ended.

But humans and shifters forgot quickly… and even for the Fae, even for Rioner, the memories appeared to be hazy.

Merrick scoffed to himself.

He’d seen Rioner and Alarin in tears, bent over their father’s cold body only a century ago.

And they’d be there again soon.

With people crying for loved ones.

People pissing themselves on the battlefield because the glory they’d been promised faded in the bloodshed and pain that fighting truly brought.

People screaming for a mercy that would never come.

“We’ll find her.”

He nearly lost his grip on his magic when Loche spoke again.

Whirling to face the regent, he couldn’t help but let his nostrils flare. “I know we’ll fucking find her. But it needs to be soon.”

An image of himself kneeling next to Lessia’s broken body, the horrid smell of death assaulting his nose, flashed in his mind, but he pushed it away, especially as that guard and Amalise ventured down from the ship’s quarterdeck.

“How are we doing?” Merrick barked at Zaddock.

It was Amalise who responded. “We’re probably two days out from Korina. The winds aren’t in our favor, so we can’t go faster.”