Page 67 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

How their life should be.

How their love should be.

The happiness.

The fun.

The excitement.

Everything they should have had.

It wasn’t fair.

But the world wasn’t fair, was it?

She’d learned that young. Had seen it in her own family. In the children on the streets of Vastala. Had heard it in the cries from the other prisoners in Rioner’s cellars. Had seen it in Ardow. In Amalise. In Loche. In Merrick.

In everyone she loved.

Lessia’s chin lowered of its own accord, and although it was only a small dip of agreement to his question, a rush of air left Merrick before he gripped her face more firmly and pressed his lips to hers.

“Thank you,” he whispered when he came up for air. “Thank you.”

She smiled against his lips. “People like you and me don’t get happy endings, do we?”

She’d meant the words to come out playfully, trying to lighten the heavy wall of air pressing against them from all sides, but somehow they didn’t. Something high-pitched worked its way into her tone, and the slight tremble was as clear as the sky above them.

Merrick stiffened in the way only full Fae could—like he was a statue, no blood flowing through his veins and no heart pumping life into his body.

Shifting so he could glare into her eyes, still with his fingers caressing every bit of the dirty skin on her face that he could reach, his nostrils flared.

“Perhaps we only get endings.” Merrick’s eyes searched hers, something in them flickering—an understanding, the way he always understood her, joining the night sky. “But let’s make that ending one for the fucking books, shall we?”

A tear made its way down her cheek at the same time as low laughter sprang from her lips. Merrick’s mouth twitched as well, and she couldn’t help but grin wider at how he tried to hide his smile—exactly like he’d done on Ellow during the election.

A low growl interrupted her giggling, and she looked up to find Ydren’s head bobbing above the railing behind her.

Lessia smiled at the beast as well.

She’d come.

She’d come for Lessia.

She’d come for all of them.

Lessia didn’t even have to start getting up before Merrick lifted her and gently set her on her feet. But as he motioned to stay back, she gripped his hand in one of her bandaged ones and dragged him with her to the sea wyvern.

Reaching out with her other hand—the broken one—she placed it cautiously on Ydren’s snout, forcing her features to remain soft when a sharp pain shot up her arm.

“Thank you.” Lessia met Ydren’s shiny eyes as the wyvern pressed into her hand. “Thank you for saving us.”

She didn’t know how, but it was as if Lessia could hear Ydren shake off the thank-you, as if… the wyvern shrugged her nonexistent shoulders.

“How did you know?” Lessia continued stroking the violet scales as she let her eyes wander across Ydren’s large body and the wings she’d not seen before but which now seemed so obvious.

Of course the leathery, shiny wings belonged to this magnificent creature.

Ydren bent her head toward Lessia’s left arm, and Lessia nearly jumped when the wyvern’s snout dragged against it, and it lit up—Lessia’s skin glowing like the sun above them.