Page 84 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

Shifting her, which was easier than he liked since they must have starved her, he confirmed his suspicions.

Like he’d expected, there were even more dark scars of his name branded onto her.

He knew why Torkher had done it.

The fucking bastard.

He’d done it so she’d hate his name—so she’d look at herself and always be reminded of the dark side of Merrick—and so that Merrick would look at her and always know what they’d done to her.

He would not give that fucker the pleasure.

He’d change his damned name if it came to that—maybe go by only the Death Whisperer.

And before that…

Merrick rose from the bed, helping Lessia to the end of it, setting her feet on the floor before he knelt before her.

As he unsheathed the ruby-decorated dagger, he leveled his eyes with her amber ones. “I want you to mark me.”

Her eyes flew wide—then quickly narrowed—and he expected aNo fucking waywas right at the tip of her tongue, but he spoke before she did.

“I can’t stand it.” Merrick lowered his voice, pressing the dagger into her hands. “I can’t stand everyone knowing you’re mine”—his eyes dipped to the scars across her body—“if they don’t know that I am also yours.”

“Merrick,” she started.

“Lessia,” he interrupted. “As soon as I saw you in that fucking cellar, I was yours. Perhaps even before. Perhaps I’ve always been yours, and I’ve just been waiting for you to come into my life.”

Merrick slid his hands up her thighs, staring at her.

“I want to wear your name everywhere across my body.” Lifting the arm with his own traitor mark, he angled it so the light from the lonely lantern in the room spilled onto it.

“Like this one, I want yours and mine to be the same. You are mine. I am yours. That’s just how it is. The good and the bad and the pretty and the ugly. We will fucking share it all. That’s how it was meant to be, and it’s how it will always be. I want the world to fucking know it. I want everyone I ever meet to see that every part of me—every dark corner of my soul—belongs to you.”

“You are insane,” she whispered, the hand holding the dagger trembling, and her pale face still moving back and forth.

“Perhaps.” His eyes challenged hers. “But if you won’t do it, I’ll carve your name across my forehead, and I expect it won’t look terribly good, as I’ll have to do it in a mirror and it might end up backward.”

She laughed then.

A cracked, rough, harsh laugh, and it might have been the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

“Please.” His knees dug into the floorboards, but he didn’t care as he moved to lay his chest across her lap, his arms resting gently around her back. “Please, Elessia.”

A chill whispered across his bare skin when it was quiet for a moment, but then she whispered, “I promised never to deny you anything.”

“You did.” His words were muffled as he pressed his face against her legs. “And this is what I want.”

“You’re insane.” She sighed again, and Merrick expected more protest.

But then a cold blade pressed into his skin, and he’d never been so fucking happy to feel pain.

The entire time she worked on him, he whispered the two words he never wanted her to forget.

“You and me.”

Chapter 17

Merrick