Page 95 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

Lessia swallowed hard before she asked, “You don’t… like it?”

She’d get Raine to stop if it actually bothered her sister this much. A fierce protectiveness washed over her as she cast hereyes upward toward the red-haired Fae. She’d even use her magic on him, if it came to that.

Especially seeing glassiness fill Frelina’s eyes.

“It’s… it’s not him,” Frelina whispered, and pressure laced Lessia’s chest. “I… I just will never have the real thing. I know… I know it’s horrible what’s awaiting you, but… I can’t help but be jealous of what you and Merrick have. Even… even what you had with Loche.”

Lessia tried everything she could to catch her sister’s eyes, but Frelina refused, the tip of her nose turning pink from holding back tears.

Lessia squeezed the railing, ignoring the soreness in her newly healed hands.

She’d been so wrapped up in her own pain. In Merrick’s pain. In her sister’s pain over their father’s death. But she hadn’t thought…

Her sister was right, though. She might not be part of the curse, but with how things were looking now… not many of them would make it out alive, especially the ones of them who weren’t vicious centuries-old Fae warriors.

“I’m sorry,” Lessia whispered.

“I know.” Frelina moved so her shoulder brushed Lessia’s. “I’m sorry too.”

A thickness filled Lessia’s throat as she croaked, “I know.”

By birth, the two of them had been doomed. Halflings born to the brother of the king—the king who hated their kind more than anything else.

Her father had tried to give them some kind of life by hiding them away.

But what was life in the shadows?

Yes, Lessia might have wished not to have some of the experiences she’d had to endure…

But she’d lived.

She’d loved.

Frelina, on the other hand…

Tears welled in her eyes as she pressed closer to her younger sister.

Frelina needed time too.

“It’s almost upon us,” Frelina murmured, and Lessia sensed Merrick had come up behind her, his arms circling her, always protecting her, always there. She leaned into his touch as she met Ydren’s large eyes, but as she opened her mouth to respond, the world went white.

And then…

She was alone.

Lessia whirled around, but there was only white around her. Beneath her. Above her.

“Merrick!”

Then:

“Frelina!”

She tried to call their names again, but it was as if the mist around her swallowed her voice, like cotton filled her chest. Stumbling forward on the surprisingly hard floor beneath her, she squinted, throwing her gaze around.

It was all white, but somehow…

The white reminded her of the pressing darkness she’d been forced into in Rioner’s cellar, and her pulse began thrumming under her skin, the sound rushing in her ears as she turned her head back and forth, trying to make out something—anything.