Page 12 of A Promise so Bold and Broken (Compelling Fates Saga #2)

Chapter Twelve

“W hat was it you drank?”

Lessia’s voice was still shakier than she’d like, but she tried to push the apprehension away as she trailed a step behind Merrick down toward the shoreline where he and Raine had fought.

“You’re not having any, so you don’t have to worry.” Merrick’s tone was his usual surly one, but she didn’t miss how he stiffened, perhaps still feeling the effects of the liquid.

A raspy voice broke in. “The little Faeling can’t handle some pain? How ever is she going to save the realm?”

Lessia barreled into Merrick when he halted, her nose filling with his wild, untamed scent as it pressed against his leather tunic.

Pushing off him, she glared at Raine. “I know Fae males can’t handle a blow to their pride, but can you please just shut your mouth?”

Raine threw his head back and cackled, and disgust pricked her skin at the drops of liquor running down his stubbled chin and the bloodshot eyes staring back at her when he lowered it again. “Training will be good for you. Put some of that anger to use. Even if you can’t do it like us real fighters.”

“Lessia,” Merrick warned when she snapped her teeth at Raine.

“No!” She switched her glower to Merrick. “He’s right! If I can’t handle what you just did, I won’t be able to handle whatever we’ll face when we leave this stupid island.”

Raine was right.

There must be a reason they trained like this.

And if she was to survive even a minute in battle, she needed to do everything she could during practice.

It wasn’t like it would kill her.

Right?

“You have nothing to prove to him,” Merrick said quietly. “We’ve trained for centuries. You’re only just beginning.”

She bore her eyes into his. “So when you started, you didn’t do this?”

Merrick’s silence told her enough.

Stalking over to Raine, she shot out a hand.

“Give it to me,” she demanded.

“Lessia! What are you doing?” Ardow called out, and when she turned, she found him and Venko staring at her with wide eyes.

“I’m doing what I must, unlike you bastards,” she hissed under her breath.

Merrick let out a shocked chuckle from her side, and damn if the sound of it didn’t try to curl her own lips.

But she bit down the smile, waved dismissively at Ardow, who’d begun approaching her, and snarled at Raine, “What are you waiting for?”

The Fae grinned at her and plucked the small vial from his tunic.

But before she could grab it, Merrick yanked it from his grip with one hand, the other wrapping around her arm and pulling her across the beach until even Raine couldn’t make out his words.

“This is no child’s play.” Merrick’s stare burned so hot across her face she couldn’t stop her eyes from rising to meet his, and some of the conviction that she needed to do this wavered at the stark silver flecks whirling in his gaze.

As he relieved her of one of her daggers and placed the small bottle in her hand, he closed his own around her fingers. “I know you can handle pain, but you should know what you’re getting yourself into. Rioner’s father developed this so we could fight Fae that could quell our magic—fight them while injured and near crazy from agony. So that nothing could stop us from winning.”

Lessia swallowed as she glanced from the red-hued liquid in her hand to Merrick’s eyes.

But she couldn’t stop the small voice inside her from reminding her how the physical pain during those years in Rioner’s cellars had silenced the guilt, the fear, and the terror from being stuck within her own mind.

It had been a relief whenever the guards who preferred physical torture showed up.

A reprieve from the emotional pain threatening to break her.

She winced as Loche’s face flashed in her mind.

The hate in his gray eyes.

The disgust as he watched her on her knees, his name falling from her mouth.

With her eyes on Merrick’s, she uncorked the vial and lifted it to her lips.

As the surprisingly warm liquid trickled down her throat, a muscle in Merrick’s jaw twitched, and his whispers joined the wind whipping across the beach.

Lessia narrowed her eyes at him as she wiped her mouth, but the whispers continued, charging the air with magic, and the hair on the back of her neck rose as the tendrils caressed her bare arms.

It wasn’t until she rubbed them that Merrick’s eyes snapped down, his hands clenching, and the whispers slowly faded.

“What are you doing?” she asked when his forehead creased, his fingers continuing to flex by his sides.

“What happened in that room with Loche?” Merrick gritted.

It was like taking a punch to the gut.

Lessia opened her mouth to tell him to shut his mouth.

Tell him she couldn’t speak of it.

Not now.

Not yet.

Perhaps not ever.

But instead of the words she’d intended, a gasp caught in her throat.

Something warm and sticky flooded her veins.

Not like the oily sensation of Merrick’s magic.

No.

It was more like old honey that clogged every pore, every nerve, every blood vessel, muting any ounce of magic inside her.

Then, white-hot pain tore through her skull.

Lessia dropped the vial and dagger, pressing her hands to her face as a cry broke through the air.

It sounded as if from far away, and she wasn’t certain whether it was actually her own when it bounced within her mind.

It got worse.

Blinding pangs of agony shot out from her head into her arms, her legs, her gut, her back, until she wasn’t sure whether the world around her still existed.

She tried to focus on the air she could feel flowing into her lungs.

On the salt she could taste on her tongue.

On the presence beside her—a silhouette in the darkness that was this painful reality.

She drew another breath.

Focus, she screamed at herself—out loud or in her head, she didn’t know—as her eyes tracked the shadow’s movements.

Something pulled her toward it.

Told her it was there to help.

Her eyes trailed the flickers of silver sparking around the figure.

It looked like one of the angels she’d seen in her father’s books growing up.

As if one of them had left the pages and now was here with her in the pit of agony.

Another breath made its way into her body.

The pain didn’t ease, but with every breath flowing into her lungs, she began to feel the world again.

The sand under her feet.

The wind brushing her skin.

Merrick’s voice softly calling her name.

“Lessia.”

She pried her eyes open, finding him crouched before her.

“H—” she tried, but she needed to suck in one more breath against another wave of pain.

“It’s not real,” Merrick said.

Right.

She’d drunk something.

She drew another breath.

A red vial.

Another breath.

She’d chosen to do this.

Another breath.

Lessia managed to straighten her hunched back.

While the pain was still there, those pangs still shocking her body, when she blinked, she could take in the beach again.

Merrick was still on his knees before her.

Raine was a few yards away, a worried expression marring his drunk face.

Venko and Ardow had also inched closer, identical looks of fear deforming their features.

“G-give me.” Lessia’s eyes dropped to the dagger in the sand, then to the one in Merrick’s hand. “P-please.”

He seemed as if he was about to argue, but then a low rumble vibrated in his chest, and he did what she asked, although he shoved the daggers harder into her open hands than he needed to.

Squeezing the hilts, Lessia drew more air through her nose.

It helped, gripping something—had her focus on something other than the pain.

Placing her feet a few inches wider, she scowled at Merrick. “Go on.”

Merrick’s pearly hair flew around his face as he shook it, another growl rolling through him, but he unsheathed his sword.

She didn’t wait for a signal to start.

Flying forward, Lessia focused every part of her mind on Merrick’s unguarded gut.

But as he’d done with Raine, he sidestepped her.

“Good,” he rasped into her ear, tapping her back with his sword. “But not good enough.”

She hissed through her teeth as she spun around, forcing her mind to ignore yet another jolt of pain, but found Merrick’s sword pointed at her heart.

“Stay behind your daggers at all times,” he growled at her, his face an inch from hers. “You’re making it too easy.”

Sweat stung her eyes, but she charged again, ensuring her daggers moved first.

Merrick danced around her, his sword lining up with her gut, the edges of it scraping against her arms as she spun again.

And again.

When she cried with frustration, Merrick’s lips brushed her ear. “Switch up your pace. If you use the same tactic, your enemy will learn your approach from the first blow.”

Lessia snapped her teeth together, and before she could overthink, she crouched, crying out when it made the pain in her head worse but managing to shove one of the hilts into Merrick’s knee.

When he swayed, she shot up, both daggers raised and ready to sink into his muscled torso.

She hesitated for only a second.

Still, Merrick’s free hand clasped her wrists, pulling her flush against him before she could finish what she’d started.

Glaring down at her, he hissed, “You do not falter. Ever! It’s fight, flight, or die! That second just killed you!”

Her nostrils flared as she glared back at him, a blood-red hue filling her eyes.

And when he released her wrists, she didn’t hesitate.

She drove a dagger right into his shoulder.

A loud laugh burst across the beach behind them, and when she blinked and noticed Raine slamming his hands on his knees, she realized what she’d just done.

Lessia dropped the daggers as if she’d burned herself.

“I’m sorry!” she cried as she watched the blood trickle down Merrick’s tunic and stain the white sand beneath them red.

Stumbling the step she needed to reach him, she pressed her hand against the wound.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as the warm blood coated her palm.

“Look at me,” Merrick said in a glacial voice.

No.

She couldn’t.

What had she done?

She’d stabbed him, for gods’ sake!

Overwhelming guilt—worse than she’d ever felt—chilled her blood, and she wanted nothing other than to be back in the king’s cellars, taking whatever punishment they saw fit.

What was wrong with her?

“Lessia, look at me,” Merrick rasped.

Her bottom lip trembled as she finally lifted her eyes.

But there was no anger in Merrick’s gaze.

Instead, a grin brightened his face, and his eyes glittered as he said “Good.”

His smirk widened when she stared at him with rounded eyes. “But you missed my heart.”