Page 30 of A Promise so Bold and Broken (Compelling Fates Saga #2)

Chapter Thirty

M umbles sounded somewhere outside the muddled darkness that was her mind, and Lessia tried to perk her aching ears to make out what they were saying.

“That was fucking Vincere. But it was worse. I still can’t feel my magic.”

Must be Kerym’s gravelly voice, she thought.

“Why would Rioner have gifted Vincere to Ellow? It’s the one thing that keeps us subdued.”

Raine.

“No fucking clue.” Chains clinked as Merrick snarled somewhere to her left.

“Lessia,” he called, his voice softening. “I know you’re awake.”

She squeezed her eyelids shut when another wave of pain stabbed at her, the sense that her every nerve was on fire rippling through her.

She really wished she hadn’t awoken.

Especially when more sharp pangs of agony—agony that reminded her of a severe toothache she’d had when little—shot through her skull.

“Lessia,” Merrick said again, his voice worryingly gentle. “Do not panic. But—”

Whatever he said was drowned out when she finally gave in and opened her eyes.

To nothing.

It was utterly dark—not a single ember of light filling the space before her.

Jerking her head, Lessia felt a strap of fabric tightly bound around it shift.

Her heart started racing.

No, no, no.

“Lessia.” Merrick’s voice got sterner, but she ignored him as she tried lifting her hands to pull it off.

A whimper built within her when she realized shackles encircled her wrists, allowing her to move her hands only a few inches from where they lay in her lap.

Her feet were also bound, and metal grated on her skin where her trousers had slipped out of her boots.

You’re never getting out of here.

No.

This couldn’t be happening.

Her breathing became erratic as the musty scent of stone and waste permeated her senses.

Water began dripping somewhere in the darkness.

Metal scraped against the floor.

“No!” Lessia scrambled backward as much as the chains would allow, but it proved futile.

A wall stopped her retreat, the force of her back slamming into it wrenching a gasp from her lips.

You’re not there, she tried to tell herself when she managed to draw some air back into her lungs. You’re not there.

But the shriek of metal only came closer.

A bone-chilling laugh echoed in her ears, and she couldn’t hold back a scream as the memories of what would soon follow flooded her mind.

The pain of knives cutting through flesh.

The air she’d have no access to.

The memories they’d make her relive.

“Merrick, you need to do something.”

Lessia flinched at the gravelly voice, and she started begging despite the promise she’d made to herself not to let Rioner’s guards get to her anymore. “Please, I’ll do anything… Please, j-just don’t do this!”

“Merrick, she’s panicking.”

“I know! Fuck!” The curse brushed her ear, and she braced herself when the screeching quieted, the fabric over her eyes dampening as tears spilled from her eyes.

Then soft lips pressed against hers, a gentle voice breathing words into her mouth. “I need you to focus on me. Nothing else.”

Her body reacted before her mind, her lips parting to let the hot air in—let the person before her help her struggling lungs.

It was like the sun peeking through a thick cloud bank.

Her heart leaped before its beats slowed, becoming more even.

“Good,” the person rasped. “Only you and me.”

When Lessia nodded, the pressure of the kiss deepened, and she couldn’t help but return it, a feverish urge blooming across her face when a groan slipped through the lips playing with hers.

A gentle sweep of a tongue brushed her bottom lip, and it was all she needed to crush her lips harder against the others, fusing their mouths together, letting their tongues dance and tangle and play within the kiss.

“I need you,” she whimpered.

“I know,” he said as he nipped at her bottom lip, just enough to break through the mess that was her mind but not break the magic that seemed to wash away the sense of dread within her.

Of course he knew.

He always knew.

“Merrick,” she whispered.

The voice she heard hadn’t been Rioner’s guards.

It had been Merrick.

Merrick’s friends.

“I’m here,” he whispered right back. “I’m always here.”

Air continued to travel into her lungs, and with each breath, her mind cleared, but she couldn’t stop herself from intensifying the kiss, her lips clinging to his as if every second could be the last.

And he gave her as much—if not more—back.

A tingle of delight shot up her spine when he growled against her mouth, and lust sliced through her like the pain had done before.

Pressing up against him, she tried to align her body with his, but the chains she was bound in—and that he was bound in—got in the way.

An involuntary sound escaped her when the urge to merge their bodies—to merge their souls—overtook all other thoughts, and she struggled against the restraints with everything in her.

“My little fighter,” Merrick whispered, a low laugh rumbling through him as she let out another unbidden moan when his lips left hers.

“Stay still,” he ordered quietly. “I’m going to get this off you.”

His mouth whispered across her cheek, leaving jolting kisses in its wake as it traveled upward toward the fabric covering her eyes.

After kissing her temple, he spoke again. “I’m sorry. This might hurt.”

Lessia nodded, and she dug her nails into her palms when Merrick’s canines scraped her skin, ripping into the blindfold.

With a sharp jerk, the fabric tore, and low light reached her eyes.

As she glanced upward, Merrick’s eyes were the first thing she focused on.

And that sense of falling gripped her again.

But it wasn’t frightening,

No, it was a fall she wanted.

A choice.

A decision.

A surrender.

A movement in the corner of her eye had her snap her head to the side, and she couldn’t stop the blush burning up her neck when she met Raine’s and Kerym’s eyes from where the males rested against the wall opposite her and Merrick.

The wall that was perhaps a few feet away…

She quickly moved her gaze back to Merrick.

The half smile that had pulled at his lips fell when her wide eyes flitted between him and the other two, and something cold twisted in her gut when uncertainty glimmered in his night-sky ones.

Pushing down the embarrassment, Lessia leaned forward and pressed another kiss against his mouth, that all-consuming need flickering to life once more.

“Thank you,” she said shakily as she sat back down again.

Merrick’s eyes flashed. “Anytime.”

“I’m sure,” Kerym muttered. “Now that that’s done, how are we getting out of this place?”

Lessia let her eyes travel around the small cell for the first time.

The space couldn’t be more than eight feet square, the three large Fae males taking up most of it, and the only light filling the room trickled in from a thin gap beneath the thick stone door Kerym leaned against.

Her eyes moved to Merrick as he sat down next to her, and as she drew a deep breath to calm whatever he’d awoken within her from that kiss, a metallic scent joined the musty smell of cellar and sweat that hung heavy in the air.

Lessia stiffened.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, eyeing his constrained movements as he tried to fold his tall body comfortably in the small space.

It wasn’t the chains that had that muscle in his jaw flex, his shoulders rising an inch as he stared back at her.

“Merrick,” she demanded quietly when he dismissively jerked his head.

“He took ten arrows in the back for you.”

She moved her eyes to Raine when he spoke.

Even in the dark she could tell he was paler than she’d ever seen, and a sheen of sweat layered across his face, a drop of it trickling down his temple and falling to the floor.

A surge of anger roiled in her stomach when she turned back to Merrick, and she realized the dark stains on his tunic weren’t sweat.

“It’s fine.” Merrick nudged her with his leg. “They ripped them out before throwing us in here. I’m healing.”

“You’re healing slowly. Those heads were laced with Vincere.” Kerym lifted a shaking hand. “I’d forgotten how much that stuff fucking hurts. Vincere? In Ellow… I don’t understand.”

“We… we’re still in Ellow?” Lessia shifted closer to Merrick, trying to make out whether blood still dripped down his back and avoiding his gaze when he rolled his eyes at her.

“We are,” Merrick said as he positioned himself so she’d have no view of his back.

“Where did you think we were?” Kerym glanced at her with a wrinkle between his brows.

“I-I… Maybe in Vastala,” she mumbled.

She was an idiot.

She’d thought she’d gotten better at handling the reminders of Rioner’s cellars…

But apparently she’d made little progress.

Kerym’s eyes searched hers, and for the first time, his face softened.

“It gets easier,” he said quietly. “I should know.”

Lessia frowned as she stared from him to Merrick, and when Merrick nodded, she winced.

“How long?” she asked.

“Long. I wasn’t the most obedient soldier.” Kerym pulled at the chains encircling his wrists so the sound echoed through the small cell. “And neither was Thissian, so Rioner’s father figured out if one of us was kept in his wonderful dungeons, we’d be more agreeable .”

“I’m sorry.” Lessia’s eyes fell on her own chains, the muddy hands in her lap.

“Don’t be.” Kerym shot her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s how I met my mate. She liked to anger the Rantziers as well. All the way to the bitter end.”

A shuddering breath left her.

The Rantziers were the cause of so much hurt.

Not just for everyone in this cell.

But all half-Fae who’d ever been mistreated…

Or who’d had to hide…

All the soldiers that died for them…

All the Fae who weren’t nobility…

Her sister.

Her father.

Her nostrils flared when she lifted her gaze again.

Merrick’s eyes brightened with understanding at what swirled in her mind, and she could almost hear his voice.

You’ll get your revenge.

She would.

If it was the last thing she ever did, she’d get her revenge.

Merrick’s forehead creased the longer he watched her, and something she didn’t fully understand flickered across his features before he moved his eyes to Raine and Kerym.

“We need to get out of here. I’m pretty sure there is a kill-on-sight order for me and Lessia, and I doubt Loche will listen to either of you brutes if we die,” he said as he flicked some tangled strands of hair out of his face.

Raine dragged a finger down the wall, grimacing as he brought the white dust to his nose. “I’m pretty sure they’ve figured out a way to cover the walls in Vincere. I at least still cannot wield my magic.”

Kerym frowned as his eyes landed on Lessia, but she didn’t sense the energy pull—the slowing of her thoughts—that she usually did whenever he decided to train her to stop him from siphoning. “Me neither.”

“None of you Fae bastards are going anywhere. Especially the traitor. We have special plans for you.”

Raine and Kerym froze at the voice drifting through the door, but Merrick moved quicker than should be possible, with him being injured and in a room he wouldn’t even be able to stand upright in.

Chains screaming, he moved into a crouch before her, his entire being vibrating with the growl leaving him. “The only plan you’ll have is walking right into the arms of your dead loved ones if you touch her.”

A glacial laugh bounced between the stone walls. “Oh, we won’t touch her . At least not yet. We saw her during the election. She responds much better to others’… suffering.”

A chill raced over her skin, but she didn’t let her mind linger on his words.

Instead, she tried moving so Merrick wasn’t blocking her—although he immediately shifted as well, so that proved entirely useless.

Shaking her head at him, she cleared her throat. “We need to speak to Loche. He is in danger. All of Ellow is in danger.”

That laugh rang again. “You just won me one silver. We were betting on what your excuse would be to see Loche.”

A hand tapped the door, the rhythmic thuds quickening Lessia’s pulse. “We know you’ve come to kill him, and unlike you, we don’t need a blood oath to be loyal to our leader. You won’t get anywhere near him.”

“Please!” Lessia called. “We’re not lying! Just bring him here—you can keep him outside the door, but we need to speak to him!”

“No.” The voice sounded farther away, receding footsteps joining it. “We’ll be back in a while… I would say stay up, but I think I’ll let you stay in here for a few days. Even with the handy powder to block your abilities, I’ve heard of your companions. The Death Whisperer… Tsk, tsk. We will not take any risks.”

Another door slammed somewhere outside, and as icy silence layered across the cell, Lessia desperately pulled at her chains again, but it was of no use.

They were fastened with the thickest bolts she’d ever seen, deep beneath the stones lining the floor.

Noting that none of the males even tried, she finally gave up, allowing Merrick to nudge her back into the spot beside him.

“That went well.” Kerym closed his eyes as he rested his head on the wall. “I’m taking a nap.”

“Damn chains,” Raine snarled as he twisted his arm in what looked like a very painful angle. “I can’t even reach my flask.”

“They took it anyway, you idiot,” Kerym scoffed.

With a deep groan, Raine struggled into the spot next to Kerym, banging the back of his head against the closed door a few times before his eyes angrily squeezed shut.

Lessia flicked her gaze up to Merrick’s. “What are we going to do?”

He captured her eyes. “Survive. Escape. Kill Loche and his guards.”

Despite the situation, her lips twitched, and she pursed them so not to smile. “We can’t kill him, Merrick.”

“Why not?”

He actually looked disappointed, and Lessia shook her head at him.

“Because we need him on our side. The people of Ellow—well, most of them—love and respect him. We need him to believe us so that they’ll fight with us.”

“Another leader can take his place.” Merrick’s brows rose in challenge. “He hurt you. And his guards are planning on hurting you again. I usually don’t even give one chance, and this man is pushing my patience.”

“This is not about me.” Lessia tilted her head as he frowned. “That’s why I didn’t set after Frelina right away. It’s about Havlands, about every innocent person here. We need him to save them.”

Merrick’s teeth ground so hard she was surprised Raine and Kerym didn’t hush him. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“What am I wrong about?”

“Everything is about you.”

Her face heated when Merrick’s eyes burned into hers, and she couldn’t stop herself from leaning into him, resting her head against his shoulder.

A deep breath rumbled through him as he lay his head atop hers, and that sense—that sense of home—came over her.

Even in this small, dark, and terrifying place.