Page 6 of A Promise so Bold and Broken (Compelling Fates Saga #2)

Chapter Six

“S tupid fucking wyvern. Wake up, Lessia!”

Something hard slammed into her back as a familiar voice broke through the darkness within her mind.

“Fuck! Wake up!”

Another strike had her chin slam into her chest, and as she came to, the sense of not being able to breathe made her eyes spring open, terror jolting through her blood.

Lessia caught a glimpse of beautiful swirling silver flecks for a second before a wave of nausea hit her and she expelled a grotesque mixture of seawater, algae, and whatever else the depths had forced her to consume.

A stifled sob escaped someone nearby, but she couldn’t look up as someone yet again delivered a sharp blow to her back, causing her to splutter and relieve her stomach and lungs of more water.

Lessia shuddered as the disgusting mixture left her raw throat, keeping her eyes above the mess she’d made, the dark plants layering across the sand like the snakes sunning themselves on the white rocks that surrounded the capital of Vastala.

After coughing a few more times—and finally only vomiting bile, which she was grateful for even though it burned her throat further—she could draw a breath again.

Pulling in one more, savoring how the air lifted the fog in her mind, she’d started lifting her head when yet another blow landed on her back, driving out the few remaining drops of seawater.

Her head snapped up when she heard air rushing once more, and she quickly rasped, “Please, stop hitting me.”

Merrick’s face came into view, and his eyes hardened as he growled, “Stop fucking dying, then.”

She wanted to snarl something back at him, but she swallowed the remark when his gaze flew across her body and a vein strained on his neck.

As she followed his furious eyes, her own widened when they snagged on her ripped clothing—on the large gashes in the black fabric.

Only one of her boots remained on her feet, and she cast a quick glance around her, finding the other lying a few feet away.

Her tunic was so severely ripped it barely covered her chest, while her trousers only had one leg remaining, and her cloak…

Nowhere to be seen.

Flying upright, Lessia quickly tugged at the ripped pieces to ensure all the essentials were covered before sweeping her eyes around their surroundings.

Mainly to avoid Merrick’s sharp gaze but also to understand where she’d ended up after the stare-off with the wyvern in the depths of the Eiatis Sea.

Eyes rounding further, she took in the white beach they stood upon.

She and Merrick were only a few feet away from where the sea lapped the coastline, the soft whispering of water vastly different from the violent waves she’d just escaped.

Behind them towered tall green grass, the blades rippling in the warm breeze, and as she drew another breath came the smell of summer: a sweet aroma of newly bloomed flowers and warm, dry earth mingled with the saltiness from the sea.

A small cottage stood a few hundred feet above the beach, and from the reflection behind it, Lessia guessed there was some type of river or stream weaving a soft path inland. When she followed the shimmering water, she glimpsed more buildings, these with straw roofs as yellow as the sun above them.

It appeared to be a small village or formation of houses, although she couldn’t be too certain, as they must be a mile or perhaps even more away.

Another choked sound broke the soft rustling of the wind, and she tore her gaze away from the rhythmic swaying of greenery.

Her eyes locked on Ardow’s where he stood next to Venko a few yards up the beach.

Both men were drenched, but their clothing was intact, and while Venko’s hands shook by his sides, he offered her a relieved smile when his blue eyes landed on hers.

As she confirmed neither seemed harmed—or at least no more wounded than they had been on the ship—her skin tingled from the seething presence behind her.

When she turned around to face Merrick again, it was all she could do not to cower under the glare he shot her.

The Fae’s muscles were taut under the dark tunic sticking to his body, his pearly hair plastered around his raging face, and the lethal humming in his chest told her he was struggling not to yell at her again.

An urge to stick her tongue out at him rose within her—to replace that sour expression with a surprised one—but she forced it down. Instead, Lessia clenched her fists and asked roughly, “What happened?”

Merrick’s nostrils flared as he stepped toward her and shoved her daggers into her hands. “Why did you swim downward, Lessia? Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the shiny blades, at how the rubies and the amber stones mockingly glowed at her in the bright sunlight.

Lifting her slitted eyes to Merrick’s burning ones, she snarled, “Of course I wasn’t!”

Merrick stepped into her space, nearly fusing their wet bodies, and she had to bend her neck back to keep meeting his gaze.

“That was truly stupid,” he said in that lethally low voice that always sent a shiver down her spine.

A muscle in his jaw ticked as he kept her eyes hostage, and she ground her teeth when another wave of anger roiled inside her.

She wanted to punch that stupidly chiseled jaw.

Perhaps leave him with a black eye to match the night-sky shade of his livid eyes.

It wasn’t like she’d seen much when she dove into the water.

How could she have known the wyvern would dive too?

Merrick continued to glower at her, his broad chest heaving so close to hers that tiny droplets of water landed on her bare skin.

“There could have been more of them,” Merrick hissed. “Wyverns like to swim in the depths of the sea. Everyone knows this!”

Not everyone, apparently.

Lessia tightened her grip on the daggers, wondering if lodging one in Merrick’s gut would be worthwhile.

But when his eyes flicked down to her hand for a moment before returning to hers, and he arched a brow, she groaned.

She almost wished he still couldn’t look at her—couldn’t stand the unnerving scrutiny of his gaze, the reflections of understanding whenever she shifted an inch before him.

When she thought she’d combust from the tension, she snapped her gaze to the sand and grumbled, “Perhaps I am stupid, then!”

A growl roared through Merrick, so loud it felt as if the beach should shift with it. “Perhaps you are! Do you know what it was like, watching that beast carry you up from the sea? We thought it had chewed you up and decided to taunt us with your dead body!”

Lessia stiffened when his hand landed on her shoulder.

But he didn’t throw her down the way he liked to in the training ring, as she’d expected.

Instead, Merrick slammed her into his chest, his arms enveloping her as he crushed her against him.

His heart raced against her body, thrumming through her, and another low sound rumbled in his chest as her body relaxed against his.

Blinking, she glanced up at him.

His eyes collided with hers, and apprehension whispered over her skin when she didn’t understand what was swirling within the silver-flecked darkness as Merrick shook his head at her. “Don’t do that to me again.”

Before she could ask him what had his pulse so heightened, someone cleared their throat behind them. “M-Merrick?”

Lessia tried to wriggle free at the worry that laced Ardow’s voice, but Merrick was too strong, his arms only tightening their grip when she shifted.

“What?” Merrick hissed as he continued to look into her eyes.

“There is someone over there. And that wyvern seems to know him.”

Merrick’s arms left her so quickly that a rush of air threatened to blow her ripped clothing off, and she pulled at it as she took a stumbling step after the Fae.

Ardow sidled up next to her, with Venko taking the other side, but Lessia froze when she glimpsed what Ardow had noticed over Merrick’s broad shoulders where he walked ahead of them.

A copper-haired Fae, perhaps not as tall as Merrick but at least a few inches wider, stalked toward them on the beach.

Sunlight bounced off the jagged tooth-like edges of the crescent blades he held in his hands, and beside him glittered the wyvern she’d encountered in the dark waters.

Lessia caught the wyvern’s violet gaze, and a quake shook her knees when it bore its eyes into hers before splashing its tail down so hard a wave of water crashed onto the beach behind the Fae.

The wyvern seemed to follow the Fae’s lead because when the male lifted a large hand, both he and the wyvern halted about thirty feet away.

A jerk shook her body when Merrick also froze mid-step, and Lessia’s blood chilled when she realized she couldn’t move either.

Her fingers were locked around the daggers she carried—her feet stuck in the sand.

Only her eyes could shift slightly, and she realized Ardow and Venko also stood still as statues beside her.

Who are you?

Fear roiled in her stomach as the unfamiliar voice boomed through her mind, and if she’d been able to move, she would have sprinted in the other direction when cold claws seemed to creep into her head.

We’re friends of Merrick, she thought.

You lie. Merrick is blood-sworn to the king. He does not keep friends.

The voice floated and echoed through her mind, bouncing off the invisible walls she fought with everything in her to keep upright.

But it proved useless.

One gentle swipe of those claws broke through the barriers she’d spent years putting up.

Into all the memories she usually buried deep inside her.

Closing her eyes, she tried to fight—tried to find any way to keep this Fae out of her mind—but the little magic she’d had left after facing the wyvern faded so quickly she thought she might not have had any to begin with.

The presence began prodding through her memories as if it were reading a book.

Stop! Please! she begged when an image of a bloodied Frelina formed in her mind. I’m not lying!

A dark chuckle reverberated inside her thoughts. That’s what they all say. I shall find out for myself.

A silent cry tore through her when more memories flashed, splitting pain ripping at her chest as images began forming before her eyes.

Her mother smiling in the kitchen.

Her father gifting her the dagger in her hand.

Meeting Ardow in a dim tavern.

Walking into the warehouse with Amalise and Ardow for the first time.

Kalia stepping off the boat and running right into her arms.

Merrick threatening her in the tavern.

King Rioner on the cliff.

Lessia squeezed her eyes tighter when Loche’s smug grin ripped into her chest as he told her she couldn’t join the others during the festivities.

The memories started flipping faster.

Her sitting before that fire in the cabin.

The fight with Craven.

The attack at the castle.

The debates.

The cliff when the men surrounded her and Loche.

No! No! No! Please! Lessia screamed inside her mind.

But the library came next.

The kiss.

The conflicting feeling tearing through her as if she were living it again.

The ride, leaning against Loche’s warm chest.

The cave.

A whimper burst out of her mouth.

Loche pushing her up against the wall.

The desire flooding her veins.

A choked breath left her when the memories switched to Ardow in the cell.

Then to the night the noble Fae visited Ellow.

The presence inside her mind lingered when she looked up at her father, the love she held for him whirling inside her, mingling with the guilt from what she’d done to him.

Then it switched to an opening door.

The whimper turned into a scream as she watched herself crawl toward Loche on the floor, the pain so raw she thought she might split right down the middle when his gray eyes emptied.

Merrick’s battered body came into view, and curiosity flooded her.

But it wasn’t her own.

No, the presence made her relive the full memory of forcing Merrick to look at her.

Of how uncertain she’d been that it would work.

Of how surprised she’d been at his eyes.

You’re quite broken, aren’t you, little Faeling?

She felt as if her legs would give out when the memories finally faded.

But the presence remained inside her mind, holding her body and mind hostage, and she could still only open her eyes, glimpsing the drop of sweat trickling down Ardow’s temple to her left and how terror filled Venko’s expression where he faced forward to her right.

“Why are you here, Merrick?”

Lessia’s gaze flew forward when the Fae finally spoke out loud.

Like the rest of them, Merrick stood rooted in the sand, but the air around him rippled, and she could almost feel how close he was to losing control over his whispers.

Gritting her teeth, she thought she might prefer the oily whispers layering over her body to these sharp talons holding her mind in a death grip.

At least Merrick couldn’t read her mind, even though he seemed to pick up a lot just from studying her.

“Always a pleasure, Raine,” Merrick said quietly, but the warning in his tone was as evident as the sea beside them. “You’ve seen it all in my mind, and you still need ask?”

Holding her breath, Lessia watched Raine flick the sharp blades in his hands before elegantly sheathing them across his back.

“I’ve heard it’s the polite thing to do.” Raine shrugged.

Merrick’s teeth glinted in the sunlight when he bared them in a snarl, and Lessia’s eyes widened when his taut shoulders shook from restrained anger.

“Get out of my head. I will not warn you again,” Merrick hissed, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment before they snapped open.

“Threatening me, Merrick?” Raine’s lips curled back to show off his own teeth as he crouched, hand shooting out to gesture toward the wyvern. “You know how quickly I could tell those weak humans to greet Ydren here.”

Raine’s gaze flicked to her for a moment, and her heart began thundering against her ribs at the look in his hazel eyes when a smile curved one side of his mouth. “And while the young mind-bender seems to have some power, she isn’t strong enough to resist me.”

A snarl burst out of Merrick, and whispers exploded across the beach.

If she could move, Lessia would have flinched from how thick the air became—like an oily shield wrapping around her, the soft wind almost shimmering—as if the air had somehow turned solid.

Venko let out a strangled cry when the oily ripples intensified, and Ardow’s eyes seemed as if they would pop out of his head before they crashed shut.

Even the wyvern backed up an inch where she hovered a few yards from the shore.

“You know I could kill you in a second,” Merrick growled. “We used to be friends, Raine. You’ve seen what is coming for Vastala in my mind! You’ve seen why we’re here… We used to fight these threats together.”

“That was a long time ago, Merrick.” Raine shook his head. “I haven’t seen you for years, and today you come to my sanctuary, bringing two angry humans and a Faeling who is so broken she might fall apart right here. For what? To ask me to fight for the realm that destroyed everything I loved?”

Lessia’s eyes met Ardow’s briefly, and she would have snapped her teeth at him if she could at the pity brightening his brown ones.

Forcing her gaze forward, she locked it on Merrick’s tense back, watching how the curls of his hair slowly shifted in the wind—or perhaps within his whispers—she wasn’t entirely certain what had them dancing around his face.

“No,” Merrick gritted. “We came because we had nowhere else to go. We only need a safe place to stay until we figure out our next step.”

A scoff left Raine. “Those two humans plan to escape you the first chance they get. The one over there”—Raine nodded toward Ardow—“is planning to convince the others to join those ignorant rebels and leave you behind. The other one seems content finding somewhere far away from all of you.”

Ardow sucked in a breath beside her, and he refused to meet her eyes when she sought his.

She slowly exhaled through her nose.

How had Ardow become such a stupid bastard?

She’d saved his life.

The life the rebels had gladly sacrificed.

And now he wanted to go back to them?

Had he not heard what Merrick had told them? Did he truly not grasp the danger they faced if an entire nation of Oakgards’ Fae descended upon Havlands?

The rebels might have a few shifters and half-Fae with magic, but…

Like in the previous war, they’d not stand a chance against full Fae.

“Perhaps,” Merrick responded quietly, and Lessia was certain from his tone he’d already suspected as much of Ardow. “But you owe me, Raine. I will not ask more of you than to shelter us. Once we have a plan, we’ll leave you be, and you can choose to go as many years as you like before seeing me again. Or forever, if that’s your choice.”

Raine sighed as he slipped a hand into his white shirt.

Tensing, Lessia watched closely as he dug around for a while, wondering if he’d perhaps bring out another lethal weapon, even worse than the jagged blades on his back.

And when he took a step toward Merrick as he did it… everything before her eyes turned a vivid red.

Raine glanced her way, his mouth curling into a cold smile that didn’t touch his eyes as he took another stride.

Overwhelming fury built inside her, a feral snarl working its way through her throat, and she could see the talons, the presence inside her mind, clearly for the first time.

It was like a shadow version of Raine.

Only it wasn’t a Fae form; it was more similar to the wraiths Preysaih, the god of death, had used in his warmongering when he still walked this realm.

She’d seen drawings of them in her father’s books growing up, and if it hadn’t been for the anger coursing through her blood, she might have shuddered.

But like the wraiths, Raine’s eyes were clear as day within her mind, and when she shut her own, she let her Fae intuition guide her.

Her eyes turned inward, almost as if they peered out of her soul, and when she met the hazel ones in her mind and a golden sheen reflected in them, a low laugh left her.

Get the fuck out, she purred.

The presence evaporated.

Snapping her eyes open, she didn’t hesitate before storming toward Raine with the daggers in her hands, sand flying around her feet as she pushed herself to run as fast as she could.

“Lessia!”

She ignored Merrick when he hissed at her, able only to focus on the still-smiling Fae before her.

She didn’t even care that the wyvern let out an ear-splitting shriek or when it splashed its tail so viciously that a stream of water fell over her.

Raine shot a glance toward the beast, the cold smile giving way to an amused one. “Stand down, Ydren.”

The wyvern let out another cry, its hostile gaze fixed on Lessia when she flashed her teeth at it as she continued charging toward Raine.

He snickered as she stormed up to him, and when the thing he pulled out was merely a flask, her strides slowed, confusion weaving a crease between her brows.

Unscrewing the cork, Raine grinned at her before drawing a large swig.

When he finished, he wiped his mouth with his white shirt, staining it with a brownish tint, and reached out the flask toward Lessia. “You might need this more than me. You seem a bit high strung.”

A hiss left her, but Merrick’s voice broke in from behind before she could tell him to shut his mouth. “Back off, Raine.”

“Very well.” Raine shrugged. “Perhaps this might be more interesting than I thought. It’s been a while since someone could escape my hold.”

Huffed breathing sounded behind her, and when she spun around, Venko stood with his head in his hands while Ardow brushed off some hair that had stuck to his flushed face, the magic that had held them in place finally releasing them.

Merrick stalked right up to them, pushing Lessia out of the way.

Getting into Raine’s face, he dragged the Fae to him by his shirt. “Do not threaten any of us again. Especially not her. Do you hear me?”

A dark chuckle left Merrick when Raine raised his brows in challenge. “We’ve fought before, Raine. Remember the outcome.”

Rolling his eyes, Raine patted the hand twisting his shirt. “I see your temper remains intact.”

But when Merrick continued to glower at him, his steely eyes burning into Raine’s, the latter nodded. “Fine. You have my word.”

Raine glanced toward the still-snarling beast, and when he jerked his head, Ydren disappeared into the clear water, barely leaving a ripple on the smooth surface—almost as if the wyvern had never been there at all.

“I see you were able to control Ydren as well. She didn’t like that.” Raine gave her a lopsided smile over Merrick’s shoulder.

Lessia only glared back at him, still unsure whether his promise not to hurt them was sincere.

Releasing him, Merrick seemed about to turn around to face Lessia when Raine spoke again. “Do you know who she really is?”

Merrick froze mid-turn, his magic roiling in the air once more.

“She’s Alarin’s daughter, yes,” he growled.

Raine lifted his hands. “Just making sure you know what you’re doing. Come on, I’ll take you to my place.” He glanced at Lessia and wiggled his brows. “Seems like some of you might need something to wear. Unless you prefer to walk around naked, that is. Not that I’d mind.”

Her lips curled back when a laugh bubbled out of Raine, but before she could slam a dagger into his stupid face, Merrick lifted her and threw her over his shoulder.

“Let. Me. Down,” she snarled when he started walking after Raine, Venko and Ardow cautiously following. “I swear, Merrick, I will kill you.”

“No, you won’t,” he said simply as he adjusted her and lengthened his strides to follow Raine up a sandbank.