Page 133 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

His hair was perhaps slightly more disheveled—a little dust dulling its shine—but it definitely wasn’t as dirty as her own, which hung limp around her face, and the skin on his bare torso still had that slight glow that she’d always been envious of, especially in the winter, when her own almost turned gray.

Even the tattoo seemed to complement him—the black letters somehow contrasting beautifully with his tan, making the ugly word almost seem… alluring.

“Why are you pouting?” Raine nudged her as he overtook them, seemingly eager to find the weapons.

Or perhaps the flask their captors had also taken from him.

Then his eyes snagged on her outstretched arm, and when his gaze slowly moved to Merrick’s arm and then back to hers, his face went white.

“I’m sorry,” Raine mumbled as Kerym’s hand clasped her other wrist, fingers gently squeezing.

Lessia shook off the hand, trying for a smile instead of letting the lump threatening to form in her throat take hold.

“I’m pouting because Merrick still looks like the gods themselves just carved him, and I look exactly like I’ve spent a few days in a gross cell,” she joked, trying to get the Fae to shake the horrified expressions on their faces.

Merrick halted so abruptly that she walked right into him.

After glaring at Raine and Kerym, who continued walking, stating something about “continuing to look,” he spun around to face her.

Gripping her face in his hands, he tilted it upward, his eyes traveling slowly over it—as if he was savoring every inch.

His gaze left a warm trail in its wake, and Lessia couldn’t help her cheeks heating in response to his darkening eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” he declared quietly. “You’re always beautiful.”

She thought about arguing.

She could smell herself, after all—see the dirt layering over her skin, the golden-brown strands that appeared more brownish now, and the pale, marred skin the guards had carved into.

But something in his gaze had her swallow the retort.

And when he lifted her arm and pressed his lips against the tattoo, kissing the letters one by one with a feathery touch, she released a trembling breath.

Offering her one of those devastating smiles—one of the ones where he seemed to turn into a completely different person—Merrick wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his hard frame.

“Found them!” Raine called out, and she let Merrick guide her toward the room Raine and Kerym had slipped into, farther down the corridor.

Lessia snorted when they walked over the threshold, finding Raine deep into a cabinet filled with bottles, his sword carelessly lying on the floor beneath him.

Kerym threw Merrick a leather tunic that had hung on a chair in the corner of the room. As he released her to pull it on, she walked over to the shelf where her ruby dagger glinted, and relief warmed her gut when the one her father had given her lay farther in.

Lessia tucked them into her waistband and picked up Merrick’s heavy sword from where it lay on a shelf above her dagger.

After trailing her fingers over the red gemstones decorating its hilt, she turned around to offer it to Merrick, and she nearly jumped upon finding him right behind her.

“Thank you.” Merrick’s hand brushed hers as he accepted the sword. “It was my father’s. It’s the only thing I have left of him.”

Lessia gave him a weak smile as she pointed to the dagger with the amber stones. “This was my grandmother’s. My father gave it to me when I turned twelve.”

Merrick nodded. “It suits you.”

“Thank you.”

Lessia’s eyes went to his sword again.

Then to the dagger Merrick had given her that day in the woods.

Her eyes widened.

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