Page 46 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

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.

---