Page 58 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

And while it perhaps wasn’t something she was used to…

She’d just managed to make it awkward.

Lessia nervously went to pull down her sleeve as she met her own wary eyes in the mirror, her heart rate increasing when her fingers only found bare skin.

“Get it together,” she hissed at herself when her breathing became choppy.

She didn’t need to hide the tattoo anymore.

She didn’t need to be scared of Merrick anymore.

She repeated the words as she left the room, forcing herself not to fidget with the dress as she approached the sitting room.

“What are you doing, Merrick?”

Lessia froze when Raine’s harsh tone drifted toward her.

“I’m fighting,” Merrick responded in a furious whisper.

The clink of a bottle hitting glass reached her ears before Raine responded in an equally raging whisper. “You don’t have to. You know that, right?”

Her heart slammed against her rib cage in the silence that followed.

“You’re wrong,” Merrick finally hissed.

“Why? You could make your life so much easier.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

The stairs behind her creaked, and she pushed off the wall she’d been pressing her body against and walked over the threshold as loud steps reached the bottom of it, heading toward the room.

“Damned martyr,” Raine griped as he caught her gaze while downing the glass of liquor in his hand.

“Just because you don’t want to fight doesn’t mean you get to judge others for it.” Lessia kept her voice even, the guilt from earlier still ringing in her mind.

But she wasn’t about to have Raine fault Merrick for doing what was right.

Especially when Havlands needed him.

When she needed him.

“Assuming again, are we?” Raine taunted.

When Raine took a step toward her, Merrick slammed his arm into his chest, his eyes flitting her way.

“Don’t make eavesdropping a habit,” he said quietly. “You might hear some things you’d rather not.”

She almost wavered under his cold stare, and only when she nodded did his gaze fix behind her. “Seems like we’re all here. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

When Lessia turned her head over her shoulder, Ardow and Venko lingered by the back wall, looking as reluctant as she felt to join the festivities tonight.

“You all act like you’re going to a burial, not a feast.” Raine sighed. “Zehmkell is supposed to be exciting.”

She and Merrick groaned at the same time, eliciting another sigh from Raine.

While Merrick’s features remained hard as he followed Raine out the door, the flecks in his eyes twinkled when they briefly met hers, and embers of warmth—not the uncomfortable ones she’d experienced before the mirror, but something more akin to safety—spread in her chest as she fell into step with them, Ardow and Venko on either side.

ChapterSixteen

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