Page 73 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

She’d even found love.

She might have lost Loche, but…

She wasn’t alone.

She still loved.

She did.

Even if she might not want to, she loved those damned children. She loved Ardow and Amalise. She loved her family in the way her mother had—unconditionally. And she even loved the broody Merrick.

Her eyes followed Ydren’s movement in the water, the ripples that formed around her huge body, how the spikes lining her back reflected the moonlight.

The wyvern didn’t have a single part of her family left.

The only person she had was a drunkard.

Lessia, on the other hand…

Shehada family, even if her mother had passed.

She had a father.

A sister.

Friends.

With a sniff, Lessia straightened her stiff legs.

There might be much regret in her life.

Choices she’d make differently now.

But there wasn’t time for her to wallow in it.

Her father and Frelina were alive.

So were her friends.

And she needed to ensure it stayed that way.

Numbness settled within her, driving away the pain and the fear and the helplessness.

Letting out a harsh breath through her teeth, she stared at the moon’s reflection in the sea and unleashed every ounce of anger that had kept her moving so far.

Energy—wild, untamed energy—sparked within her, and her magic kindled across her skin, the light from her eyes brightening the polished stone beneath her feet once more.

She couldn’t break down.

She couldn’t even suppress her magic anymore.

Not if it could right the wrongs it had made.

If it could make sure the people she loved were safe.

She’d made so many stupid decisions in her short life.

Had believed the path the gods sent her on was inescapable—that it was out of her control.

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