Page 88 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

“I messed up tonight.” Lessia threw her head back as she repeated her declaration, wincing when her hair got caught in Ydren’s scales. “I really did. It seems like I just keep doing it. Like I just can’t get it right.”

Ydren blinked at her, and Lessia interpreted the flicker in her eye as a sign to go on.

“I keep hurting those I love.” Her hand flew to her chest, a fist forming over her aching heart and her voice thickening as she continued. “My sister, my parents, Loche… and now Merrick. They all hate me now. I—”

“You’re wrong again.” Merrick’s voice floated over the wyvern, and her adrenaline surged as she whipped her head up to find his eyes staring straight into hers.

Her tense shoulders lowered an inch.

They were his normal eyes.

No hurt lacing the edges like it had back at the tavern.

Ydren winked at her as she started unraveling her body, and before Lessia could even say good night, the wyvern slithered down into the water with only a soft splash betraying her descent into the depths of the sea.

“What am I wrong about?” Lessia rasped as she fought the lump in her throat.

“Everyone doesn’t hate you.” Merrick gracefully folded his legs as he sat down beside her, his gaze wandering out across the sea. “I don’t. And I doubt your sister does either. She’s angry because she loves you so much. It’s… it’s easy to turn to rage when love stabs a dagger right through your heart.”

“Sounds like you speak from your own experience,” Lessia mumbled, but she couldn’t help the whisper of hope that began fluttering in her stomach at Merrick’s words.

“I do.”

Sympathy roiled in her gut, but before she could say something, Merrick spoke again.

“You know that pain too. I can see it in your eyes every day. You need to tell me. Did Loche turn you away after you—” Merrick cleared his throat, the rest of his words coming out clipped. “After you told him you loved him?”

Lessia swallowed.

But they’d find out what happened soon enough, now that they were heading back to Ellow.

“He forced me to erase all memories of us together. To erase his feelings for me.”

It was quiet for a beat, and Lessia didn’t dare look up as rage tinged the air around them, Merrick’s whispers softly skimming across the sand.

“Why would he do that?” Merrick mumbled, almost as if to himself.

“I betrayed him,” Lessia whispered. “It… it wasn’t that I was a spy. He didn’t care about that—he seemed to have even suspected it. It was because I used my magic on him that night we were attacked on the cliffs. It’s the same night he came to me and trusted me…” She drew a shaky breath. “He kissed me that night. And he never would have if I hadn’t manipulated his memories.”

She felt like slamming her hands into the sand again.

She should never have let Loche kiss her.

She’d known it was wrong.

She’d known their entire relationship—or whatever it was—was on borrowed time.

Silence stretched so long that Lessia finally peeked at Merrick through her lashes.

He appeared deep in thought, something fighting across his features as he dragged his hands down his face.

It was as if he was trying to solve a puzzle from memory, his eyes darting back and forth until they finally met hers again.

Lessia stiffened when that thought… the thought that he was beautiful… slammed into her chest once more, and a torrent of heat flowed through her, exactly like it had when she’d climbed into his lap.

Casting her eyes to the hands she wrung in her lap and trying to ignore her surely red cheeks, Lessia mumbled, “I am sorry for what I did to you tonight. I swear, I do not know what came over me. And… and I’m sorry for saying you were a distraction. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Lessia.” Merrick cupped her cheeks with his hands, forcing her eyes to his. “Stop. Fucking. Apologizing.”

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