Chapter 46
Merrick
He felt the surge of power before everyone else around him stiffened, sensing the primal shift in their world, yet Merrick could barely believe his eyes as Lessia rode through the water, hair flying wildly behind her as she raced to reach them.
But it wasn’t the hair that made her entire being seem unruly, filled with unrestrained power. It was her eyes. It was her face, void of the guilt that had so long marred her features. It was the way she freely waved a few of the wyverns off, shouting an order the wind carried away.
A slow smile spread across his face as her clear golden eyes met his.
She was Lessia, but…
She was also a queen.
A female who would never again bow. Not for a leader. Not for a god. Not even for fate.
The untamed energy sparking through his veins was nothing compared to the love and pride he felt for this perfect creature as her eyes remained on his the entire time she approached. He’d always known that she was destined for something bigger—something extraordinary.
Perhaps that was what had driven him to push her so hard.
Perhaps that’s why his being—his entire soul—so easily knelt for her.
Perhaps that’s why he didn’t even flinch as strange old magic wrapped his ship and every other around them, souls pouring out and capturing enemy after enemy, refusing to let them move or fight.
She’d always been his queen, and now? Now she was everyone else’s too.
Queen of Death, Queen of Shadows…
He’d heard his souls whisper those words to him even before he’d rescued her and they’d come over to this side. They must have also known, known why it was Merrick who was allowed to stand by her side as she claimed this fucking world and the afterlife for herself.
Merrick had taken one step toward her when he sensed something behind him, but he didn’t have time to react—his awe for Lessia making him careless—before a dagger dug into his chest. It stopped right before his hammering heart, and he could tell the male behind him was desperate, his breathing erratic as he screamed “Stop! Stop or I’ll kill him! ”
Every soul and human and Fae and shifter and wyvern did as he said, the sounds of war dying for the first time since they had begun, and Merrick knew it was because Lessia had commanded it.
He cursed himself when her eyes darkened as they landed on the male gripping the dagger so hard it shook against the ribs within Merrick’s body between which it had pierced, but he didn’t have time to tell Lessia to just kill the man before his mate—his wife, his woman, his queen—spoke.
“I’ll just bring him back,” she said simply, not a drop of fear to be found in her tone. “The only one you’ll hurt is yourself. Because if you drive that dagger farther in…”
Lessia’s eyes moved somewhere to the side, to someone beside the man, and she clicked her tongue.
“I’m guessing the woman who looks like she wants to rip my throat out is your mate?
If you touch mine… I will let the souls here drive her crazy.
I won’t let them kill her… No, that would be too kind.
But I would ensure her mind never again becomes what it is now, so that you would have to see what you did every day for the rest of your life, which I’ve heard is quite long…
if the rumors are true that you share our lifespans. ”
Merrick heard the man’s sharp inhale before his chest even moved against his back. “And what if I let him go? What will you do then? You’ll kill us anyway.”
A woman’s concurring murmur sounded behind him, and Merrick let out a dark laugh before he drawled, “I really hope I’m alive when she does, because I’d love to fucking watch her rip the two of you to shreds for what you’ve done to our world.”
Lessia’s eyes moved to the bright blue sky for a moment before dipping back down.
A flicker of amusement shone amidst the gold as she gave Merrick a look before turning to whoever was now shaking behind him. “I wouldn’t have killed you, no. Unlike you, I have respect for life. But now—”
“Respect for life?” A female voice interrupted her, and Lessia must have been a fucking saint because she just tilted her head as the female continued spewing, her cheeks as red as her hair when she finally took a step ahead of Merrick—much to the dismay of the man still holding the dagger.
“Look at these souls.” Both the female’s arms flew out, and when Merrick followed, he realized everyone—every Oakgards’ Fae—had several souls around them. The Fae’s faces were so ashen that Merrick was surprised their hearts didn’t give out, but they remained entirely still.
He caught Kerym’s blue eyes as his friend got off a wyvern, pulling Pellie first, then Soria with him. Then they moved to Iviry’s sparkling ones, and… was that a fucking lion?
Yes, a lion—larger than he’d ever seen—stalked in circles around a few Fae, even with the souls keeping them in check.
“You must have bound them to you—keeping them from moving on—for your benefit. You do not care for life! You’re exactly like your uncle.” A tanned finger wagged Lessia’s way, and his mate’s brows popped the tiniest bit before she sighed deeply.
“Only one of the things you just said is true.” Lessia slipped off Ydren, elegantly hopping onto the deck, and Merrick wasn’t the only one who drew a breath as several of the serpents slithered up from the waters beneath, their heads lifting so they hovered by Lessia’s hips, the soft glow from her reflecting in their black scales.
Fuck, she was incredible. Merrick knew this probably wasn’t the best moment… all right, definitely wasn’t the best moment… but heat coiled in his gut as he beheld her, and while she didn’t let a single feature of her face react, he could tell by the look she shot him that she felt the same.
“These souls are bonded to me, but only because Merrick is,” Lessia continued, and Merrick’s brows pulled as she shrugged his way as if to say, I just figured it out.
“They willingly bound themselves to Merrick—a male who never wanted power but wielded it all the same—in the hopes that I would accept them when the time came, so they, by their own choice, could rid this world of evil.”
Lessia reached out and placed a hand on one of the snakes’ heads.
“When Merrick pulled me back from the dead, something awoke in me—something I haven’t wanted to accept until today—and while I have respect for the living as I have the dead, I can now revive those who wish to come back—those who aren’t done with life in this realm—if their bond to me is strong enough. ”
The half-Fae female with the golden-brown hair, who had Merrick’s heart and soul and everything in her hands, jerked her head behind her.
Somehow… not having seen it, but somewhere deep within him feeling it…
Merrick knew the friends now getting off the wyverns.
Raine and tear-stricken Frelina, Ardow and Venko, Zaddock and Amalise weren’t pale just because they were exhausted.
She’d brought them back.
A huff left Merrick, and he couldn’t fucking pretend to just wait anymore.
With a sharp jab of his elbow, he forced the man’s hand off, ripping the dagger from his chest. Not giving a single fuck that blood streamed down his golden tunic, Merrick caught the male as he tried to step back and placed the dagger by his throat hard enough that drops of blood pooled over the sharp edge.
As he made the man spin, he realized Lessia must have anticipated the move, because she had the other one by her red hair, forcing her down on her knees as the snakes hissed at the Oakgards’ female.
“See… Merrick is my strongest bond.” Lessia continued as if they hadn’t just won this entire war, because Merrick was quite certain that the two people whose lives were in their literal hands were the leaders of the Oakgards’ Fae, given the looks the other Fae around them shot their way.
“And I knew a dagger wouldn’t stop him from getting to me. ”
“Brouke,” the female whined, her brown eyes glossing.
“It’ll be all right, Daysee.” The man—Brouke—didn’t believe his own words.
Merrick shook his head at the leader as tears stained his cheeks when his mate realized it too.
“You should have fucking listened,” Merrick snarled. “She would have spared you.”
“I would have,” Lessia agreed. “But… Raine also tells me you hurt my sister.”
Lessia pulled on the female’s hair until her brown eyes were forced onto her golden ones.
“I learned today that some evil might be necessary to forge a new path. But what you did… what you tried to do here today… it wasn’t just evil.
It was useless. It was unnecessary. And for that…
because I can’t trust you won’t return with your people once you’re strong enough again… you must die.”
“See… I was hoping we could avoid all that.” A deep male’s voice interrupted Merrick’s snarl as he kept Brouke in his place, and only after he made sure the Oakgards’ Fae wouldn’t move a fucking inch without dying did Merrick dare to turn around.
A massive Oakgards’ Fae got onto their ship, his features strongly resembling the shaking male Merrick was currently threatening: dark brown hair that was nearly black, and sharp green eyes, the color like fresh summer grass—brothers, perhaps?—but there was something about him…
“Marlow?” Brouke’s eyes seemed as if they would flee his sockets, and he exclaimed, “What… what are you doing here?”
Thankfully, he shut his fucking mouth when Merrick hissed at him.
“Do I know you?” Lessia asked the question just as Merrick was about to do the same.
There was a strange connection… something he’d only felt…
The man’s—Marlow’s—smile was so cold Merrick couldn’t help but be impressed, even as his chest rumbled, cautioning the man to tread lightly.
“Not yet, but I have a feeling we will get to know each other quite well.” The man walked right into the middle of the ship, his grin widening when Merrick growled viciously in warning.
“Not in that way… Her mate—the one who awoke her from death—I take it? My wife would literally rip my head off, and then everyone else’s here, if I tried anything.
Probably the souls, too, if I know her well enough.
” The man chuckled before he lifted his arm, pulling back the sleeve to reveal a bright glow, the same one that shone from Lessia’s arm.
And Merrick’s, he realized as he glanced down at the hand holding the dagger to Brouke’s throat, his skin mirroring his mate’s and the foreign male’s.
Merrick’s grip on the hilt tightened as that sensation… the familiarity he shouldn’t feel toward a man he’d never laid eyes on before… swept through him once more.
When Lessia and Merrick silently eyed Marlow, who seemed equally curious as he looked back at them, the snakes left Lessia’s side, and his mate shook her head when they coiled around the man’s body—fucking cozying up to him.
“You’re… you’re a veiled queen?” Lessia stammered.
Marlow threw back his head and laughed so loudly the lion prowling around them tensed, and even Merrick showed his teeth at the blatant damned disrespect for all the dead around them, the ones his people—because this man was clearly also a leader—had caused.
“No, Queen of Death.” Marlow seemed to realize why everyone around him glared, and his chin dipped for a moment before he said, “But I think my wife is.”