A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates #3)

by Sophia St. Germain

“I want you to mark me.” Her eyes flew wide—then quickly narrowed—and he expected a No fucking way was right at the tip of her tongue, but he spoke before she did. “I can’t stand it.” Merrick lowered his voice, pressing the dagger into her hands. “I can’t stand everyone knowing you’re mine”—his eyes dipped to the scars across her body—“if they don’t know that I am also yours.”

“Like this one, I want yours and mine to be the same. You are mine. I am yours. That’s just how it is. The good and the bad and the pretty and the ugly. We will fucking share it all. That’s how it was meant to be, and it’s how it will always be. I want the world to fucking know it. I want everyone I ever meet to see that every part of me—every dark corner of my soul—belongs to you.”

“Lessia fought for us when no one else would. We will fight for her until our last breath if that’s what it takes.”

“No!” Merrick was screaming now. “This can’t be happening! I refuse! Do you hear that! I fucking refuse! I… I am getting her back. I have… have to do something!” “There is nothing you can do,” Soria said softly as she tried to approach the Death Whisperer. “It was prophesied by the gods, Merrick. And so it shall be.” “Fuck the gods!” Merrick screamed back at her. “Fuck them and fuck fate and fuck everything! Lessia hated all of that!”

“And so a soulbinder shall help her rise to take her throne—her right as a veiled queen.”