If a wyvern could smirk, that’s what damned Auphore did. “I was wondering why we kept picking up on the furious one.”
The wyvern fucking snickered when Merrick took a step toward him. “Now, now, Guardian of Death. We’rebound, you see. Your duty is to protect us, as ours is to protect you.”
“Don’t call him that,” Lessia warned, and Merrick couldn’t help but twist his lips at the glacial tone. “So we’re all bound. But… why? And how?”
A flicker of worry resounded somewhere within Merrick.
But it wasn’t Lessia’s… it was…
His eyes drew to Ydren, and he draped an arm over Lessia’s shoulder when the wyvern cautiously scanned her eyes over his mate. Hefelther, and when he focused on Auphore again… Merrick felt his power as well.
It was similar to how he read Lessia’s emotions, but also not… It was more like the bond he felt for his brothers—for his friends—in battle. He wanted to protect them, but it wasn’t the sameneedas with Lessia.
“I suspect Merrick has everything to do with what is happening.” Auphore’s eyes locked with his as millions of thoughts raced through Merrick’s mind, something brushing his consciousness until he couldn’t ignore it.
“I did this when I brought you back,” Merrick said slowly, emphasizing each word as he started to understand. “When you…” He cleared his throat, pushing at the memory of the fucking suffocating, drowning feeling that had crushed him when he realized Lessia wasn’t breathing anymore. “When you died, I let the souls take over. I made a deal that allowed me to pass to their side, while they went to ours and…”
Lessia had been surveying him quietly, but when he trailed off, the words he’d meant to say sticking in his throat, she whispered, “And you died too.”
Merrick only stared at her when Auphore confirmed, “You did. We didn’t feel you back then,but we felt Lessia pass—the bond break—and just as that magic began to fade, to disappear as it was meant to, something flickered within it.”
“The light,” Merrick mumbled as he continued looking at Lessia. Guilt and worry fought with Lessia’s conviction—the one rolling off her in waves—that it wasn’t his fault. “I saw that light and I didn’t know what it was, but it felt as if I needed to get to it.”
“You need something bright to light up the darkness,” Lessia breathed, and while Merrick didn’t know what she was talking about, his skin tingled at the look in her eyes.
“It’s all connected,” Lessia continued. “All of us. Everything that’s happened. It’s… it’s all linked. Loche… when he gave me that stone the first time, he told me I needed something bright to light up the darkness. That’s what you needed, Merrick, and… I think it responded.”
“The soul stone?” Auphore asked, and when Lessia nodded, the glittering wyvern shook his head so that drops of water flew around them. “You might be right, Elessia. When Merrick fought for you in that darkness, when he gave his life to find you after you died for one of us—for all the people out there—the stone and our bond felt it and reacted, guiding you both back to life. It must have chosen both of you then… and that’s why we feel Merrick now.”
The Death Whisperer didn’t want to admit it, but his head was spinning, and he could tell Lessia’s was, too, from the distant look in her beautiful eyes.
Guiding both his arms around her body, he shifted her so he rested his chin on her head, tucking her fully against his chest as he stared at the wyvern.
“This explains how. Butwhy?” Merrick asked,knowing even before Auphore jerked his head again that the wyvern wouldn’t know.
“Can I… can we pull on the bond for strength?” Lessia queried, and as understanding rushed through him for why she had asked, Merrick had to fight not to snarl in defiance of her risking her life again.
Ydren moved so her head rested against the black cliff, and when Lessia reached out to place a hand on her twitching snout, Merrick knew they could. A strange sensation—one that was magic but wasn’t his own—washed across his skin until the hairs on his arms stood on end, and from how Lessia shifted her weight from one foot to the other, he knew she felt it too.
“Call on them together,” Auphore said, his head darting backward for a moment. The wyverns who had eyed them in rows behind him dove into the depths of the crashing dark waves again at his silent order. “You’re bound together not only by love now but by power—by the very essence of your souls. So share it. And share it with us. But you need to let go when I say so.”
When Lessia didn’t immediately respond, Auphore hissed, “Did you hear me?”
While Merrick agreed with him, he couldn’t help but let a threatening growl rumble in his chest, which made that smirk twitch the golden wyvern’s maw once more.
“I did,” Lessia said calmly before turning around to face Merrick, gripping both his hands in her own. “I… I don’t know how this will work.”
Leaning down to press his lips against hers, Merrick savored the surge in her pulse, the heart that beat so wildly—so vigorously—before he responded, “Together. You and me. That’s how it’ll work. That’s how it was meant to be. That’s how it’ll always be.”
He sounded as certain as he felt, because even though he didn’t like this—didn’t want to see her bleeding and weak and in his friend’s arms again—Lessia’s words echoed within him.
It was all connected. He could feel it as well. Like they would always be connected—like he’d always be by her side.
Lessia rose on her toes to kiss him back, then gave him a nod. “Ready?”
He didn’t respond, only gripped her tighter as he pulled on his magic.
It was different now. It wasn’t easier, but there was something—a barrier missing, one that Merrick knew he had created. He could feel Lessia’s powers mingling with his own, the air around them reacting differently.
