Page 13 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Fuck Polite

Rayze

The tavern jostles around me, ale splashing and pirates crowing. I bang my crutch against a tabletop in time with the music, a drunken rhythm led by a naked-as-fuck fiddle player.

He leaps from table to table, cock swinging, bow shrieking, kicking over drinks like he’s leading us all to a Fate better than this sticky, crime-riddled hell—and who am I to deny him?

My boa slides down one arm, feathers stuck to my sweaty skin. My tiara’s crooked, stabbing into my scalp, but I leave it. It’s perfect. I’m perfect. A princess crowned in grit and glitter. Penelope was right. I can’t feel my ankle anymore.

I shimmy on the table, my crutch my partner—silent, solid, dependable. Not devious or tatted or magically chained to my soul. One-legged, deliciously buzzed, and my duty to the Shard Daughters buried six feet under, I grind against the crutch with a wicked grin.

Cheers erupt. Loose teeth rattle beneath my heels as they clink and clatter off the edge of the table, their owner face-down in his own piss below.

The Bond simmers low in warning, but motherfucker, I’m untouchable. Anyone who wants to demand otherwise better do it from their fucking knees.

Bleary eyes slide over my bare skin from every direction, pirates looking me over with greed. I wait for repulsion or the general desire to rip eyes from sockets, but neither come.

I’ve spent my life in the shadows. Spent what feels like eternity wondering if I’ll ever truly feel alive. This—being seen and loud —I get the draw. The power of catching attention not for strategy, not to survive, but just by existing at my fullest capacity.

I don’t dim my smile. I don’t soften the shake of my hips. I go harder. Bang my hair forward in time with the fiddle’s screech.

I won’t dull my shine to placate others’ jealousy. I bask in it, and when I sing the chorus of the shanty, which I’m faintly aware is inspired by me, a wounded piece of my girlhood stitches whole, my smile brighter than the Godsdamn sun.

Then some irritating, grating man is talking—too loud, too close, too claiming. Like he owns the realm. Owns my space. Has the right to breathe even an inch near me.

“Get the fuck down,” Warrick growls.

I slam my elbow into his gut. As any self-respecting woman should.

The Serpent Heir folds in on himself.

Pain ricochets across the Bond, and I wheeze. Worth it .

“Rayze,” he barks in aggravation before I’m plucked off the table by rough, possessive hands.

I snarl. Several in the crowd echo my resentment with a loud chorus of boos, but one look at Warrick has the harsh roar of disapproval screeching to a halt.

Every inch of him is a fucking threat.

And the worst part? He knows it.

He stands on a chair after climbing up to reach me.

Water drips from his hair, gleams down his sharp cheekbones and across the cut of his jaw.

His chest is all hard planes and muscle, golden in the tavern’s molten light.

Those tattooed snakes curl down each side like they worship him—like I’m supposed to, like everyone should.

I hate him.

A towel is slung around his hips. It clings low and loose, teasing the promise of what’s beneath. He clutches it shut, steps down from the chair, and plants himself in front of me like some half-dressed blockade.

Dripping. Brooding. Absolutely infuriating.

Something in my stomach does a little flip. Poor thing. It’s learning gymnastics just to get away from him.

“I thought someone took you,” he hisses and gestures toward my makeshift clutch.

I swipe a mug off a tray as Bruce, my new best friend with feathered lashes and hips like a dream, twirls past with another delivery.

Throat-burning ale hits my tongue with a gulp. “Took me?” I scoff. “Ivor, do I look like someone who can be taken?”

His eyes drag down my frame like I’m a curse, and fuck him, I plan to be. “You really want me to answer that?”

I straighten. Square my shoulders. Grow three inches in indignation.

He glances away for a beat, lip twitching like a smirk’s trying to break through, but then he smooths it into a scowl. “You have one working leg,” he starts. “No clothes. No weapon—”

I interrupt his monologue by pulling a blade from my cleavage. A gift from Bruce. Hence, the instant friendship and the wonderful chorus to my new favorite sea shanty. Its sharp, serrated edge is tucked in a beautifully crafted leather sheath, the handle carved with a Kraken.

Warrick blinks. At my chest. Predictably.

I unsheathe the knife with a clean snap and press the point beneath his chin, forcing his gaze back to mine. “You were saying?” I growl.

His scowl shifts into something darker, pensive. “Next time, tell me you’re leaving,” he says, and his jaw locks.

He looks shaken. Torn. The darkness in his face is real concern. For. Me.

The clanking coins, the fistfights, the shrieking fiddle, and the chanting pirates—everything fades.

All I see is him.

All I feel is him.

What happened between us in the dream and the bedroom rushes back, and his eyes track my flush. It creeps low across my breasts and stains my cheeks, leaving me vulnerable and open. Too open.

I try to blink back the haze of liquor, to claim some control over my bodily reaction to his presence, but it’s too late. The Bond pulls me in, and Warrick—

He’s looking at me as if it was his fingers that made me come.

I take a long, hard drink of ale and sway off-balance.

Warrick grasps my waist to steady me, and I shiver at the feel of his skin against mine. Hot and calloused. A promise to be rough in all the places I crave to be ruined. Like he knows what I need and letting go isn’t a fucking option.

Neither of us say a word, but we look. Shamelessly. If I’ll give him credit for anything, it’s that. He doesn’t taunt my flush. He matches it. Runs a thumb over my hip and strokes the heat within me higher, hungrier. My eyes follow every line and curve of his body, and his flow over mine.

Fuck, he’s beautiful.

Water droplets sparkle across his shoulders and pecks. His chest is a mess of bruises, some darkening to blue-violet, others flushed and raw. The punctures in his stomach and back are far from healing, my coat left behind and their bloody mess exposed.

I lock-in on a thin ribbon of red curling down from his shoulder. It beads along the muscle before it slips down his chest, trailing the curve between his ribs and dripping to his stomach in a slow, deliberate pat.

The sound is quiet, but I hear it. Gods, I feel it. Just like how I felt him come.

The Bond curls, not a leash in this moment but a lure. A pull toward something I’m not ready to name.

My fingers twitch around the knife, the handle of my mug.

I want to touch him. Taste him. Sink my teeth into the soft flesh of his throat and teach him how best to leave a mark.

I frown. Hard. I’m starting to remember why I’m not meant to drink on the job.

“If you bleed out now, I’m charging you for my coat,” I manage.

He leans in and lets the knife bite. Blood slides down his throat in a delicious tease.

I hold his stare.

His fingers flex on my waist.

Then he pulls back an inch, angles his mouth, and kisses my blade.

Softly. Unholy.

“Come back to bed,” he murmurs against its steel, his blood smeared over his lips like a sacrificial offering.

I shift closer. My mug clatters to the ground and spills at our bare toes, the sound swallowed by the chaos of the tavern.

His breath catches as I dig the tip of the knife in a little more, stretching my free palm over his wet abdomen and trailing muscles to the soft hook of his towel.

“I kill most I take to bed. You’re no exception,” I say between heavy breaths, my eyes trained on the steady drip of crimson from my knife. “Are you sure about that offer, Heir?”

His lips graze my ear, and my heart thunders. “Dip that hand any lower and you’ll know how sure I am.”

I tease along the outer edge of the cloth, a soft moan leaving me when he nips at my ear.

“Don’t make that sound if you don’t want me to steal you back to our room.” He hauls me against him.

“And if I told you restraint turns me on?” I slip my hand beneath the towel, nothing but our joined hips keeping the flimsy piece of fabric from falling.

Warrick’s fingers curl against my spine. “I’d tell you I don’t know the definition of the word, and you should be very, very careful.”

A smile flits across my lips, and I brush my fingers over his hard, smooth shaft. Long and thick, it throbs in my grasp, the head soft and wanting. I smear his precum across it, and my lips part with an exhale as he grinds into me with the action.

“Fuck.” The curse rips from him.

“So willing,” I whisper. I squeeze him. Drag the knife in a light scrape down his throat. “My perfect prey.” A dark grin curls my lips.

“Come back,” he murmurs like a sinister promise. His tongue darts over his lip piercing. “To bed.” His eyes dance. “Another move, and I won’t be so polite.”

I push onto my toes, my hand moving up his cock with the motion. I lick his chin, and his body shakes. “Fuck polite,” I whisper.

His pupils flare wide. His weight pulls toward me, his arms flexing with the intent to lift me—

Then a fist cracks across Warrick’s face, and blood spits from his nose across mine.

We stumble, forced to release each other. His towel flutters free, my tiara flies off, and the Bond spikes . A tidal wave of violence swells between us as Warrick turns.

He grins like a devil unleashed, blood trickling from his nostrils, his bare ass out in all its well-sculpted glory.

The pirate who hit him flashes yellow teeth, but he doesn’t get a second swing.

Warrick slams his forehead into the man’s nose with a sick crack . Blood sprays like a fountain over the bar, and the pirate drops with a wet thud.

“Now, where were we?” Warrick growls, wrenching me close.

The tavern door bangs open and his glare snaps over my shoulder before he curses low.

“Kiss me,” he says, dipping toward my mouth.

“ What ?” I breathe.

“For fuck’s sake, our window’s closing, vicious. Kiss me.”

I might.

No.

My gaze dips to his hard cock jutting against my stomach.

I swallow.

Yes .

I’m far too drunk for this.

“You’re thinking about it,” he says with a grin. “Do it. I dare you.”

I narrow my eyes. “You are insufferable —”

“Ivor!” A dark voice shouts behind me, and I twist out of Warrick’s relentless grip.

Cronies stand in the doorway of the tavern, weapons raised. Their leader points a sword toward us. “By order of The Kraken, get on your fucking knees.”

Warm lips skim over my neck.

“ Heir ,” I hiss and smack a hand back, whacking the side of Warrick’s head.

He chuckles and scrapes his teeth over the shell of my ear, his throbbing length pressing hard against my spine.

Oh.

“Hit me again,” he mutters, his hand stretching over my stomach and skimming down, down, down.

Oh, Gods.

“I’m done waiting,” he groans into my hair.

“Warrick Ivor,” the crony yells. “We won’t ask again.”

“Nor will I.” He grabs my chin, tugging my head over my shoulder. Softly, he kisses the corner of my lips. “Give in, baby—”

An axe lodges in the table next to me, and I jump away with a cry, the tavern spinning. I catch myself against my crutch, sneezing as my feathered boa tangles over my mouth and nose.

Fucking fuck.

Warrick shoves me behind him with a barely restrained laugh. “Fucking adorable,” he says through a grin, eyes sparkling.

Then he faces the cronies, rolls his shoulders—back muscles putting on a glorious performance—and his next words crack with rage, the tavern falling quiet. “Did you just try to kill her?”