Page 15 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Open Wounds

Warrick

The elevator of The Dredge reeks of rust, sweat, and the sour musk of sex.

It shudders as it climbs through Synlon’s main power hub, gears coughing through the buzzing silence with every level we pass.

Each floor reveals layer after layer of the Skin Trade.

Floors dedicated to processing, imprisonment, conditioning.

Serpent cronies flank me, fists hooked beneath my arms. One has my mask. The other pocketed the blade I bartered for in the Underground.

After she left me.

The thought sinks like teeth into my ribs. I inhale and my chest hollows with a sharp, echoing grief. Something dark and wounded curls within the depths of myself. Its weight is heavy, every step dragged back to Synlon unbearable.

Three weeks of blood crusting over bruises, of whispers trailing behind me like flies. I crumpled among the tunnels. Blacked out after I bled from my open wounds for miles.

I was lucky to have awoken in Serpent territory. Lucky to have been found by Serpent cronies and easily identified by my mask. Lucky the nearby club had a healer on staff who bandaged my wounds and let me rest until I could make the rest of the trek.

Luck.

Or her .

There was a woman.

She rests at the edges of my mind behind a dark veil. Daring and beautiful, she taunts me. Green eyes among a sky of endless stars. Every time I reach for her, she slips. Glimmers. Collapses into static like she was never real at all. Like she’s nothing but a dream I’ve convinced myself I touched.

I ache for her. In every shade of jade, she stares back. In every thought, she gnaws. With every wound, I bleed for her. I’ve been altered. Carved somehow. By. Her.

The elevator groans to a halt. Its doors hiss open.

Heat seeps over my skin like a heavy breath. Wet stone meets my bare feet as I’m thrust into a wide corridor. Volt burns low, a thick haze of blue shrouding the hallway, static electricity crackling through the air.

Chains rattle and dozens of faces turn toward me, Skin bound in seated rows. Pipes drip from the ceiling in time with their shallow, starved breaths.

My eyes memorize each of their faces between slow, careful blinks.

I never look away. If I’m in the presence of my Bossdom’s product, I give them the decency of being seen.

I won’t cower or make light of it. I know what The Serpent legacy is.

I know that it likely won’t change in my lifetime or even the next.

But I know I’ll try. I’ll give when I can.

Take less if I’m able. Distribute more Skin to the least devious of the clientele.

Try to create an environment of choice rather than submission.

Slip coin from the top of shipments and gift it to those who have to live with the worst. The cronies I’ve befriended over the years—some of them do the same.

It’s not enough to look, to apologize or pity, but it’s the only power I have without my father’s fucking Yield.

I hone in on a tall shadow.

Cyrus Vandem leans in the archway ahead, a pipe between his teeth. Electric blue snakes through its glass body, lighting his face in stuttered pulses. His eyes shimmer with the glow of Volt, sharp and unnatural.

My fingers twitch.

The Commander of the Chrome Guard exhales a puff of smoke. “Heir.” He tips his chin over his shoulder. “The Serpent waits.”

Cronies shove me forward. I stumble, slamming into Vandem’s chest.

He steadies me with one hand, then pushes me into the darkness of The Dredge’s penthouse.

Lightning flashes in bursts through floor-to-ceiling windows, Synlon a jagged array of neon beyond. Buzzing coils and broken spires tangle among wet and fog.

Glass crunches beneath my feet, and I jerk a step back.

The floor is covered in shards of shattered mirrors scattered like fallen stars. Ornate frames lie twisted and splintered in piles around the room, hurled in fits of rage.

A gust of wind groans against the window panes. The building sways, and part of me hopes the command center for The Serpent Bossdom will just—cave in. One fell swoop.

Poof.

I hold back a smile as The Serpent turns to me.

Bare-chested, snake tattoos coiled from collarbone to hip, Russell Ivor’s skin glistens with sweat. White buzzed hair accentuates the sharp snarl of his jaw, and his ink shifts as he breathes. Tails and fangs rise and fall with each ragged inhale.

Then lightning strikes, and a corpse on the bed illuminates.

Green eyes stare wide and glossy at the storm outside.

A woman. Skin . Naked and dead. Her throat is carved open, the wound black in the flicker. Dark hair tangles in a pool of crimson that slicks across the mattress and stains the floor. Her head lolls to one side, mouth gaping like she died mid-scream.

The dark thing in my gut uncoils, and my spine stiffens.

Something in me reacts to the corpse, not because she’s dead, but because for a blink—just one—she reminds me of her . The shadow at the edge of my mind. The vicious little hook of a mouth I’m desperate to find. To claim.

The ache tightens. Hungrier. Possessive.

I drag my gaze to my father.

Russell walks toward me barefoot across broken glass, unfazed by the shards biting into his soles.

His eyes are hollow, cheeks gaunt. Blood-spray clings to the shadow of a beard and speckles the tight veins along his neck.

The storm flashes again, lighting silver-blue eyes.

A replica of my own but far more haunted.

Wet, red-stained hands grab my face.

Russell turns me in his grip. Inspects me. Side to side. Then he forces my forehead down and presses a tight, mocking kiss to my brow before he rips away and goes to the woman.

“Boss,” I bite out in greeting.

“My lessers kneel.” His feet leave damp red prints in the glass as he grabs the corpse by the hair and yanks her from the bed.

Her body crashes against the tile with a sickening thud. He drags her toward the archway behind me while I stand stiff, frozen.

“Another,” he grinds out to Vandem.

My stomach twists.

He circles me. Studies me. Then he thrusts a thumb into one of the wounds on my back.

A growl tears from my throat. My knees buckle, slamming into the floor. Shards slice through my pants and embed into my skin.

“Ah. My son does remember his manners.” Russell stalks around me. He sweeps glass aside with his foot and kicks a path clear. “Stay down and maybe I’ll give you a treat.”

I glare at the floor. My nails bite into my palms. “You disappeared after The Bid,” I start.

He stiffens in front of a massive steel chest. He mumbles something under his breath, unlatches the heavy locks. The Storm’s bolt symbol is etched into the front. He flips the lid open, revealing Volt. Hundreds of vials pulse a steady blue.

“Got left behind,” he mutters, shaking a vial between his fingers. “Then again, so did you.”

He plucks one of several glass pipes among the haul, slots the vial into the base, then shuts the chest and sits atop it. Blood drips from his bare feet down the curved steel lid. “My only Heir leaving his Boss unprotected.” He tsks . “I should punish you, but—I don’t care.”

Slowly, the pipe glows with a thin line of blue, and Russell takes a long drag. His eyes close with a groan, then flash back open, ringed in blue. Smoke spills from his mouth as he grins and chucks the pipe at my head.

“Go ahead.”

I let the pipe bounce off my chest and clatter among glass. “I’m fine.”

“It’s devil-proof,” Russell chuckles darkly before he taps his temple.

I level my shoulders. “Where did you go after The Bid? Synlon—are The Storm and The Kraken gone?”

“Gone not forgotten. The Accords remain in place.” He slides off the chest, scoops the pipe up with shaky fingers, and brings it to his lips again.

“Ezma and her Heir left the drugs. Volt. A peace offering.” A heavier laugh breaks around the next exhale.

“The Kraken waits to make another move. You did, after all, fuck with his boy.”

“Ruel fucked with me first,” I growl, but I force the conversation back to what I need to know. “How was the city secured?” I push off my knees and look at Vandem. “They wouldn’t just leave. Synlon was too vulnerable.”

“We offered them double their normal shipments,” Vandem says gruffly, nodding toward the Skin chained along the hall.

“They fucking kidnapped me,” I say, “and we’re giving them more product?”

Vandem’s dark gaze lights with thrill. “A problem?”

“Yes, it’s a problem.” I face The Serpent. “I’m not making double deliveries.”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” Russell murmurs, his eyes on the city and his body hazed in blue. He slams a fist into his own reflection in the window. Then he laughs wild and loud.

I run my tongue over my teeth. “You promised your Yield,” I say in warning and gesture to Vandem. “Your commander was there when you made the decision.”

Vandem flashes me a dark smile. “I didn’t hear shit.”

I suck in a breath. Try not to murder them both.

Russell must die. His latest bout of madness is only a sign I’ve waited too damn long. There’s a reason Heirs kill to take over. Power is a drug. Too much of it and it gives out. Mortals get compliant. Shipments run late. A Bossdom bleeds from the inside out.

All of the warning signs of a failing empire are flashing so fucking hard, I’m seconds from a seizure.

But I can’t. Any move I make without a Witnessed Yield will be deemed a Blood Betrayal. I’d be stripped of my Godsdamn tattoos, exiled to who knows the fuck where, my city forfeited to whichever Boss decided to waltz in and take it.

It should’ve been The Bid.

Russell should’ve died on that stage.

Instead—

My brow furrows as my mind blurs.

A shriek erupts through the corridor, and I tense as a girl is dragged by the ear, her hands cuffed at her back. A crony releases her, and Vandem grabs her next, his fingers tight around her arm as he hauls her to the bed.

The Serpent prowls, Volt pipe in hand.

Vandem straps her legs to the bed using the permanent restraints. She trembles as Russell leans in close, sniffing her neck. He exhales thick blue smoke against her throat, and she whimpers into a gag.

Sparks crackle along his spine.

“She isn’t quite right,” he sighs but climbs onto the bed anyway, settling between her spread legs, ankles shackled. He fists his cock, lightning crawling over his shoulders. “Keep looking.”

Vandem lingers for a moment. “Yes, Boss,” he says, eyes running over the girl’s naked frame. Then he disappears back into the corridor.

“You.” Russell gestures to me. “Make yourself useful. Ensure the next shipments of Skin arrive in Gronem. Ezma’s expecting them.”

I grit my teeth as my father strokes himself.

“Get a description from Vandem on your way out. Bring me any woman who matches it. Skin or not.”

I stare at the girl. She shakes violently beneath him.

“This isn’t the one you want?” I ask, my tone flat, venom buried deep.

“No.”

“Then why fuck her?”

The Serpent turns to me. Continues to jerk off with a threatening gleam in his eyes. “You want her after? I’ll deliver her to your apartment at Fang’s Edge.”

I roll my gaze over her body, slow and pointed. “I want her now,” I say through my teeth.

He slides off the bed. His pants fall around his ankles, and he steps out of them without pause. He pads toward me. “Go ahead,” he says, his tone dark and his eyes darker. “Take her.”

“Not here.”

“You said you want her now. ” The Serpent gestures wide. “There she is. Tied up. Waiting.” He circles behind me and shoves. “Go on. Fuck her.”

My eyes meet hers. Green. Wide. Terrified. Just like the girl’s before.

Except hers have life. Hers have something left to save.

“Take. Her.”

I stalk to the bed and undo the first restraint. The second. Then I grab her by the back of the neck and guide her toward the corridor. “I don’t fuck in front of an audience,” I snarl over my shoulder and lead her away.

“The shipment,” Russell orders at my back.

“I’ll have it delivered on time,” I snap. I shoulder past Vandem, his assessing eyes burning into my spine. “All of you. Up,” I bark at the Skin along the corridor. “We’re fucking leaving.”