Page 26 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Kill For Me

Warrick

My boots slam into cracked stone, knees bent, blades ready. My muscles lock, blood pounding, and my stomach churns.

This nest has no beds or cages. Just butcher slabs.

Bolted-down tables with shackles line the outer perimeter of an old, repurposed brothel. In its gutted center—corpses. Skin hang in clear body bags from ceiling rigs, plastic suctioned tight against open-mouthed screams.

They sway gently, side to side, like someone already pushed through.

Rayze .

I weave through the dim-lit nest, a fucking trading point between The Serpent Bossdom and the rest. My boot knocks a bucket of rusted collars, and my shoulders stiffen. I scan the shadows, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t give myself away.

The chandelier we dropped from hangs crooked, flickering. Its steel wires stretch across the ceiling like a web, lightning funneling through before vanishing into rock, powered by the storm above.

Steadying my breath, I proceed forward.

The floor slopes toward a grated trench, black and clotted with years of waste. Mold chokes the air. Barbed chains, branding irons, and rolls of unused body bags glint from a tall rack near the wall.

I shoulder past the last corpse.

It twitches.

I freeze, bile burning my throat, their fingers clawing at the plastic confining them. Immediately, I step back and slash my knife through the bag.

The Skin within gasps, falling forward, naked and beaten.

I catch her—and her intestines. They string from her stomach, sutures busted. Cronies must have harvested a nonessential organ and sewn her up, thinking she was dead.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” I mutter and lower her to the ground, her glassy eyes distant. “I’m so sorry,” I manage.

Then I thrust my blade through her heart.

A sharp shriek punches through the gag thrust into her mouth before she falls limp. I swear there’s fucking relief in her eyes, but I don’t dare pat myself on the back. There’s no excuse for this shit. There just isn’t.

I’ve saved Skin, but I’m still a fucking monster for knowing this existed and waiting until now to end it. I just couldn’t take it out by myself. I needed someone else on my side, someone who could get the job done even if I was captured in the process. I’ve never had that chance until Rayze.

My shoulders heave, muffled movement coming from somewhere beyond the body bags. Shame crashes through me, pinching my throat. I rake in one breath and another, clutching a hand over my chest.

Snap out of it , I tell myself and slap my cheek. Rayze needs you .

I tug my blade from the poor girl’s chest and stand, striding out of the shadows and into the gutted front of the old brothel.

My gaze jerks over restraint benches and packaged limbs to cronies in heavy leather aprons.

Saws and Serpent blades lift as they watch me approach, their stances wide and ready.

Then I see her.

A storm rips through me, another man’s hand clamped over my angel’s mouth. Her eyes narrow into dark slits as she kicks against the Serpent holding her in place.

I lunge without mercy.

I couldn’t give a single fuck if these are my men. No one. Touches. Mine . All I want is red. Blood on the ceiling. Crimson between my fingers. Metal on my tongue. They will die, and I will carve her name into their flesh.

I halt, the tip of a blade pressing into my back.

Another digs at my side.

I’m surrounded.

My lungs seize, but how am I to stay still? To surrender? To let them hurt my angel? Let her die in this fucking place? No.

I swivel my blades, and those pretty green eyes—

They dance with rage.

Gods save me, because if this isn’t foreplay, then I don’t fucking want it.

“Go ahead, vicious,” I growl. “Kill for me.”

Rayze

I slam my skull back.

Cartilage cracks , my captor stumbling with a cry. I whip my arm around and wrench my bow free, twisting in a fluid movement. My elbow punches back, my bowstring kissing the hollow of my cheek.

Then I release.

My arrow slices through a cheek. The second—a forehead. The third—

Stolen by Warrick’s blade.

Their life splatters from their sliced throat across my neck and chest.

Warrick’s shoulders heave, his blade hovering mid-air. He smiles, blood between his teeth.

“I like you in red,” he says, the Bond singing with thrill, and launches his blade over my shoulder.

I spin and nock another arrow, but the snake who snuck up behind me crumples, serrated steel plunged through his chest.

I lower my bow, Warrick’s mask a mess of blood-plastered feathers. “You, too,” I admit, and his smile widens before a saw arcs down between us.

We throw ourselves back and lurch toward separate targets.

I dart around one of the restraint benches, latch my bow with a snap , and shove the leather table into a charging asshole.

His saw clangs down on one of the steel cuffs, throwing him off-balance.

My vision flashes behind Fate’s veil.

“ LIFT ,” I command and yank on the threads of gravity as I jump.

Strings knot and tug around my waist. I duck my head and flip over the bench. Blood spills from my nose, my knuckles sparking white—but my focus zeroes in on the bench’s cuffs.

I snatch one with a snarl as I fly overhead, dodging the crony’s second attempt to saw me in half, grab his arm, and slam thick, blood-rusted iron shut around his wrist.

My boots crash to stone, their metal soles vibrating as I release the threads knotted at my waist.

The snake lashes toward me, and I curve to the right with a dark laugh. He fumbles the saw’s weight, wielding it with only one hand, and the thing clangs between us as he tries to pull himself free from the cuff.

I rip the surgical saw from the ground and heft it between my hands. “Oh, this is nice ,” I purr.

Then I spin—muscles flaring, magic singing, silver blade flashing—and take his head in one Fate-powered slice.

Red rains outward like a glorious bout of confetti, his slaughtered neck spilling and spilling across the bench and its packaged limbs.

I beam down at the saw. Fuck yeah.