Page 29 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Torture

Warrick

I don’t know what time is anymore. Every time I blink, it’s the same.

Bone-bright floors and a ceiling of searing stars. Dark mirrors ripple between archways that press in around me, my prison a sealed off temple between snow-covered mountaintops and storm-riddled skies.

My leather jacket is torn, my hair greased against my skull. Holes bore into the knees of my pants, my throat a raw, cut mess from screaming my angel’s name into the dark reflections surrounding me.

It’s worse when I sleep. A void swallows me whole.

Dark waters ripple as I sway among black, a lift of my palms showing transparent, glowing skin. I was brought here before in Rathem, Rayze naked among the darkness, waiting for me to take her. Now I wade toward nothing, but I walk anyway, hoping for answers.

Some nights, I get close.

First are her screams, her voice shouting through the void. She sounds younger, distant, like a version of her from years ago. The Bond claws through me at the sound. Pain burns across my knuckles.

Then light breaks from the pores of my skin. Not mine. Hers .

I’d recognize my vicious angel no matter any timeline or plane of existence—inside my body, outside of it. A living imprint of her power brightens with every day I seek her. Her soul calls to me always.

Among the dark, she drowns beneath those black waters. A small girl screaming and screaming, and I’m fucking trying to find her, save her.

Then there’s my father.

His shouts tear through the dark, garbled and gagged. His are louder and closer than hers, but I know it’s him. I run faster, heart thundering. He sounds so wounded, so weak.

I want a front row seat.

In the distance, there’s an archway. A black hole swirling among a silver frame. A mirror hanging among the dark like a gaping mouth.

I run, my boots splashing, my arms pumping—green eyes peering from within, watching. Always watching. I’m seconds from reaching her, my father’s pleas for mercy loud enough he could be screaming directly in my ear.

Then I jolt awake. Trapped in this fucking temple. Again.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I’ve tried counting the stars above, but they shift among endless fog. I’ve scratched tally marks into the marble floor with a fingernail, only for them to vanish. I talk to the mirrored archways, but nothing ever returns.

All the while, the Bond strangles me.

To claim my vicious, then to have nothing— I’m a disaster.

I’ve renamed the architecture after her.

The curved archways are her open mouth as my cock slammed into her tight cunt.

The split in the corner tiles is the bow of her back when I came inside her, cum smearing between us like a promise.

In everything there is her, and she is everything.

I can’t escape her and yet she’s never here.

Torture. She’s torturing me. And it’s working.

Balconies line the upper perimeter of my mirrored cage. There are no stairs, but there is an audience. Fiery curls and a spear— the redhead . A flick of a whip and green braids, something metallic glinting— the one with fangs .

Then someone else, someone that causes all the stars glittering across the ceiling to burn brighter, harsher.

They’re the hardest to see, as if they’re not actually here.

A reflection, maybe. A shadow. I don’t know, but they watch longer and more often than any of the others, and it’s never the one I crave the most.

Rayze Angeline. My angel. My vicious. The pretty, manipulative, stunning devil who knocked me out.

They need to feed me.

Not food.

Her .

I need to eat her alive. Consume every brutal piece so that maybe I’ll understand why I’m here, why she won’t come back to me, just— why ?

Sometimes, I swear I feel her breath behind me, hot and mocking.

I smell leather and rain, only for her scent to burn away.

I close my eyes, and I fall into that strange, dark void, and there it is—distant but I’m sure it’s hers—laughter cracking across black waters before I’m thrust back into sterile, bright silence.

My knuckles are cracked from pounding at the floor. My knees are raw from waiting and waiting .

Let her come.

On my fingers.

On my face.

Then let my cock split her in half with my rage.

Though, I did say anything . I just didn’t realize anything was locking me up like some kind of deranged animal, forced to stare at my warped reflection in every direction. I mean, what is this? Some kind of metaphor?

Look inward, Warrick. You’re a dick —I FUCKING KNOW.

Was I not clear with her? Do I need to say it plainly?

Yes, I hate myself for my legacy, and yes, I do hate myself with a smile, because at least then I don’t feel like I’m drowning.

Now, it’s all I can think about. Every fuck up.

Every moment I sat back as innocents were killed or sold.

I assume that’s her point. Gold star, angel. Consider me a weak, cowardly, asshole . If my vicious doesn’t face me soon, that’s it. I’ll bash my skull in out of spite. Smear her temple in red and laugh beyond the grave as she and her assassins scrub their sacred fucking floors.

“Rayze,” I growl and shove off the floor. I stagger, then whirl in a circle, spinning and spinning and—“Rayze Angeline!” I claw through my hair. “You can’t keep me here forever,” I spit. “Serpents will notice if I’m missing.”

An arrow slices from one of the mirrored archways.

Toward my head.

I slam to my stomach, casting a glare over my shoulder to where the damn thing strikes into marble . Fucking marble. It cracks and splinters outward, the silver shaft thrumming with power.

I’ve attempted to escape. Multiple times. Nothing can crack the glass caging me in, but I bet that thing would.

Tearing up from the ground, I lunge for the arrow with a dark smile, only for it to rip into the air and zip back from where it came from.

I yell and chase after it, hitting the surface of the mirror and pounding my fists against it. “Rayze!”

“It’s obsidian glass. You can’t break it,” a small voice echoes at my back.

I whip around with a scowl, but I stop cold. My heart slams, my stomach squeezing in denial.

A young girl sits cross-legged on the floor in pleated, canvas pants and a billowing, white top, her waist cinched with a corset. Long, dark hair waves subtly on either side of her face, shifting slightly with the tilt of her head.

Her face—there’s nothing there. Just a dark, spinning hole, stars twinkling within. I swallow. With or without it, I know her. Impossible .

“Hallie?” I mutter, peering closer at Ruel Trask’s missing sister. She doesn’t look any older than when I last saw her. Only fourteen. I take slow, cautious steps closer. “I thought you were dead.”

There’s some semblance of a smile behind the void of her face, and a chill runs down my spine. She remains silent and still, my throat working as I slowly lower into a kneel before her.

“Obsidian glass?” I ask, nodding to the mirrors. “Do you know how to get past it?”

“Soon,” she says as if it’s an answer. Her small fingers clutch her knees, her back stiff and straight. Then—“Do you remember when you took me?”

My brows draw. “I didn’t take you, Hal. I just—” Fuck. I massage my temple, a headache blooming behind my eyes. “We were all together at your family’s estate,” I say. “The one on the edge of Rathem, by the sea.”

“And you took me.”

I frown. “I didn’t. The Serpent and I had dinner with your family. Negotiated the sale of Skin. Then we left.”

I trusted you, Warrick. Hallie trusted you. Ruel’s words from our fight on Saltmaw crash through my skull.

“You took me,” she says again. “You took me to the other room. The kitchen.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t talk,” Hallie says. “Just remember .” The swirling stars of her face start to wink out, one at a time. White crackles over her knuckles.

I’m glad you have those arrows , my sixteen-year-old voice haunts at the back of my mind. You might need them.

I lift from my knee, staring at her knuckles, then the blood sliding from the void of her face and dripping steadily from her chin. “You’re messing with my head.” I turn my back to her, locking my hands behind my neck.

I’ve seen those symptoms before on my angel. She tried to hide them, but it’s clear they accompany the use of her magic.

“My mom was there, too. Don’t you remember, Warrick? You were arguing with her,” Hallie continues. “ Lass .”

“Stop,” I grit out, glaring into the dark mirror in front of me. “Rayze, whatever the fuck this is, stop .”

I don’t expect anything, but the obsidian glass dips.

Small pricks of white scatter outward, streams of light piercing through the black. Starlight .

I step to it, my gut warming, both Bond and magic urging me closer. Sensing her. She’s there. Somewhere on the other side.

“Warrick? Are you leaving again?” Hallie’s pained whisper curls over my shoulders.

I yank back around—and freeze.

Rayze is an inch away, her breath spilling over my chin.

I stumble back a step, those green eyes glittering with white specks of power, blood streaming from under her nose and over her lips.

“Angel,” I breathe.

“Remember,” she spits with a sneer and rears back, her boot slamming into my gut. “REMEMBER. HALLIE.”

I choke and fly back, breaking across the mirror and sinking , darkness entombing me as I stare in horror and recognition.

Rayze clasps her hand around Hallie’s, the void of the girl’s face shrinking back. Angry, beautiful green eyes to match my angel’s appear, and when a tear burns down Rayze’s cheek, one falls down the slope of Hallie’s, too.

No .

I reach toward them, but the little girl vanishes until there’s nothing but my Rayze. Her face contorted with pain as the darkness claims me.