Page 31 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

A Crown

Warrick

I unsheathe my Serpent blade, my eyes fastened to the clock ticking above the kitchen table. Three minutes past .

“How long have you known?” Hallie asks, her knuckles white around the shaft of an arrow in one hand and her bow in the other.

My lips press together at the sight of tears staining her cheeks.

“How long did you know about their plan, Warrick?” she asks, this time sharper.

Shouts erupt from deep in the estate, the clash of weapons and armor ringing down the hallway and slipping through the seam of the kitchen doors.

Four minutes.

My gaze hardens.

“ How long ?” Hallie hisses.

“Grab the twins and go out the back door, Hal,” I mutter and grip my blade with both hands, bracing a foot behind me as I look through the small windows in the kitchen doors, Thalassa sprinting down the hall toward us. Blood covers her face, Chrome Guards and pirates chasing her.

Only five minutes. That’s all it took.

It’ll take less to enslave the youngest.

“I won’t leave you here,” Hallie growls.

I turn a glare toward her. “A month,” I spit. “I’ve known for a month.”

Her shoulders stiffen. Anger flashes through her eyes. “I saw you last week. ”

“Run, Hallie.” My throat works. My voice shakes. “Please. I can’t watch them kill you.” I swallow. “Or do worse.”

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that a month ago,” she snarls and sweeps toward her sisters, her bow and quiver falling to the floor, arrows spilling out. She slips underneath the table to grab the twins—

The doors slam open.

Thalassa crashes past me, knocking me off-balance, her hands pressed against a stomach wound. I fall back with a grunt, my temple knocking into a cabinet of dishes, plates and cups shattering around me. My blade clangs to the floor, skittering out of reach.

“My girls.” Her lips tremble. “They’re dead,” she grits out. “All of them. I don’t know where Ruel is. He wasn’t there.” Blood smears her fingers as she coughs, smacking into the ground with a shout of pain.

Dead? I clutch the cabinet and try to right myself, vision blurring and ears ringing as Thalassa drags herself toward her children. “Are you sure they were killed?” I ask, and I can’t help the relief. Death is a far better alternative to what my father had planned for those girls.

“I’m sure,” she spits and collapses to her knees. She says something to a sobbing Hallie before she falls onto her back, her chest faltering with heavy, too quick breaths.

Hallie wraps her arms around Lori and Meredith before she gives her mother a final, grief-stricken look and drags the tablecloth down.

Cronies storm into the kitchen, Bosses at their lead.

“Grab Thalassa. The injury could be sustainable once we attach her to the rig,” The Kraken orders. “Hurry, and find the last three. They’ll have to be enough with the others dead.”

My eyes lock on the nearest weapon—one of Hallie’s arrows.

Guards move in toward Thalassa.

No .

I lunge across the space, snatch the arrow, and shove past cronies. Thalassa sees me coming, her chin dipping with a firm nod, before I drive the arrow into her heart.

A sharp gasp comes from beneath the table, and I swallow, meeting Hallie’s eyes. She peers between loose threads in the tablecloth in betrayal.

“Warrick,” my father growls, and Chrome Guards wrench me from Thalassa, her eyes blinking one final time before her body falls limp. “What the fuck did you just do?”

I rip from the guard’s grips. “Did we not want the bitch dead?” I seethe, hating myself with every word.

“We need them alive for the rig to work,” The Kraken curses. “Where are my youngest?”

“I don’t know,” I say, throwing my hands up. “Thalassa knocked me out. She knew about the plan somehow.”

“Fan out,” The Serpent orders. “They’re hiding or they ran. I want a group of six to take the lifts and search the beach. They couldn’t have gotten far.”

“Heir,” Torren growls, “make yourself useful and check on my son. I put a draft in his ale and had cronies take him to his room.”

I can’t leave Hallie. I won’t.

Cronies pull open cabinets, searching for the girls.

“Move,” Russell says and snaps his fingers. “Check on The Kraken Heir.”

I walk to where my Serpent blade lies among shattered glass. Slowly, I crouch to grab it, trying to buy myself time. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I have to do something.

I wrap my hand around the hilt, but I frown as something reflects across the glass. The pieces are too broken up to make it out, but I swear I see stars. Then across the shining steel of my blade—my brows furrow—it looks like the spires of a crown.

“What was that?” A guard barks. “Under the table.”

I lurch from the floor, but I’m too late.

A Chrome Guard tears the tablecloth away, Hallie stiffening, her hands clamped around the mouths of the twins who kick and cry.

Tears pour from Hallie’s eyes, their green dark and malevolent as blood seeps from her nose. It dips into the seam of her shaking lips, a bright light cracking over her knuckles—there for a single flash and then gone. Her body twitches. Her eyes squeeze shut.

Then the guards grab them, the girls’ screams deafening.