Page 38 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

The Womb

Rayze

Warrick grabs the back of my neck as we approach the back of the Skin line. “Mirror me, Red,” he murmurs under his breath, and Aleksi grabs Sonya.

I force my gaze to the ground, mud pushing up between my toes.

“Sorry, baby,” Warrick whispers.

Then he shoves me to the ground. “We got some runners,” he calls out.

Two cronies and a Chrome Guard turn toward us.

Sonya smacks into the mud next to me with a grunt, and we exchange a wary look.

“Where’re your vests?” the guard barks.

Warrick fists my hair, and I let him drag me to my feet. “Bartered them,” he answers, his face revealing nothing as he shoves Sonya and I toward the rest of the Skin.

I brush my fingers with hers, and she returns the gesture.

The Skin in front of us don’t cast us a glance, their heads bowed as they take slow, mindless steps toward the Underground.

“You don’t barter your vests,” the guard growls. Then he turns to the cronies. “Fucking new recruits.”

“Pretty nice ink for being new,” one of them mutters.

Warrick folds his arms, Aleksi continuing to mirror him, keeping her eyes down as the rain plasters her curls into a dark veil. Thankfully, her hair and his jacket hide her kraken tattoos.

“The chaos after The Bid got me Boss treatment at the parlors,” Warrick explains.

They chuckle at that, disarmed by his boredom and charm.

My eyes trace over him, my stomach squeezing. Without his vest and despite his tattoos, it was easy the last few weeks to forget what he is. What he’s always been.

My resolve hardens, and I force my focus ahead.

The Underground entrance looms, Gronem’s dome swallowing everything else in my immediate line of sight. Cronies survey us as we pass, their eyes burning into my skin, but I don’t care. Most of my job is spent naked. What I do care about is making sure my sisters get out of this alive.

Guards grab us when we breach the entrance. Sonya stumbles. On purpose. Her shoulders roll forward, and her eyes stay down. I follow her lead, every movement intentional, every breath smaller than it wants to be.

The tunnel flattens into a chamber polished like bone, wet walls catching the light in uneven smears. Slabs rise in two rows, Skin restrained across their tops.

Rough hands shove me forward. I grunt, the air sharp with chemicals. My eyes burn. My throat stings. I glance back—Warrick and Aleksi swallowed by the swell of cronies and guards.

Panic punches through me, but Sonya catches my eye.

We have to go deeper , she signs behind her back. Stay calm .

Serpents push her atop a slab. Mutant cronies for The Storm study her body, their movements brisk and impersonal. Then one drives a needle into her neck. She slumps, her restraints springing open, and they toss her body atop a cart of others.

The Bond spikes with Warrick’s fear. I push it down, breathing deep as I’m lifted and dumped onto a slab. Mutants circle me, my heart racing.

One straps me down, his arms reinforced with metal plates stitched into the skin.

He stares at me with glassy eyes, his hands stripped of nails and fitted with surgical instruments.

Scalpels, spreaders, and clamps glitter beneath the sterile light as he signs toward other mutants, his mouth wired shut.

Premium , he tells his fellow cronies, his fingers clicking with his signs. Great vitals .

Then the needle stabs.

My magic lashes, tearing from my gut and through the drug creeping into my bloodstream. I grit my teeth and focus, steadying each breath. I understand now why Sonya didn’t resist.

Daughters don’t go down easy, but Warrick doesn’t know that.

I feel him along the Bond, the way he’s restraining himself from coming after me. I steady my pulse, releasing as much calming energy as I can toward the Heir. We didn’t come this far for him to fuck it up.

Some of his fear subsides, and my fingers twitch. I take deep breaths through my nose, keeping my limbs slack as I’m unlatched and hauled to the cart. They drop me, my body sticking to another’s. Someone whistles, and I peer through my lashes.

The cart lurches deeper into The Womb, a pair of mutants harnessed to its front.

Warrick

My heart’s fucking bleeding.

Aleksi grabs my wrist, dragging me with cronies as they funnel out of the Underground. “We’re not getting any further,” she says.

I rip out of her grip. “Fuck you if you think I’m ditching my girl. I promised her a body count.”

“We’re not ditching them. We’ll portal into Gronem and hopefully meet them at the sewage pipelines above The Womb.

” She pushes her hair out of her eyes, her curls springing up in damp ringlets.

“They can’t escape the way they went in, Ivor, and there’s no guarantee there will be mirrors or reflections for them to portal out.

We need to make sure they have an exit route, and if I had to guess, Rayze would rather leave this shithole alive than see you spill blood. ”

My fists clench, Serpents marching up the hillside and back to Synlon. “Promise me she’s safe.”

Aleksi casts me a stern look. “One Shard Daughter is worth more than a hundred men, and The Womb just swallowed two . I promise. She’s fine.”

We break from the back of the line and sprint, veering around the side of Gronem’s dome. Our boots kick up mud, rain stinging our skin.

Aleksi skids to a stop. “Here,” she shouts over the rain. “This should be enough.”

I slam a palm against the dome to catch myself.

At this angle, its steel reflects the moonlight breaking between clouds. Aleksi focuses on our murky, distorted reflections, and I draw back, stepping to her side.

Thin sparks crack over her knuckles. Then a smudge of darkness pinwheels outward. It warps into a narrow archway, starlight glittering awake within.

Aleksi extends a hand in offering, her blue eyes hard behind her glasses. “We trusted you, didn’t we?”

I slap my palm into hers. “Just get me back to Rayze.”