Page 40 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

A Fucking Hero

Warrick

The stormrig slams against a rusted, thin platform. Lightning spasms out from the wheels, the engine releasing a high-pitched wail of steam. Aleksi cackles, leaning into the Godsdamn handlebars and riding along a crumbling edge, the sewage pipelines sprawled ahead.

I drain the rest of her flask. It’s that or a heart attack.

“Fuck,” she shouts as air rip pasts.

Peering over her shoulder, my fists clench.

At least twenty stormrigs zip toward the outer edge of the pipes, every one of them wearing crony helmets. Their batons are extended, lightning crackling from the tip as they whip around and park along the perimeter.

Aleksi jams down a lever, and I latch around her waist as we leap from the platform to a muddy gravel path, a river rushing at its side. Mud kicks up around us, caking my pants before she drives her boot back against the brake.

We shout as the bike screams to a stop, and we catapult off.

I crash into the riverbank, choking on moss. I cough, lifting as Aleksi groans a few feet away, rolling over in the water and spreading her arms.

“Never again,” I growl. “Never. Fucking. Again.”

She raises from the river, clothes and hair dripping as she pulls off her muddy glasses and attempts to wipe them clean. She squints at me. “You’re barely bleeding. Get over yourself.”

“What?” I glance down and curse low. I popped open one of Rayze’s stab wounds, blood leaking over my left ribs.

Pain buzzing, I stride past Aleksi and up over an outcrop of tangled roots and rocks. “Those are Storm cronies, Red, and they don’t look happy.”

My ears prick with the sound of a faint siren, and my pulse kicks, my gut lurching. Rayze . I sprint down the hillside, skidding down its slope.

“Hey.” Aleksi chases after me. “Ivor!”

I ignore her, my focus on the lead stormrig’s driver. Satori . The Heir pulls off her helmet and leaves it on the seat of her bike, the ridge of hair that used to line her skull now shaved off. In its place, some kind of vertebrae of metal pulses neon.

I stop and catch Aleksi with an arm. “That’s The Storm Heir. I can’t go down there. She’ll recognize me, and if I incite any kind of violence on her cronies—”

“She’ll have the right to retaliate against Synlon.” Aleksi nods and lifts her palm. “Rayze’s bow and arrows. Give me them.”

“I can’t just stand here,” I snarl and move downhill. “Fuck Synlon.”

“Warrick,” she says and grabs my arms, rounding me and forcing me to stop, my glare locking with hers. “You want Rayze to trust you? That doesn’t mean being a fucking hero, diving in to save her.”

Aleksi pries Rayze’s bow off my shoulder and over my head.

“She can save herself, and she has. Thousands of times,” she continues, tossing the steel frame over her.

“What she really needs is the one who listens .” She pushes her hair behind her ears.

“Someone who only fights with her command. Someone she can trust.”

“She’s surrounded,” I hiss. “That is needing me most.”

“It’s not, snake. Not even close.” She swallows and carefully starts to pluck arrows free from my waistband.

I scowl, but I don’t stop her. “Then what is?” I step into her. “What aren’t you saying?”

Aleksi presses her lips together, her brows drawn. Then she shakes her head. “Just stay here, Heir. Better yet, go make sure our stormrig isn’t totaled.”

She hurries to the hill’s bottom, bending over to stay low among tall grass.

My fingers flex. I can’t do this. I can’t be what they want. Standing here? Doing nothing? I survey the cronies, drowning as only Satori and two others enter through what looks to be a hidden Underground entrance. The rest of her crew hangs back, likely awaiting her signal.

I wait for the Heir to disappear. Then I follow after Aleksi before branching away to the lined up stormrigs.

Rayze

There’s an exit down through the third branch, but we have company , Sonya signs.

Blood pours from my nose, threads glitching out around me. Dark spots line my vision, my lungs squeezing as I pull the cart of Skin along.

Rayze, you’re pushing yourself too far. Sonya grabs the other harness and hooks it over her shoulders. I want them free as much as you, but we can’t risk everything we’ve worked for—

I collapse.

My knees slam into stone, grit biting into my shins. The harness rips against my shoulders, and I choke, my fingers trembling as I unhook it.

Sonya pulls out of hers and quickly releases mine, catching my hands between her palms. Her worried eyes trace over my face.

“I just need a breath,” I rasp.

Boots echo between wails of the siren, shadows skittering across the walls as The Storm Heir and her cronies round the corner.

“What the fuck is this?” Satori Halix shouts. Her baton sparks at her side, her eyes ringed blue with Volt. Lightning crackles over her frame, bouncing across strange metal plates.

Sonya tenses, releasing my face and standing. I peer between her legs, sucking in heavy breaths.

“Mutant, where’s your brand?” Satori looks past us at the cart full of Skin, then at the blood coating Sonya’s fangs.

The Volt in the Heir’s eyes ruptures, heavier electrical currents seeping over her skin.

“Grab the mutant. Execute the other. I want the Skin taken back to the labs and the damage fully assessed,” she growls to her cronies.

They step forward, but so does Sonya.

She bares her fangs, her fingers curling into tight fists.

Satori looks Sonya over. “What are you waiting for?” she spits. “Knock the bitch out.”

Sonya readies, thin sparks of starlight leaking from her fists.

Satori’s eyes jerk down to them, Volt pulsing brighter. “Wait—” she starts.

Then her head snaps forward and she slumps to the ground.

The Heir slams face-first, neon blue leaking from a metal link in the vertebrae lining up the back of her skull.

Aleksi lowers her spear, its dull end glistening with the same liquid. “Fascinating,” she mutters before cronies whirl on her.

Sonya attacks the closest, launching onto his back and biting into his neck while Aleksi swivels her spear and thrusts the lethal end through the second’s heart.

“Stop,” I command, my magic shuddering and twisting across threads, holding the final crony paralyzed. I can’t hold it long, but I don’t need to.

Aleksi drives her spear beneath his chin and through his skull, his eyes rolling back as brain matter shatters outward. She wrenches back with a grunt, blood splattering across her glasses.

Then both my sisters rush to me. They grab me under the arms and hoist me between them, but I tear away.

“I said I wasn’t leaving without the cart,” I force out, stumbling to the harness and strapping it back on. “And tell me you didn’t just kill The Storm Heir.”

“I just fucked up the device keeping her conscious, but Angeline, you can’t be serious.” Aleksi looks to Sonya.

I stare past them. “Where is he?”

They argue with one another, fingers flying.

My heart lurches. “Where is Warrick?” I shout.

Fine , Aleksi signs and stomps to the cart. She studies its mechanics with her power, her blue eyes glittering with tiny specks of white. “You have to pull, lift, and push, Sin. Simultaneously.”

“I swear on every God, if you don’t tell me where my snake is—”

“He’s fine . I left the princess to sulk on a hill,” she bites out. “Now, tell me if you can command the cart. If you can’t, this ends. Do you understand? Sonya and I will knock you out and carry you home.”

I blow out a breath, my panic easing. “Okay,” I say, but I’m shaken. Just the thought of Warrick not being safe, it— fuck . I have to focus.

“Pull, lift, and push,” Aleksi repeats.

I lean into the harness. Then I beg my magic to rise.

Blood stings from my eyes, curving down my cheeks, a scream seeping from my teeth as I heave.

“Push,” I breathe, and new knots tie at the back of the cart. They weave and tangle toward my previous commands, and the cart rolls forward.

Aleksi and Sonya take hold of the second harness, our heavy breaths mingling as we haul the cart through to the exit.

“At least fifteen cronies,” Aleksi says, seconds from breaching the tunnel.

I’ll go ahead , Sonya begins, but her hands falter as we break into the ever-present glow of Gronem, the city’s neon reflecting off the dome around it.

Stormrigs are toppled, bodies strewn across them, Warrick in their center. He snaps the neck of the last crony and turns to face us, his chest heaving and nearly all of his fucking sutures popped open.

He sways unevenly, his eyes dark until he sees me. Relief swarms the Bond as he scrapes a bloody hand through his hair, pushing the black and white strands out of his face.

I release my commands, knots unraveling. Fate’s veil flickers out of focus, and I shove out of the harness. He strides to me, catching me as my knees shake.

I stare at the ground with a sick realization. Bond’s don’t just make feelings. I know that. I guess part of me thought because I was pretending so hard with him that it was my pretense simply echoing back. I didn’t think it was real.

I didn’t think I’d ever feel anything real for anyone besides the Daughters.

Warrick hugs me to his chest, his large palm pressing against the back of my head.

His heart pounds against my ear, his arms stiff around me.

He isn’t giving me his all. He’s holding himself back from taking me in the ways I know he wants to.

I can feel his intentions along the Bond, how deeply he craves to touch every inch of me, check me for bruises and kiss any wounds.

It’s overwhelming, and I’m too exhausted to dissect this bullshit.

“I told you to hang back,” Aleksi snaps at him.

His arms tighten around me.

“She wields me. Her , do you understand?” he spits. “Not you or Fangs, here. My angel. My Bonded.” Then he scoops me up, cradling me as he scowls down at my blood-covered face. “You okay, baby?”

“The cart,” I sputter, peeling my lashes open and forcing myself to stay awake. “Don’t you fucking leave that Godsdamn cart.”

He looks over his shoulder at the stacked Skin.

We’ll have to portal it to Underground Palace , Sonya says. She steps over to the slow-moving river. Help me clear away some of this moss and weeds.

Aleksi joins her on the riverbank, her jaw hard and shoulders set. She won’t look at Warrick and I, grasping weeds and ripping them up with bared teeth.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” I murmur, smearing my finger through the blood pooling out of his stab wounds.

His throat works, his voice rough. “Would you rather me lie to them?”

“I’m the fourth, Warrick.” I tap his chest, forcing his gaze down to mine. “First Omen. Then Sonya. Third is Aleksi. I learned most of what I know from them . When you fucked up, they saved me. They deserve respect.”

His grip tightens around me. He knows I’m right.

“Respecting them is respecting me,” I tell him, my voice hard. “Now and forever. If you ever let them die to save me, then that’s it.”

I pinch his chin, tired and every muscle shaking. “There is no you and I without the Daughters.”

Warrick holds me with one arm, pulling my hand from his chin and pressing a firm kiss to my knuckles. “Rest, vicious.” His jaw flickers as he draws back, his eyes lifting to my sisters. “They’re safe as long as you are.”