Page 43 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

No Mercy

Rayze

I sprint through Synlon’s streets.

Don’t get me wrong. The chase is exquisite , but the unraveling? Watching Warrick crave me so desperately?

Even as a Shard Daughter, sometimes I question the existence of Gods and paths. It’s hard to trust anything but my gut, my heart, and my mind.

Then came my snake.

I halt among the night crowd, rain drenching down my face and whip my bow into place.

I nail Warrick in the stomach.

He doesn’t stop chasing after me. Just rips it from his skin, the Bond quaking back to life as his eyes find mine. A dark smile curls over his lips, crimson washing down his abdomen.

Who are you? he purrs through my mind, the connection deeper with every new threading of our souls.

Fuck me.

“More,” he yells and spreads his arms, still at a steady jog. His smile slips when he loses sight of me.

“Pretty devil,” Warrick sings through the crowd.

He tortures me in all the ways I didn’t know I needed to be.

And it is a need. A need to be treasured, pounded, worshiped, broken, remade, hated, and loved. To be everything to him. Weapon. Woman. Both. To never choose between all that I am or to compromise my power for the sake of his pride. I am his pride. He is mine.

I know it. He knows it.

I tug the scissors from my pocket and rip through our Bond.

CUT .

This time, he’ll feel the loss, but he’ll remember my face. Want for it. Savor it.

I smile wide and open a portal in a puddle, disappearing into its reflection.

* * *

Warrick

She forgets there’s a tether between us. A bridge no Fate could deny. Among it I walk at night, and when I find her mind, I slip there like the knife she forced through mine.

She moans in her sleep. For me. How I torture her. How I love her. How she’ll kill me if she gets the chance. How we’ll both smile as she does.

Then–“I love you,” she whimpers, and I’m reminded of her name seconds before she disappears again.

The thing is, I’m not sure she does love me. She may say it in her sleep, but any time I lean toward the subject, she’s quick to close herself off. She’s keeping something from me. A secret. It sits like a knot cinched in the very center of our Bond. I can cross over it but not through it.

My angel is unhappy in a way that can’t be easily stitched. There’s a hole inside her, and she’s left it gaping, screaming .

I’m trying to fill it, to show her there’s a life worth living beyond the mission of the Daughters— who are the Daughters?

But I think the bravest woman I’ve ever known might be very, very tired.

CUT.

I slide against shingles with a grunt, my skin peeling back as I slam toward the edge of a roof. I grapple and claw, roaring into the rain until my fingers latch against a rusted pipe, the thing creaking with my weight. Wind bashes against me, my legs dangling toward death.

Two of the masked insurgents I’d been chasing disappear into the night, leaping across rooftops, spear and whip flashing beneath the moonlight.

But the third one—she rushes toward me.

Steel-tipped boots stop at my knuckles, and I throw a grip around a slender, firm ankle. Up and up I drag myself toward her hips until I’m inches from green eyes and rain-streaked makeup behind a black mask. It sits across her nose and around her eyes, leaving her full lips on display.

Some part of me is desperate to kiss her. Why?

“You should’ve let me fall,” I say and tighten my grip around her biceps.

The woman sucks in a trembling breath before she steps into me. My heart races as we teeter on the edge. If she pushes me, then I’ll fall, and if I fall, she falls with me because I’m not fucking letting go.

I search her dark gaze, my brows knitting at the cold resolution fixed on her face.

“Would it be such a bad thing?” she asks suddenly, her voice half-drowned by the storm.

I grip her. “To fall?”

“To die.” She releases a heavy breath. “To rest.”

I don’t know what compels me to, but I reach for her face. With my thumbs, I pry her mask up, noticing the black jewels lining it remind me of the silver ones across my Heir mask.

I frown, wondering if the design is meant to mock me, but the thought washes away at the sight of her full face. My gut squeezes, my chest caving in. She’s beautiful.

“Why aren’t you running away from me?” I mutter.

She closes her eyes. Rain drenches us, plastering our clothes to our bodies. Her dark hair clings to her cheeks, and confusion vibrates through me as I stroke the stray strands behind her ears as if it’s second nature.

Touching her—it makes me feel more whole.

“Don’t follow me,” she says suddenly, her voice thick with a grief I don’t understand. She whips away, wrenching her mask back down and sprinting across roofs.

I stand there, staring after her. My hand crawls under my Serpent vest and spreads over my chest, my heart thundering against my palm.

I know her. I’m sure I do.

* * *

Rayze

REMEMBER.

We fuck as often as we spill blood. Addictive. Insatiable. Ride me and tell me why , he once asked, so I do. I ride him and recite violence like a prayer.

“I want to skin you, to bleed you dry, to fill you with every ounce of my dissatisfaction so you may wield yourself only in my name.” I whisper and scream and beg.

Every dark desire, every sinister need. “I want you as mine. Only mine. My man. My snake. My soldier.” The words roll off my tongue with matched swivels of my hips.

He comes.

I shatter.

Repeat.

“Beautiful,” Warrick whispers, the hilt of his knife tucking inside me with a single, controlled thrust.

My walls clench in elation, the chair I’m tied to creaking. The ceiling above is smoked glass. Stars flicker beneath the surface like shattered constellations, each one stitched with faintly glowing threads, tugging in time with my pleasure.

Our rooms in Shard House are sacred. There’s no trespassing without a bargain. A dozen times we’ve crashed through the portal into the only place I’ve ever truly felt safe, and every time, my heart heals to find he still chases. Still hunts.

“Give me your name,” he growls and rips the hilt from my aching mess, wiping it against my thigh.

“Rayze,” I whisper.

REMEMBER. US.

He groans and runs his tongue over the trail the hilt leaves behind. “Rayze,” he echoes and tosses the knife to the floor. It thunks against the hardwood as he releases his cock from his pants, fisting it in desperation. “Closer,” he begs. “I need to be inside you.”

The Bond pulses with our frenzy. It mends as he rips his trembling fingers through the knotwork of my restraints. “Inside–” he repeats. Inside inside inside.

“Ruin me.” I tug him to my mouth and brush my lips against his. I grind my hips. “Take me without limits and I promise to return the favor.”

His grip on me tightens, and he slides two fingers along my clit. My eyes hood and my tongue swells with a moan as he lifts them back to his mouth and sucks them clean.

“Again,” he groans around his knuckles, savoring my taste. “Erase my mind. Fuck baby, your delicious after a hunt.” His eyes glisten, his fingers dropping back to my heat. “I want you to scream for me.”

He presses his thumb down and pounds into me deeper.

“Yes,” I cry out.

He shows me no mercy.

My eyes water and tears slide to the floor. I can’t help it, and I love that I can’t. I love that he’s chosen to obey, and I love how I’m able to disappear when I’m with him.

I’m growing to accept his violence, his power, and when he looks at me, I know he accepts the same.

“Make me mindless,” I breathe.

His hips stutter before his pace quickens.

“Make me the one who forgets,” I beg.

My back screeches against the floor, and I anchor my arms around his neck, my legs clenched around his waist. “If you take me, you take me as you are and as nothing less.” I drag my teeth over his bottom lip.

FORGET.

FORGET.

FOR–

“Rayze?” His low voice carries through my bedroom, the stars above my canopy twinkling.

I curl into him, my ear pressed tight to his chest. We lie beneath the covers, sticky but satisfied.

“You, Aleksi, and Sonya, I chased you a few weeks back. Do you remember? The roofs?”

I close my eyes.

“Angel.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “You’re my hero. You know that, right? All the Saved in Underground Palace? The way you throw yourself into fight after fight without question? Fuck, I wish I was as brave as you.”

Tears burn at the corners of my eyes.

“But I know there’s something you’re not telling me,” he continues, softer and more careful. “It’s eating you alive, and I wish you’d trust me enough to help you carry it, whatever it is.”

CUT.