Page 44 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

The Most to Gain

Warrick

Wind howls between the jagged peaks of Vexx Mountains, dragging mist over Shard House’s coliseum like smoke off a battlefield.

The marble beneath my boots is cracked and blood-stained, veined with silver and slick with melted snow.

Morning rays of sunlight bounce across glass-paneled pillars that soar into the clouds, caging me in with Rayze’s latest torture.

We are soul-bound. She fucks with my head daily . She may have done it twice today. I don’t know, but I have the headache to prove it.

I mean, it’s hot as fuck, and it’s meant my angel smiles more. Fucking gorgeous. Can’t get enough. I just don’t know about this particular challenge of hers.

There is nothing—and I mean nothing —more terrifying than a group of four-foot girls eyeing my Serpent tattoos with rage.

“Daughters,” Rayze announces, pacing the sparring platform with her hands clasped behind her back and an evil fucking glint in her eyes. “You’ve seen Warrick around the house, I’m sure.”

Dozens of small faces glare up at me.

Fucking fuck.

“He’s a Serpent,” she says and forces a hard scowl, scrunching her nose in distaste. “What do we do to snakes?”

“Kill them,” a chorus of small voices carries through the open air arena.

Gods save me.

I release a slow exhale, glancing away from the onslaught of judgment. Synlon festers far below, rusted towers and sparking coils pulsing like an open wound. Storm clouds churn above my city, violent and ceaseless. Then lightning forks across the sky, and I feel the tug of it in my bones.

Magic. It’s swelling inside me. Every time the Bond regrows, my angel’s eyes on mine, I swear a fresh piece of her power grows with it.

“Right. We do usually kill snakes, but today, we want to train this particular one to behave and fight at our side,” Rayze says, her voice ridiculously smug.

I’m going to fuck that smirk away.

“Grab your blunt weapons. Let’s give our Honorary Daughter a proper welcome.”

I cock a brow. “Oh? Is that my title now? Not Warrick of Quiet?” I run a hand over Rayze’s bicep as seven-year-olds race toward a massive wooden rack strung between two pillars, sparring weapons hanging.

My angel leans into my touch with a grin, and I can’t even begin to explain how happy it makes me that she does that. “They don’t like having a man in the house,” she says. “Trust me. They need this.”

“They can use actual weapons,” I tell her. “I’m a big boy.”

Rayze snorts and shakes her head. “No, Warrick. No, they absolutely cannot.”

I frown as Daughters strap on leather vests and glance down at my stripped weapons belt. My blades are the first thing they take anytime I step foot inside Shard House. “Should I be running?”

My angel flashes a dark smile. “Yep.”

Then she strides toward a spiral staircase, heading up to join Aleksi and Sonya in the viewing box that hangs over the platform.

“Begin!” Rayze calls down from her seat, the three of them lifting flasks with bright smiles, cheers-ing toward me.

Screeches erupt from the far-end of the platform, and little boots stomp across marble toward me.

This is my hell.

Then the first knees me in the Godsdamn dick.

I take that back. This is my hell.

I won’t punch a seven-year-old girl. I will not fucking punch a —

Small bodies slam into me and I topple over with a grunt, blunt, wooden swords bashing against my head. I shout in aggravation, shielding myself with my arms.

Joy sparks across the Bond, its threads tugging affectionately from my gut to the balcony above. A laugh rolls through me, my chest warming as I peer past the clambering girls and up at my angel’s beaming smile.

I’m starting to live for that look on her face— happy .

“Get off me, you little assholes,” I growl halfheartedly, sweeping my arms out and catching two of the girls around the stomach. I stand and hoist them with me.

They scream a battle cry—“Destined to strike! Fated to win!”—and whack their swords against my arms.

I jerk sideways, muscles tensing to keep from collapsing on any of the hellions. Three Daughters giggle as they jump on my back and others wrap around my legs, forcing me to drag them along with each of my steps.

I smile up at Rayze, my girl cackling her ass off. “Can you please come get these things off me?” I shout up to her.

She gasps for air, Red and Fangs rolling with laughter, too. “No, I’m good,” she wheezes back.

She seems lighter today. We kill nests, hunt through the streets of Synlon, build a life together, but she’s hiding something still. I wish I wasn’t so fucking greedy, but damn it, I want all of her.

I’m in love with her. Every second I spend near her, I regret that I haven’t told her, but it also feels like each time I try to, she—

CUT.

* * *

Rayze

“Shoulders back. Perfect.” I step behind Warrick, his heavy pants against the gag filling the mirrored training hall.

With a grin, I snap the final lock closed against the leather binding his wrists.

He doesn’t get to touch.

Not today.

I circle to his front, running a nail from his spine around to the hard slant of his hips and across to his navel. I let my fingers trail lazily over his jutting cock, his muffled groan spiking along the Bond.

I wet my lips and meet his eyes.

Steel-blue sears into me, the trust there something I want carved into my skin. His eyes burn over my breasts, my nipples.

“Eyes on mine,” I murmur, his nostrils flaring as I settle into my chair across from him. I cross my legs, kicking my bare foot in time with my rushing pulse.

Warrick’s chest dips, his eyes fluttering shut for a long moment—as if trying to calm down—before they flash open and lock with mine.

“Good snake.”

He tilts his head, cocks a brow, and the iron collar around his neck shifts. The chains connected to it sway gently from the ceiling. He looks down at the glass shattered at his feet. Any step he takes—pain—yet he inches closer anyways.

Glass crunches, but his chest doesn’t so much as falter. Red seeps in small rivers, curling across white marble, his lust too strong to resist.

I force my foot still. Then, slowly, I open my legs.

His eyes darken, and the Bond thrums. You’re killing me , he growls along our Bond.

I grin. Quiet.

“This lesson is simple,” I whisper, and his eyes lock on my mouth. “Command my threads. Make me touch myself. Make me come.”

I grin at the hard tick of his cock.

“You will not speak. You will not step a foot closer.”

His groan rumbles into the gag, the precum against his tip glistening. He grips his chains, the veins along his forearms bright as he holds himself still.

I caress my thighs and peer through my lashes. “There are threads for everything. Pain. Memory.” I let my head kick back and cup my breasts with a soft gasp.

Then I snap my gaze back to his, his desperate agony to touch me enough to spread my legs wider. “Pleasure.”

I release my breasts and lean forward on my spread knees.

The room loses its white sheen. Darkness pools across my vision.

Then the threads of Fate alight. They swim across every inch of the room, ends stretched thin and disappearing toward the many mirrors.

Around Warrick are those tied to his being. Everything that makes him him .

“Fate commands a mortal’s essence,” I say softly. “My power allows me to see the threads of your essence and tug them to my will.”

Confusion flashes in his eyes, their corners crinkling as his question muffles behind the gag.

“Everyone has both soul and essence,” I explain. “Fate can know a person’s soul based on their essence, because she can read their threads and know their values. Your essence is what you are while you’re alive.”

I sit back and drag my fingers up the inside of my thigh.

“Your soul is what you are in every lifetime, mortal or immortal. Should we die, our essence will be severed but our souls may continue on. We’re us,” I say with a soft exhale, “but we’re not. The very threads that bound us to mortality are lost, and new ones are grown.”

“Nothing ever really dies,” I whisper, “and our Bond?”

His eyes glisten, his pride evident.

“It’s said not even Death can sever them. Not truly. We could be lost for a time, but no matter the distance—even if we’re realms apart, my snake,” I tell him, the words catching in my throat, “our souls will reach for one another.”

“I’ll admit cutting the Bond has been, in some ways, an experiment,” I murmur, and both of our eyes drop to the pair of scissors sitting bright and gleaming upon the glass between us. “Fate has always wondered how far Bonds can stretch.” The veins along his neck strain. “If there are limits.”

Warrick smiles against the gag, his teeth barred across the leather.

“Instead, today,” I tell him, “we learn how to make this Bond more useful.” I nod to him and lean back, folding my arms. “Make me come.”

I close my eyes and wait. In agony. Wet and wanting.

I moan as a wave of his desire thrashes along the Bond, pressing my toes into the ground and letting my legs fall open wider.

Heat blooms over my skin, like a ghost of his touch, and a smile flits over my lips before it’s overtaken by a wash of need.

My hand moves on its own, separate of my mind. My fingers reach between my thighs, the burn there insatiable. I plunge a single finger in. Two. I work myself, tension waning from every muscle in my body. The training room echoes with my heavy pants.

“Good,” I moan. “ Good —”

Stars explode behind my eyes. My body jerks with the orgasm, my mouth cracking back with a scream. My legs try to close, shaking, but an invisible force pins them open.

The high won’t fade. It soars. Higher and higher, until I gush over my fingers with a final, throat-scratching shout of pleasure.

Warrick’s soft hum fills the room, and my eyes snap to him. He smiles wide, his gag at his feet. “My turn,” he breathes.

“If you insist,” I say, snapping my legs closed and smiling against the wave of hunger that crashes over the Bond.

FORGET.