Page 51 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Cruel, Cruel Woman

Rayze

Warrick, Sonya, and Aleksi lie on the floor with their heads pressed together, the glass table that usually sits in the center of the den pushed to the side. The jug of ale is half-empty, all three of them arguing over one another as they point at the ceiling.

I frown and look up.

“You’re wrong,” Aleksi slurs, her voice eight octaves higher with the amount of liquor in her system. “Those stars are very clearly not a dog. Dogs had four legs, I think. A tail, too.”

It’s just a fucking ceiling.

“Then what the fuck is that?” Warrick asks, each word dragged out in a low, furious rumble.

Maybe a horse? Sonya asks.

There’s literally nothing there.

“Right. Right. A bird,” Warrick nods, and Sonya whacks him.

Horse, you imbecile , she signs, shoving her fingers in his face. Horse !

Again, nothing is there.

“Okay, Ivor, what’s your favorite color then if you won’t tell us about your childhood?” Aleksi asks.

I stiffen, my cheeks heating, but Warrick mimes zipping his lips and tossing the key.

Oh, come on , Sonya says.

“It’s a favorite color, not childhood trauma,” Aleksi whines.

“If I tell you, then you have to compromise,” he counters.

My sister sputters, adjusting her glasses. “I am not going to be okay with you calling us Red and Fangs.”

“You’re not picturing it,” Warrick argues and spreads his hands through the air, dropping his voice to mimic the speakers wired throughout Synlon. “ Have no fear ,” he announces, “ Red, Fangs, Angel, and Dick are here. ”

They burst into laughter.

“What the fuck was in that ale?” I grumble, and all three of them lurch upward, heads and shoulders knocking.

My snake stares at me, his eyes hooding. “Angel, you’re home.”

“Oh, it’s home for you now, is it?” I ask, glaring at my sisters. “Did you get him drunk?”

Aleksi belches low, and all three of them snicker. Fucking snicker . “In my defense,” she starts but doesn’t finish the thought.

I wait.

And wait.

They laugh again.

“Ivor, let’s go,” I snap and make a bee-line around the couch toward the corridor with my bedroom.

Warrick lurches from the floor, stumbles into the couch, and walks in an uneven line after me.

“You’re mad at me,” he complains and hugs me from behind, forcing me to waddle forward. “Don’t be mad at me. You’re the one that left.”

“I’m not mad,” I mutter, trying to tug from his relentless embrace, but he buries his face into the back of my hair. “I’m a little jealous you all had drinks while I was working, but I’m not mad.”

He hums into my hair. “Fuck me as a punishment jealous? Or give me the silent treatment jealous?” He plays with my hair, batting it annoyingly against my cheeks. “Say the first,” he sings, “and—you guessed it—I’ll let you fuck me.”

I flick a finger over my shoulder against his forehead.

“Ow.” Warrick chuckles, the sound echoing across our Bond. “Oh, I missed you.”

His cock digs into my spine.

“It’s only been a few hours, Heir,” I answer, trying to hide my smile.

“Where were you?”

I stop at my bedroom door, ignoring him. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not,” he slurs and presses me into the door, grinding against my ass. He wrenches my coat to the side and yanks my dress up.

“ Warrick ,” I hiss. “At least let us get inside.”

He shoves aside the thin strip of lace blocking his entry and nudges the head of his cock through my wet heat.

I gasp. “When the fuck did you whip that out?”

“Back there. Somewhere,” he mumbles, gesturing over his shoulder and growling in frustration as he tries to fuck me—and fails.

“Baby, you’re too wasted,” I laugh, spinning around and adjusting my dress, his cock bobbing between us. Aleksi’s voice breaches the hall, and I tug him into a hug, embarrassment heating my cheeks as I try to hide his erection between us.

My sisters stumble toward us, their arms slung over each others’ shoulders. Aleksi glances our way, and a wide smile stretches over her face. “Nice ass, Ivor.”

I curse and tug Warrick’s pants up.

“That’s sweet of you, Red,” he mumbles into my shoulder, his weight leaning against me and his lashes falling shut.

Aleksi hiccup-laughs, helping Sonya into the room across from ours.

“You’ll pay for this,” I warn them.

Both of my sisters merely give Warrick’s ass—his pants slipping again—a pointed look and wrench their door knob, a portal sucking them in.

My snake snores loudly into my shoulder.

“You are not asleep,” I growl.

“I am,” he says, his voice muffled against my hair.

“Do I need to stake the seven-year-olds on you again?”

He jerks upward, and I cover my laugh with my fist. His eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t.”

I force my amusement away and point at the bedroom door. “I fucking will if you don’t get inside. Now.”

He mumbles something foul and incoherent, clasping my wrist like I taught him to. I grin and twist the door knob.

A portal wraps around us in dark, reaching arms, and tugs us through time and space, stars glistening before we’re dumped into my bedroom.

Normally, my landings are graceful. Holding onto a drunk Warrick, not so much.

I thunk onto my ass, and Warrick— oh no.

Warrick braces on his hands and knees, dry heaving.

“No, no, no,” I start, my eyes wide.

He vomits.

I cringe, scooting far, far away and pulling myself up against the bed. “Fate save me.”

He flops onto his back, his pants at his thighs and his cock still hard as fuck pointing toward the ceiling.

“I think your sisters poisoned me,” he groans.

“I think you just can’t hold your drinks.” I hurry to my bathroom, finding cleaning supplies under the sink and dropping them to his stomach.

Warrick lets out another groan, his hands fumbling to catch the bucket and sponge.

“Fill that up with water and start scrubbing,” I tell him, taking off my clothes and throwing them into a chair in the corner.

Silence.

I look over my shoulder and find him staring at me, sprawled hopelessly across the floor, his cock twitching.

I laugh. “If you think I’m going to fuck you after you threw up on my floor, you’re crazy.”

Warrick sighs dramatically. He kicks off his boots and pants, while pulling up his underwear. Then with all the grace of a very drunk, oh-so-masculine, thirty-year-old man, he crawls across the floor, skirting his vomit and dragging along the bucket.

Its metal bangs against the wood.

I climb into bed and lie across the silk duvet, propping my head up with my hand as I lean into my elbow and watch him, amused.

Warrick grasps the edge of the sink, pulls up with a grunt, and wrenches the faucet on. He splashes water over his face and in his mouth, cleaning himself up before he places the bucket in the sink to fill up.

He looks over his shoulder, his gaze darkening when he sees me naked on the bed. “Cruel, cruel woman.”

I frown and run my free hand over my breasts. “What?”

The bucket overruns, his eyes tracking my hand.

I bite my tongue against another fit of laughter. “Get to work, my snake.”

Warrick reaches a hand over his shoulder and pinches the fabric of his shirt, whipping it over his head and tossing it to the floor.

My heart fucking leaps.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says and lunges to the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. He trails a rough finger over the curve of my waist, and I shiver. “Lie back, angel,” he breathes.

Then his shoulders convulse.

I roll into my pillows, tugging into a tight ball of horror. “Don’t you dare throw up on me,” I hiss.

Warrick holds a fist to his mouth. He belches and shakes his head. “I’m fine. False alarm.”

“Gods.”

He collapses into the pillows next to me. “I know. I’m sorry. Here.” He shifts under the blankets and tugs them up around us, his forehead clammy and his hair sticking. “Just come here.”

“I’m never letting you in the vicinity of ale ever again,” I say with a small smile, sliding his white and black strands out of his eyes and tucking closer.

He peers through his dark lashes with a lazy smile. “You don’t like drunk Warrick?”

“When he begins to refer to himself in the third person? Not really,” I answer with a soft laugh.

He kisses my forehead and grabs my leg, hoisting it up around his hip. “I accept that challenge.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Warrick is always very—” He thrusts inside me, catching my gasp with a deep kiss. “ Very serious about sex with you.”

Laughter rolls through me.

“Gods.” He pinches my bottom lip. “Smile for me always, angel.”

My throat works. “No promises,” I whisper.

He kisses the corners of my smile anyways.

“I have to send you back to Synlon for a few more weeks. We’ll strike when Russell lets down his guard from the Alodon attack. I want you making rounds and keeping up appearances,” I tell him.

He nods and brings his lips to my nose, giving it a soft peck and grinning. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, baby. Let me make you proud.”

I hesitate. “Warrick, the more Volt you smoke, the worse your head will get. I want to send you in without knotting your memory of the Daughters, but I have to protect them.”

“I’d never betray you, but I get it,” he says. His smile falters, and when he looks at me, I already know I can’t answer the question he’ll ask. “I need you to tell me something, angel, and I know you don’t want to, but I’m worried that if you don’t, I could hurt you without knowing I am.”

“You won’t,” I insist.

Warrick’s eyes trace my face. “I know Fate didn’t save you. Not immediately.”

My heart stops.

“What happened after Squallspire, angel?”

Forget.

CUT.

CUT.

CUT—