Page 52 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Break Me

Rayze

REMEMBER. US.

I’m falling. I thought it would happen all at once. As if I’d wake up one morning, roll over, stare at Warrick, and just know: I’m in love. Instead, it’s the storm as it batters against my shoulders. Then a smatter of raindrops stinging against my eyes as I careen into the Underground.

There’s thunder—the fucking beat of my heart when he isn’t in our meeting place. Lightning—the sick flash of blood and Serpent-tatted bodies beneath flickering neon.

Then the downpour. My snake left to die.

“Warrick!” I shout and leap over bodies.

My magic vibrates through my chest. Sparks crack against my knuckles as my rage takes hold. Fate’s veil slips into focus, the threads of the fallen cronies beginning to fade.

This violence is fresh.

My heart hammers.

I am soldier, woman, and Sin—sworn to never draw my arrows without the blessing of Fate.

Then I see him crumpled on the ground, covered in blood, and my revenge becomes just as important as protecting him.

I will place an arrow through any hand that dares to touch him, hurt him.

I feel for him in a way I’ve only known with the Shard Daughters.

He’s more than the man I’m fucking or the Heir I’m bound to. He’s family. My family. All that I have left.

My breath whooshes from me, and I stumble with the force of the realization.

The guilt of needing to wield him, even if he did agree—Gods, help me.

If Warrick dies, there will be more than a fucking ripple across the multiverse for a pair of stupid scissors.

I will drag his ass back to mortality with my bare hands.

The stars aren’t taking him away from me as long as I draw breath.

“Hey,” I rasp. “Hey, look at me.” I catch his face between my palms, dragging him against me. He groans when I move him, and I clamp a hand over his wound, blood pooling between my fingers. “Warrick,” I plead.

His eyes roll back to find mine.

The Bond snaps into place between us, our chests dipping in time with our souls weaving back together.

“Remember,” I command, and my power stretches until his threads swim to life.

They swarm and tangle around his skull, hundreds of knots keeping him from accessing where the Shard Daughters and I lie in the shadows of his subconscious.

My magic sweeps over the knots in a gentle caress. I prod at the first one—and the entire thing breaks into pieces. I yank my power back, lightning burning where my command seeped among his threads.

His body convulses, electricity pouring over his skin in waves of blue. He clutches his skull with a guttural shout of pain.

No . “Baby?” I grasp his shoulders, but he shoves out of my grip.

Neon blue rings of Volt jitter around his irises as a second wave of electricity stiffens his body. He fumbles for his Serpent blade and points it toward me. “Who the fuck are you?”

My hands tremor as I stand. My heart cracks at the confusion in his eyes, the gaping wound in his side. He’s been stabbed and kicked, his chest mottled beneath his Serpent vest.

“Tell me who did this to you.” My voice shakes. “Describe every wound. The depth. The sting. The pace.”

He’s still shaking his head, his eyes unfocused as he struggles to hold his blade aloft. He’s lost too much blood.

“This is my vengeance to exact,” Warrick forces through clenched teeth, and I yank my bow from my back.

“I am your vengeance,” I spit and pluck the sleek steel of an arrow from my coat. “They’ll die hearing your name on my lips.”

He shudders, his blade twitching in his fingers. His lips curve up, then down. He runs his eyes over me, the Volt within them flickering out.

Then finally, thankfully, recognition.

Warrick rakes in a steadying breath and sheathes his blade.

“Today isn’t the day we let the realm know who I belong to.” He shifts, clutching his wounded stomach, and thrusts to his feet, his gaze dark. “Angel. My vicious. My everything,” he whispers like a mantra before he crosses to me.

My bow and arrows clatter as he takes my face, his mouth scorching against mine in a desperate brand. Relief sink through me, my fingers clawing him close, scraping over his pulse and counting every beat.

I draw back, our foreheads pressing. “Who hurt you, my snake?”

“Unmarked men.” He surveys the dead. “A warning.”

Warrick reluctantly releases me and hums softly—a coping technique I’ve begun to recognize.

A simple vibration to steady himself if his mind feels jumbled.

His shoulders are tight as he steps between limbs before he crouches next to a body.

He wrenches their head to the side and forces their tatted cheek into the light.

A kraken.

“Torren.” He clicks his tongue. “A blitz attack by his pirates.” He shakes his head, the night coming back to him. “I was making rounds to my clubs to check and make sure Dacre was taking care of the Skin I’ve saved.”

He grimaces and stands. “Fucking shame. I trusted these snakes. Some of them were good men with families. They helped keep Skin safe.”

I grab my bow from the ground and snap it away. He stumbles, and I catch his arm.

“I’ll take care of it,” I tell him. “Let’s just get you home. You need stitches and rest.”

He sheathes his blade. “The Accords allow Torren to draw blood against me for injuring Ruel—but as long as his Heir lives, so will I.” He gestures to his side, then to the dead cronies.

“If The Kraken wanted The Accords broken, I’d be dead.

He may not be Synlon’s ally anymore, but he wouldn’t risk ruining partnerships with The Storm and The Vile. ”

The tension in my shoulders eases when he reaches his hand into my coat and finds my stash of gauze.

He remembers, but every time he looks at me, I see how I’ve fractured him. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

* * *

Rayze

PLEASE—

We stand on a roof.

Warrick secures an arm over my shoulders and reaches his other hand into my coat.

He pulls out my black flask, flicks the top latch with his thumb, and takes a swig.

His bruises have healed from The Kraken’s attack, but his stab wound still needs another week.

He winces as he shifts his weight and nods toward the horizon. “What do you see?”

I snatch my ale and drain it, glaring out over the city. “Synlon,” I grumble and shove the empty flask into my coat.

I wait for his reply, but at his silence, I track my gaze away from the skyline.

Fuck. He is so beautiful.

Orange rays glisten over his face, the white streaks in his black hair turning a bright yellow. His piercings glitter, the fanged snake heads against his cheeks faded against the brightness.

“What do you see?” I manage, my voice hoarse.

He feels me watching him and glances down. His lips curve with a soft smile. Then he pinches my chin and forces my gaze back to the city.

Above, black clouds ripple with an incoming storm, but for once the rain that falls is lighter. It drizzles over scaffolding and lightning-burned coils, the golden rays of the sun making every window sparkle.

He shifts behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, his chin pressed atop my head.

“I see us,” he whispers. “And look how fucking beautiful we can be? Rainy days tangled with sunshine. Jagged skylines that always reach toward the storm. Not half-bad.” He holds me tighter. “Worth it. All of it.”

Then he combs my hair back into a low ponytail, my eyes shutting against the sensation. The warm rays of the sun bathe my cheeks and I sigh.

We should talk about it. At least once . His voice winds through me. The Bond warms like a blanket against my soul. Your mother. Your sisters.

My throat thickens. We’ve talked about it, Warrick. And we have. So many times.

His hands still in my hair. His distraught ripples across the Bond, and I close my eyes.

I know, he says. He presses a kiss against my pulse and secures me again in his arms. I just think it’s good for you to talk about them.

I rake in a shaky breath. It could be the truth, but his echoed pain tells me it’s half a lie.

He’s forgetting things, and he hides it well, but this—the story of Hallie Trask—it gives him away.

His guilt always returns to it. He may remember the shape of the story, he may even remember the shape of us, but any part of his mind my magic touched is corrupted from Volt, Serpents forcing him to smoke while undercover.

I pry my eyes open, tears burning against my waterline as I watch a sheet of heavier rain fall across building tops miles away, so thick it looks like a veil of darkness.

Warrick trails his lips from my pulse to my shoulder.

When they died, I instantly felt the void of them, I start, then continue aloud. “I imagined myself shrinking to the size of a tiny pebble, one so small that I’d be able to do nothing but be thrown, chucked, disintegrated into dust.”

My tears join the rain.

Then a queen. A glass home more beautiful than anything I’d ever known. Two girls—a redhead with crooked glasses and another with fangs as teeth. I exhale. I hadn’t believed in Fate, but I did believe in her voids.

“I hadn’t meant to replace my sisters. I didn’t. Not completely. But I did fill the void they left,” I tell him and smile with the memories.

In every mental challenge, Aleksi would win, her magic and affinity for understanding the mechanics of threads as simple as reading. In every physical challenge, Sonya left me sprawled and thoroughly whipped. Literally. My blood christened many of her whips.

Warrick’s laugh rumbles against my shoulders, and I lean into its warmth.

“They were so strong, so everything I wanted to be, but when they fought together, they were disjointed. Not quite quick enough with their weaponry. Powerful—yes,” I explain.

“But neither of them could take out their enemies from a distance,” he finishes, and I grin. He’s remembering. Pieces, maybe, but it’s better than nothing.

The first time we fought together, I felt it. That aligning of threads. With me, we became unstoppable. There’s never been a mission we failed at when we work together.

I lift a hand and wipe rain and tears from my lashes, not caring that my fingers pull back with the black smudge of my makeup. “The Daughters, Fate, all of it—it made me believe, Warrick. It gave me purpose. A reason to feel something beyond hate.”

I turn in his grip to face him, my heart lurching at the emotion in his steel-blue gaze.

“Every Shard Daughter is exactly that. A girl broken away from her whole. Serving Fate, it allows us to heal. Our rules to sharpen ourselves—you think they keep me from mourning, but you’re wrong.” I swallow but force myself to continue.

“Every time I fight, I mourn the family The Serpent took. Every time I choose violence, I choose to love the family who took me in after. My rage, the way I wield it, it’s my choice. There’s nothing more precious in this realm or the next than to choose the pain I endure.”

My chin trembles as blue sparks along his eyes. “I’m just sorry the violence I’ve chosen is one that hurts you.”

Warrick clutches my face. “Rayze,” he repeats my name in gentle murmurs like it’s a lifeline tethering him to this existence. “The violence I choose is yours. For always.”

* * *

Rayze

GODS, PLEASE, WARRICK—

“Hold onto me, angel,” and his lips find my neck, my shoulder, my wrist. He follows every contour and vein, maps me as if I’m the only world he wishes to recognize. “Tighter.”

I scrape my fingers through his hair. It’s our last night together. I don’t know when I’ll see him again, if ever, but it’s time to fully wield him. Synlon is vulnerable. Russell is weaker than he’s ever been.

We need to strike. Tomorrow.

“It’s okay.” His eyes lock with mine, the pain there a mirror of my own. “Rip me in half.”

A dark, broken sob claws over my tongue. Unwarranted. Unwanted. Needed. I don’t know how this happened, how I’m so fucking attached. How did he manage this? Finding the ways I bend to him?

“Break me,” he whispers. “I want to see you whole.”

And I think I have broken him. I break his mind, I break our Bond, and every time, he finds me again. A devotion that defies all logic. A depravity that we can’t seem to let go of.

Maybe it should scare me, how entwined we are with hate and love.

How we’re each other’s rage and agony, but we’re also a reflection of our hope.

But I can’t bring myself to feel guilt or remorse for wanting him stripped raw and vulnerable in my presence.

There’s no shame in how we choose to love each other. Only consequences.

Terrible.

Horrible.

Consequences.

I’m addicted to how he unravels for me, and I’m further seduced by the woman I am when I’m with him. I didn’t know if I would ever trust like this, but he gives me hope.

Warrick

“I love you,” I rasp against her ear, the words like acid against my tongue, choking and terrifying and my death if I never get to hear them back. But I’ll say them. I’ll scream them. I need her to hear me, to know it’s true.

Her chin trembles. Tears glisten down her cheeks as she comes undone beneath me so beautifully.

I think it’s the first time I’ve seen her so open, emotions crashing over her face in stark waves.

Rage and sorrow and—Gods, so much pain. Too much pain.

I want to shield her from that so badly, but I know I can’t.

All I can do is fight for her and keep my vow to be used as she needs me.

“I fucking love you, Rayze Angeline.” My voice breaks. “I love you enough to pretend you love me, too.”

Please . I waver as silence stretches, my cock buried in her and her pussy fluttering as her pulse kicks up. Her cheeks are flushed such a pretty pink.

“I,” she whispers but looks away.

“It’s time for me to go, baby.”

She releases a harsh breath.

“Kiss me goodbye, angel,” I mutter. “At least give me that.”

“Warrick,” she whispers, her voice strained.

“It’s just a kiss.”

“It’s never just a kiss, my snake,” she answers.

I trace my thumb over her throbbing pulse, and she scrapes her hands through my hair, latching onto me.

“It’s a promise. It’s forever,” she breathes, and tugs my mouth to hers. “Loving you—” Her voice cracks. “Loving you has never been and will never be pretend.”

Then she kisses me.

She kisses me, and she tastes like dread.

So be it.

Forget. Me.

“Please don’t die,” an angel whispers.

CUT.