Page 63 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Fuck Fate

Warrick

Present Day

I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Only feel it.

That sick, crawling dread ripping through my gut and climbing up my spine like it means to hollow me out.

Forced to watch this. To see my angel limp and taken.

Vandem and Russell move closer, touching and on the edge of taking.

I beat my fists against the arms of my chair, slam into my restraints, twisting and pulling in desperation.

Then— Let him.

I still at the sound of my angel. My eyes flick to her chest, the breaths she takes not as even or as deep as they were seconds before.

Hear—me?

Yes , I send it down the Bond again and again.

Let—close. Let him close.

Vandem skirts his hands up her thighs. Grips them. Hard.

My father releases me, smacking his lips as he moves closer to Rayze at the sight of her spread.

She doesn’t move. Not an inch.

“Don’t,” I beg, my voice hoarse.

Did I make up her voice? Is she still out cold, but I’m so desperate I’ve pretended she isn’t?

Vandem fists himself.

Rayze . I crush forward, and the back legs of the chair rip another inch from the ground. Pieces of my mind is still lost, but a single word pries itself from my lips, demanding to be spoken as her eyes remain closed.

“Pink,” I say, hoarse.

Her chest falters, but she doesn’t look at me.

Pink , I send it across our Bond, unwilling to accept this.

That color, it meant something to me, to us. It meant stop.

I thrash, a pained, wounded sound tearing out of my throat. Baby, open those pretty eyes.

My father stands behind her, a predatory glint in his gaze. He tugs her back by the hair and pries open her mouth. He watches me, and the vilest smile touches the corners of his lips.

“Spit on your better,” The Serpent growls, “and I spit in your whore.”

Then he shoves his fingers between her lips, tears her mouth open, and spits on her tongue.

Rayze says nothing along the Bond, her silence worse than any scream.

I slam against my chains. Steel groans. My wrists tear open. Blood runs between the cuffs as I thrash, muscles howling, my gaze fixed on her—

Her mouth.

Her closed eyes.

The blood dried along her jaw.

Vandem forces her limp body forward, drags her to the edge of the chair, and tugs her legs around his bare waist.

I’ll make him choke on every breath he took in her presence.

I’ll carve out his eyes and force-feed them back to him until he sees her in the dark.

“No—” I’m screaming. S creaming screaming screaming —Fuck Fate. Fuck Gods. Fuck them all.

The Serpent drags his fingers over her teeth. Counts them. Thrusts his fingers down her throat and moans.

I haul backward. Bolts screech. Metal strains. The front legs pull and creak beneath me.

Then she moves.

Rayze

My body is a weapon. Even now. Chained. Naked. Hands broken. They think I’m something they can take. Something that stays taken.

Fingers shove over my tongue.

Hips move to thrust between my legs.

My eyes snap open.

Beat me. Electrocute me.

I bite The Serpent’s fingers in half.

Chain me. Invade me.

My skull crushes into Vandem’s.

Take your pleasure and know it’s your end.

They scream.

Warrick

The leather at my ankles snaps, and I explode forward, teeth bared, hurling into Vandem with a roar.

We hit stone with a brutal crack. My shoulder smashes into his ribs, and I drive my knee into his groin. He buckles with a strangled howl and crumples to the ground.

I rise, breath ragged, the chair still chained to my spine, and smile as my girl spits my father’s fingers out.

Rayze

“Hallie,” The Serpent hisses and grabs me by the neck with the hand I left intact.

My mother’s scream echoes in my ears. My sisters’. Mine. It all comes back, their ghosts pressing into my skin.

“You want Hallie?” I laugh darkly. “She’s waiting for you, bow and arrows in hand.” I lean into his grip. “Find her in death, you sick bastard, and remember, she never fucking misses,” I snarl, my glare locking with his. “ Neither do I .”

He smashes my windpipe.

But a Shard Daughter, a woman born with the blessing of the Queen of Starlight, an Angel of Sin raised to know no boundary to her pain, a little girl he dared to abuse—we need no breath. All we need to do is bleed, and lucky me, I’ve been bleeding for as long as I fucking remember.

My rage cracks open the seams between realities. Threads swarm to life, each of The Serpent’s burned black with Volt.

“ Tighter ,” I rasp, my power breaking between my lips and zapping over his threads. They dissolve and snap at my touch.

The squeeze of his fingers halts.

“Leave,” I command, and he stiffens, straining to move. “Run.”

The Serpent stands paralyzed.

A dark smile stretches over my lips. Then Vandem shouts, and my gaze slices toward Warrick.

My snake steps into the Commander’s spine, but the bastard doesn’t try to get up. Instead, he snatches a syringe of Volt from his pocket—“ No ,” I hiss—and plunges it forward.

The needle stabs into Warrick’s leg, and he convulses. Pain bursts across the Bond, a heat that sears down my spine and into my bones.

Warrick’s veins bulge electric blue, muscles locking. His mouth opens in a silent cry. His spine arches. His body spasms.

Then I feel it.

The magic binding us fractures . Pieces slip away like shards torn from glass, jagged and disappearing among voids.

I suck in a breath and close my eyes, knowing what comes next. It can’t be avoided, and I’ll always regret it.

But it must be done to free him.

To free both of us.