Page 68 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

A Little Shattered

Warrick

Naked bodies glow blue as Skin attack the traitors of Fang’s Edge.

Lightning pops and cracks from fight to fight, the old regime of my father’s most loyal cronies and The Kraken’s buyers brutal opponents.

Weapons cut through muscle. Blood glistens across the floor.

Even with the loss of a limb, Skin slaughter, impervious to pain as long as Volt pumps through their system.

Many die. In fact, most die.

But death is as worthy a gift to a caged thing as food or shelter. At least in death, they’re done with the Skin Trade’s sick game of power.

Look at them. So fucking glorious in their disarray. The Serpent’s highest paying venue demolished by its very product.

LOUDER.

I whistle and step down from the ring. Bodies bash into me as I weave through the chaos, but my gaze is set on the mirrored panels behind the bar. Slowly, I climb the few steps leading to them, small white specks glittering to life among swirls of darkness within their reflections.

Then a pair of green eyes meet mine. Familiar. Pretty. Vicious—“ You ,” I murmur, and delight curls through me. “I was hoping you wouldn’t miss the show.”

Screams echo.

I sigh, close my eyes and wave my hand through the air, conducting the tune, my dick throbbing. “I’ve been screaming for you, angel,” I sing. “Can you hear the bodies?”

I drop my hand and grin behind my mask, the lights overhead flickering.

For. Always. The command thrums through my skull. Her voice. Gods, that voice. Lethal and profound and—I shudder as the Volt in my system awakens.

My head aches. My vision blurs with cracks of white and blue.

Then an unsettling fog crashes through me, and my brow furrows, that same damn memory pounding its fists through my skull.

“Magic,” Russell gritted out as we were forced to kneel along the cliff edge of Squallspire. “The girl has magic .”

She bled and bled. Swayed and fell. Crashed to the grass, her hold on us faltering. My father moved fast as a whip, the hilt of his blade knocking Torren Trask unconscious.

I snap out of the memory, my shoulders heaving as I stare wide-eyed at the bar counter. Shouts cut short at my back, glass shattering, and I look over my shoulder at a massacre.

Fuck, someone should stop that.

I grasp the edge of the bar, my body convulsing as Volt pulses through me. I crack my neck. No— my massacre. My fight. Mine .

With a trembling hand, I lift my pipe and inhale a long drag. Electric blue snaps through its glass, slender frame. Fragments of myself return. My plan and her .

She did this to me. Fucked with my head and left my city stranded. History claims magic is dead. That Fate abandoned us. But I know the truth. I do?

Fate employed Godsdamn devils.

Angels?

My. Angel. Exists. I’m sure of it.

Where is she?

Gone. Hidden. Toying with me.

I whip back to the mirrors. There’d been something there but only the fight at my back reflects. I knead my temple, flashes of a woman’s smile like arrows to the heart.

Arrows. Her arrows. Her weapon of choice. Them. Me.

It’s the hardest part—knowing but not. To fall asleep to a memory of her eyes but to never recall the color. Wasn’t it green? To know the shape of her name but to be unable to speak it.

It’s like I’ve been lacerated and shattered, so broken mentally I can’t do anything except destroy.

Violence because the more I kill, the closer I get to having my city back, and the more of my city I have, I swear the more I see her in mirrors.

Then blood—because it’s warm like her touch was—and screams, because Godsdammit I will hear hers again.

My name on her tongue, and my tongue inside her.

Focus . Fuck.

My gaze lands on an older woman. Skin. She lies in a fetal position on the ground, the Volt I injected her with worn off. She holds her knees to her chest, wincing with each fist and boot-tip that slams into her. Pirates circle her, torture her.

Hatred crashes through me in an unrelenting wave. A strained, guttural sound weeps from my throat—and twigs snap under my palms.

No. Not twigs.

Bones. Neck bones.

I blink and stare at a smashed-in face beneath me. Oh. My chest heaves as I climb from a straddle against a crony’s hips. A man, I think, his Kraken tattoos a mottled mess of stab wounds across his chest, my blade drip, drip, dripping.

Reality sinks into focus.

I’m losing time. Losing my mind. I chuckle at that. Can’t lose something that’s been long lost, can I?

The woman no longer lies in a fetal position, but she still looks scared. Of me.

I eye her with suspicion. Give me some fucking credit. I just saved your ass.

She scrambles from the ground, her eyes wide.

Bodies lie in heaps across the floor, and pleasure rolls through me at the sight of more inked flesh than not. Some Serpents. Most pirates. I was clear to the Skin to leave the snakes unless the bastard’s try to hurt them.

“Meet at The Dredge,” I tell the woman and toss her the keys for the chains locking everyone inside.

She fumbles them, her hands shaking. Her gaze darts over me, hesitant.

I scowl. “You can fuck off now.”

She turns and sprints to the club doors. She tears free the chains, the keys clattering to the ground, then she disappears into the night. Skin follow her lead, abandoning the fight as their Volt wears thin.

The Serpent cronies left standing freeze as my army leaves. A few give chase, but most of the snakes stare at me, at my mask—recognize it.

Wonderful.

I step across pulp and clear my throat, clipping my mask to my waist and climbing back into The Pit’s ring.

“Now that’s settled,” I announce, and whip around to face them, their tired eyes glued to mine. “You answer to me now.”

Muffled laughter. A snort of disbelief.

I laugh, too. Harder. Louder, louder, LOUDER.

Until the room is silent.

I drop into a crouch at the edge of the ring. The snake nearest flinches back. “Good boy,” I coo before I spit in his face and slam my blade through his neck. He was the first to laugh. Probably. Maybe not. Doesn’t fucking matter. They’re listening now.

“Magic exists.” I lift my gaze to the Serpents who stare down at the newest body among the massacre. “A woman—she’s messed with our heads.” I stand. “Most of you are smoking Volt, aren’t you?”

Angry eyes meet mine.

My smile drops. “Feel a little shattered?” I wiggle my fingers over my head and hop to the floor. I point at a crony. “Memories don’t quite fit, do they? Not like they used to.”

“Magic?” he murmurs, and his brows pull together.

I spin around, eye the confusion across the crowd.

“Dark hair,” one whispers.

“Green eyes,” another agrees.

I hum in contentment. More pieces. More whole. Less shattered. Always mine . My angel in fragments, delivered on a platter of others’ tongues. “Lift a hand, snakes. Which one of you was ridden by the devil?”

I whistle softly in adoration as Serpent hands rise around the room. “My girl’s been busy.” I point at the first with his hand raised. “Make a fucking line.”

I light my pipe and take a long drag. I liked her best in the rain , I recall with a shiver. “Tell me. What did she taste like?”

“Like—”

I slam my burning pipe against his forehead. Glass shatters and sticks into his skin. Electric blue tangles with darling red.

He shouts, stumbles, and I thrust my Serpent blade between his ribs. “That taste is mine ,” I growl in his ear. “Just mine.”

The crony slips to the ground with a rugged cough of disbelief.

I tear my blade from his torso, fear mingling with compliance. “Who’s next? Or would you rather swear your loyalty and live another day?”

No one says a word. Then Serpents drop to knees in quick succession.

I grin and lift my gaze to the mirrors on the back wall, hoping for an audience, but all I see is me. Rude.

“My vicious voyeur,” I sing, my eyes narrowing. “ I know you’re there .”