Page 71 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

C’mon, Fucker

Warrick

Rainwater knifes down from the rafters, drumming against our armor. My strike team creeps up the stairs behind me, my head buzzzzzzzzing . I knock the hilt of my blade against my temple to steady myself, my tongue crackling with Volt.

The Dredge sparks with broken wires, bodies slumped across railings, limbs rotting beneath stairwells. The upper floors hum, metal gears grinding and rowdy pirates chanting. The lower levels—my army waits hungry.

It’s impossible to fight The Kraken without Volt. We need the amplified abilities the drug provides, but I’m also not stupid enough to think they don’t have Brass lying in wait.

The shit counteracts Volt. Leaves us fucking prone for the taking.

But it also gave me something.

Weeks of raids. Chasing a flicker of a black trench coat through smoke and ruin. Warships implode with every passing night, reinforcements flown in from Rathem with heavier artillery. Several of my scouts spotted The Rigged being shipped in.

Fuck. Her.

Magic exists, and it comes in a vicious, manipulative package. She is, quite literally, driving Torren Trask to his wit’s end, and I’m the one shouldering the blame. She attacks, and he attacks me .

Sweat burns down my back. Lightning licks through my armor. My grip tightens around my Serpent blade, and blue spikes twitch along my knuckles.

My mind’s still in pieces, but some semblance of sanity has broken through.

It weaves terrifying pictures of green eyes and secret smiles.

She corrupted so much, far more than I ever believed.

I try to reach for her in my childhood, and sometimes I get lucky, especially if Brass is nearby and I’ve taken Volt.

Somehow, the two drugs counteracting each other weaves a middle ground. A place were memories are both knotted and loose.

It’s just a bitch to try and grasp them. As fucking slippery as her.

I crouch, my eyes darting to the shadows searching for my devil. She’ll be here. She always is.

And this time, she’s not fucking leaving.

Mention magic again—to anyone—and next time, I won’t save you.

Baby, the only person I need to be saved from is you . For fuck’s sake.

I wipe sweat from my forehead, the stairwell groaning under our weight. Bright orange graffiti welcomes us, tentacles and skulls glaring throughout the building.

“You see her, and you grab her. Understood?” I toss over my shoulder, and I’m met with a staccato of unanimous grunts.

I peer over the top stair, heart in my throat as I scan the 12th floor.

We take it, and we’ll have an advantage, The Dredge no longer split evenly between Kraken and Serpent.

The real prize? Catching my girl and taking back the Brass she keeps stealing from each of our raids.

I’d love to know what she plans to use it for.

I wonder how many cuts I’ll need to make to get the answer.

I crack my neck as a set of Kraken pirates toss dice along the narrow entryway to the floor. One of them chucks the die too hard.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

It bounces and slides to a stop inches from my fucking face. Fuck.

One pirate rears back. “Incoming!” he roars.

I tear from the stairwell, motioning my team forward—

But the fucker charges past us.

I whip around, frowning, just as black fabric hurls into the floor to ceiling window, lightning cracking outward. Glass shatters , steel-reinforced boots plowing into the pirate.

I lurch back with my team, glass flinging outward as the bastard slams to the ground with a howl, his chest cavity releasing a sharp crack as my devil uses him as a Godsdamn landing pad.

Orange waves of energy spike over her scarred hands, her green eyes ringed gold as she blinks at me behind a pair of leather goggles, her trench coat and hair dripping wet.

“Rayze,” I growl.

Her chest heaves. “Warrick.”

I rip my chains from their hook at my waist. “Let’s not make this difficult—”

But I’m cut off by the barreling force of pirates.

Rayze

I snap off my goggles, thrust them into my pocket, and slam my knee into the groin of the Kraken asshole swiveling toward me. His bronze-plated fist swipes centimeters from my jaw as I duck, locking my leg around the back of his knees and driving my elbow between his shoulder-blades.

His legs snap forward.

I pin his spine with my knee, yank an arrow from my coat, and drive it through the back of his skull.

A steady hum bleeds beneath my skin, the Brass I smoked enhancing my magic. It swells and pulses, a constant revolving cycle of energy. My vision flickers between the Threads of Fate and the clash of Serpent silver against Kraken bronze.

I whip my bow from my back and load a shot, panning the chaos. Aim, shoot, load . The steady whoosh of my arrows steadies me, my eyes darting between tentacle-tatted scum and the crate labeled brASS in the far corner.

I lift, lunge—

Chains wrap around my waist.

Fucking Warrick.

I grunt, yanked to a stop, and whip my bow around to his smug face. “Let. Me. Go,” I command.

My magic breaks from my lips in hard waves, the edges of my vision blearing orange. Starlight sparks across my knuckles, and the blue rings in his eyes sputter.

His arms jerk— tighter, looser —the Volt in his system and the Brass enhancing my magic yanking him between corruption and obedience. He falters, and the chains fall loose.

I rip free and grit my teeth, landing my next shot in the pirate aiming to take my snake’s head. Then I sprint through the wreckage of torn tents, fallen bodies, and Kraken gear toward the Brass. I dive behind it, crouching and surveying its padlock.

I can’t move the crate alone. It’s not ideal, but I’ll need to leave some of the Brass behind. I’ve kept an ample amount on me at all times, using it to amplify my magic despite exhaustion and injury. It’s the main reason I was able to push through the pain of healing my hands the last few months.

I bite down on my tongue, pulling on the lock. “Open,” I beg it, its threads a knotted mess. My magic works to untangle them, the crate rocking forward with my incessant tug. “C’mon, fucker,” I mutter and ram my boot against the crate’s side, leveraging my weight against the lock. “OPEN.”

The lock shatters, and I topple backward.

I scramble, righting myself and prying at the lid—

A Serpent blade slams into the crate’s top, Warrick glaring down at me.

“You’re not taking anymore of our advantages, vicious,” he says, ripping a dagger from his waist and thrusting it into the throat of the pirate moving in to attack him.

He doesn’t even look when he does it, Volt crawling over his muscles and armor in prominent blue waves of electricity, his pipe hanging from between his lips. He takes incessant, desperate drags, forcing my magic within him to bow.

I hop to my feet, my coat sweeping around me.

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even hold The Dredge,” I hiss.

“You want me to thank you for the very mess you created?” he answers and steps closer.

“Warrick,” I warn, but it’s too late.

His fingers wrap around my arm—and we erupt away from each other, the Volt in his system and the Brass in mine throwing us back.

I shout and crash into a throng of fighting soldiers, toppling them with the force of the impact. I cough, a dull ache in my ribs.

Fuck, that hurt.

I climb to my feet in time to see Warrick doing the same across the room, a dent in the beam he slammed into, his armor bent and the only thing that kept him from breaking his fucking spine.

He limps, his nose bleeding and his angry, Volt-ringed glare peering through the black and white strands of his hair. He steps over severed flesh, blood splattering up his boots, reaching down in the same stride to his chains. He tugs them from the ground, and slowly wraps his fist in one end.

My thighs clench. It wouldn’t be so bad to let him take me, would it?

“Surrender,” he demands.

I sigh and snatch my bow from where it clattered in my fall and load it. “No fucking way, Ivor,” I say halfheartedly.

My eyes dart toward the crate. As great as it would be to play, I have people relying on me for this Brass.

“Don’t even think about it.” He moves in.

I need to knock him out. Grab a few shells— Why am I shaking? I frown and look down at my boots.

No—not me. The floor.

The Dredge is shaking .

My head snaps up with Warrick’s, our eyes locking in realization before we both look to the beam he destroyed slamming into it.

Shit shit —

Warrick

Shit.

“Retreat. Now,” I order, what’s left of my strike team sprinting toward the stairwell. “Evacuate the building!”

Pirates abandon the fight as well, heaving toward the upper levels of The Dredge.

One beam. One foundational fucking beam.

Fuck Fate.

I scan for any stragglers, then I stop cold at the sight of Rayze.

“Really?” I shout.

Bow stowed against her back, she wrenches open the crate of Brass, stuffing several of the palm-sized bronze shells into her inner coat pockets. She glances up at me once without answer before she juggles a few more, rifles around one of her pockets, and slides on her goggles.

“Get the fuck out of here,” she yells over the quake of the building.

My shoulders stiffen, my gaze snapping to the stairwell as overhead debris crashes into it, leaving my exit barricaded.

Rayze bites her lip and looks down at the Brass she hugs between her arms. She shifts from foot to foot before she lets out a strangled, frustrated noise, drops them and races toward me.

I hold my breath as she grabs my wrist, expecting to be ripped away.

Instead, a low sound of pain hisses between her lips as she shudders, Volt trying to pry her grip away. Her scarred knuckles turn stark white, starlight beaming along the deep grooves covering her hands.

Then she tows me toward the window she broke in.

“On three,” she shouts.

I match her stride, my gaze whipping from her ridiculous, adorable fucking goggles and her dangerous fucking mouth to—

“Three!” she cries and we plummet into the storm outside.