Page 72 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

Bad, Vicious, Darling

Rayze

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Warrick roars as I twist in the rain, keeping hold of his wrist.

“Put your legs out,” I order.

“ They’re fucking out .”

“You’re in a ball,” I hiss.

His eyes are squeezed shut against the pelt of the rain, but he sticks his legs out.

“Bend your knees,” I advise.

His gaze slices through his lashes, his piercings flashing beneath the storm’s lightning. “I’m getting a little sick of falling for you, devil,” he growls.

“Brace yourself,” I warn and throw out my free arm, our legs aligned with the side of the building.

I haven’t done this with a partner.

We may die.

I peek at his delicious snarl, the Volt and Brass in our systems like knives driving through my palm where I hold his wrist tight.

Worth it. All of it.

I shift behind the veil of mortality, trillions of threads lighting up across the night. “Slow,” I demand and tug harshly across those controlling our momentum.

My nostrils sting with blood. Starlight beams from my skin.

I grab hold of the threads tethered to gravity, forcing our gravitational pull to shift, but it’s not enough. The Brass in my system wanes, and without it, I’ll lose control.

Panic tickles my throat, but I force it back and yank on Warrick’s arm.

His body collides with mine, his arm wrapping around my waist on instinct, and we both shudder as massive strikes of blue and orange ram between us, the drugs in our systems trying to force us apart, but— oh, interesting .

It energizes the Brass enough to wake it the fuck up.

I wrench threads harder, and our fall changes trajectory.

“ Slow ,” I command, and our boots strike the building, screeching across glass.

Warrick rights himself, his eyes wide as we slide down the building.

Keeping hold of him, I brace a foot behind me in a steadying lunge. He mirrors me without hesitation, our animosity tabled for the sake of not dying.

“Devil,” he drags out. “We’re going too fast.”

“I’m fucking aware,” I grind out and curse as one of my shells of Brass slips from my pocket and plummets the remaining stories to the asphalt below. It explodes in a massive cloud of orange.

“Hold,” I bark, and the threads within my line of sight pull taut—gravity, velocity, and momentum tangling like a net to catch us. I shout, starlight crashing from my knuckles and blood running thick from my nose.

We jerk to a stop, our boots squeaking against the glass of the second-story window, the plume of Brass in the air enveloping us, our imminent deaths saved.

I grin.

Then Warrick falls limp.

Volt ruptures across his skin, his eyes rolling back as he inhales Brass, and his dead weight crashes into me.

I cry out. My boots slip against the building, and I anchor my sight to the window beneath me, our reflection resuming into a whooshing tangle of his body braced against mine, my arms locking around his waist.

“OPEN.”

A portal sucks us into oblivion, my head spinning, and spits us out onto a roof.

We roll in a jumble of limbs across wet shingles, sliding down until I hit with a breath-stealing thunk to a teetering fire escape. Warrick’s body smashes me into grated, rusty steel, his head slumping into the crook of my neck.

Inhaling sharply, I blink at the copper hulls of Kraken warships drifting like bloated Gods above the city. For a second, I let myself enjoy the weight of him against me.

Then a low, terrifying groan carries through the rain.

I shove Warrick off me, my eyes wide as I take in The Dredge a few buildings over.

The middle levels rupture. A dozen stories crumple inward, gutted by our fuck-up, but the building doesn’t fall. It stands—barely—and as long as it does, Torren will continue to use it as his base.

I study Warrick’s unconscious face, its usual intensity crumpled in pain. My heart lurches, and I crouch at his side, checking his pulse.

Alive.

I swear, he’s Fate’s favorite Heir with the amount of lives he has.

“Wake up, Ivor.” I slap his cheek.

There isn’t much Brass left in my system, exhaustion and my injuries catching up to me, but still, orange and blue static snaps out from where my palm connects with his face.

I shake his shoulders. “Wake. Up.”

My magic sputters with the command, yanking aimlessly on the Volt-burned threads of his mind, searching for his consciousness.

His eyes slam open, and he jerks upward, his head smacking into mine. I fall back on my ass, the metal platform groaning. Warrick swears, both of us rubbing our foreheads with hard grimaces.

His eyes narrow.

“ Devil ,” he says after a long moment.

“You’re welcome. Again,” I say and push to my feet.

Warrick

My skin crawls, the rain beating down on us. She glares at me through her goggles. Her hands—those beautiful, scarred hands—flex at her sides, itching to kill, to take, to tear.

Below us, what’s left of my soldiers scatter in the streets. They try to regroup, dragging wounded from the rubble, shouting over the rain.

Half of my Godsdamn army may be dead. My pipe’s smashed. Syringes gone. Volt bleeds out of me with every breath she infects.

I should panic.

Instead, my cock throbs.

She could take my memory again, but I’m already flayed. Hollowed. Skin stitched over craving. Aching in places I forgot could hurt.

Being this close to her— fuck . Memories flit through my mind of her naked body arcing beneath mine. Of filling her, my cum dripping down her thighs. Desperation drives my heart into a racing beat, hate bleeding into a need to feel my old self echo back in every slap of skin against skin.

She shoves her goggles up onto her head, and the platform sways in the wind. Her hair scatters around her face, the orange rings in her eyes a dull yellow.

“ Don’t look at me like that,” she says and steps back.

“Like how?” I mutter and trail her retreat.

Another step.

“Like I want to fuck that mouth?” I ask.

So close.

“Like you slept with half of my Serpents instead of fucking me for your answers?”

Little further.

Thunder cracks around us.

Her lips part with a heavy exhale.

“Like I realized I was never more than a job to you, a path to getting what you want?” I growl.

Her boot hits air—

And I wrench her by the front of her tank top, fisting the flimsy black fabric as she balances with a sharp gasp.

I snatch her toward me, and her shirt tears. I lock an arm around her waist, and her nipples pebble in the rain. I drink in the sight with a low groan, my dick jerking against my belt.

“I didn’t have sex with them, Warrick,” she bites out. “I toy. Extract my answers. Leave. It’s a job. Nothing more.”

“I just—” My mind crackles, the remaining Volt and Brass in our veins pricking between our connected bodies. I crane my neck over my shoulder as shouts rise from below, Serpents pointing up at us.

Then her hand clutches me through my pants, and my attention snaps back to Rayze, my arm tightening around her waist.

“You want me to be afraid of you, my snake?” she whispers. “Want me to run and hide and fetch and swoon?”

Rayze

I cock my head and smile dangerously, lethally.

He’s so hard for me, and Gods, I’m desperate to play again. It’s impossible not to be curious about how it would feel, him pounding into me without the presence of the Bond. If our desire for each other is true or just another lie of magic.

The platform sways as soldiers storm up the bottom steps of the iron scaffolding.

I can’t afford to get caught.

I clutch my snake harder, and his lips part. “There will never be a time you earn between my legs that isn’t by my design.” My smile broadens before I press onto my toes, my lips hovering over his wet skin. “I am not and have never been a thing to claim. But you? Oh, my snake. You .”

I drag my tongue up the snake inked on his neck.

Warrick shivers, a low groan slipping from between his lips. He grasps the back of my neck, steadying himself.

Then his voice pools above my ear. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the realm if it means you give me back everything you stole.”

My breath hitches as his tongue runs up the side of my face, mocking me–toying with me—just as I did him. An equal to my rage in every way.

“Stealing all of the Brass. Interrupting all of my battles. You’ve been killing things that aren’t yours to kill. Bad, vicious, darling,” and his teeth nip at my neck. “You’re going to restore the damage you’ve caused. One way or another.”

Warrick

Her lips curl into a small, dark, devious— Gods, she needs to be punished —smile.

She releases my cock and drops into a crouch, the sudden movement causing my grip on her to release. Then she lurches around me for a swinging, rusty ladder and climbs it, her knuckles sparking with her magic.

I lunge after her.

I want her to bleed. Then I want to lick her wounds. Stitch her with praise. Fuck her until our hate is pliable. Bendable. Something to knot and knead. Fill my hands with. Cure my soul with.

A moan rumbles through my chest, and I climb up the ladder.

She’s the missing shards of my sanity. Her lips. Her voice. Her Godsdamn voice . Those little commands. To forget. To leave. She’s my madness. For days, months, years—motherfuck, maybe my entire life.

She thought she erased everything, thought herself powerful enough to overtake my obsession—but she’s the one who forgets.

She. Is. Mine.

No magic can erase the taste of her.

My Rayze.

Her name surrounds me. Chokes me.

I plow onto the roof, drawing my spare dagger from its sheath at my thigh, teeth gritted.

But she’s gone. Disappeared. Venomous devil with a halo. Sin incarnate— I’m begging —ride me to my end.

She made her monster. Now she’ll lie with it.

She runs. Away away away. Not fast enough. Never hard enough. Always looking over her shoulder, always seeking even as she spews hate.

Run, angel, run. Then hide. Hide where only I can find. Splay yourself like my personal hell. Beg. Just a little. Just enough.

I smile.

Subtle but there—a flick of black leather careening across rooftops.

I’m getting my mind back. Tonight.