Page 74 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

The Rigged

Warrick

Smoke seeps through my teeth, coils down my throat. My heart pounds. My fingers twitch.

Volt burns .

A warship breaks through the smoke. Low. Hulking. Steam spits out from its bottom, Brass swirling away from it. Ropes drop in quick succession.

Then metal crashes down.

I tear up from the ground in dread. I expected pirates. Cronies. Disposable bodies to end without blinking.

Not this.

Not The Rigged.

Bodies torn open and stapled back together. Arms twisted into gears. Chests braced with rust-welded plating.

Mortals made into weapons.

Piston legs slam the ground in a rhythm I feel in my spine. Others swing limbs reshaped into hooks or saws, repurposed flesh grafted into weaponry.

And their faces—Skinned. Stitched. Silenced. Their mouths sealed with wire. Their eyes are trapped. Brass plates bolted straight into the sockets, dark glass reflecting the trench.

The air fills with the eerie rasp of their unified breaths through the slitted vents in their throats.

One lands inches away, the tattoo on their left leg knotting my stomach.

A snake. One of my men repurposed. A fucking message from The Kraken I can’t ignore.

He’ll take us, even in death.

“Barricade. Now!” I order the Chrome Guard as they shout along the edge of the trench.

But there was something else. Someone else.

Rayze . I search the trench frantically, but she isn’t here. I must’ve imagined her. My brows pull together—No. She was here. I made her bleed, felt her warmth. “Rayze Angeline,” I shout.

The Rigged charge straight for the entrance to the Underground, spines flashing with electricity, metal groaning with every movement as the tunnel swallows them whole.

Motherfucker. Stealing my city isn’t enough? Torren needs to slaughter my surviving civilians, too?

I draw my blade and sprint along the edge of the trench, throwing myself down into the tunnel entrance, blocking the next Rigged.

I slam my boot into its chest, but it barely staggers. The thing lets me shove it, almost like it’s learning how hard I hit. Then it surges back, piston legs firing, a blade-arm whistling past my jaw.

I duck, unhook my chains from my waist and secure them around its elbow joint. Then I wrench down.

Gears jam with a shriek, but the human within the rig doesn’t scream. Glassy eyes peer through dark lenses. Then The Rigged throws its weight into me.

I snarl, drive my knee into its plated gut, and stab my Serpent blade into the vents at its neck.

Sparks pop and blood spits out like a geyser. The rig twitches. Spasms. But they still fight.

My muscles strain, sweat beading down my neck as I yank my blade free and stab it in again and again.

Finally, those glassy eyes brighten behind the glass—one second of the life within accepting its death with gratitude—before the entire rig slams backward into the mouth of the tunnel, its metal ringing out in a hard echo.

Poor fucking bastard.

“Move!” Rayze shouts.

Relief washes through me. Safe. She’s safe.

My devil aims toward me from the other side of the trench, and I drop into a crouch as her arrow sails toward my head.

I flatten to the ground, braced on my palms as she fires shot after shot, her boots stopping inches from my eyes. I crank my head over my shoulder as The Rigged behind me falls, a dozen arrows sticking out of its Godsdamn face, blood spouting and bubbling between the sewn seams of its mouth.

“Vicious,” I murmur, lifting a possessive finger to the little knives glittering among her boot-laces.

She grabs the back of my neck and lifts me from the ground.

“Gods, woman.”

Orange rings flare bright in her eyes. Her brow furrows as she stares at me. “What the fuck?”

I shrug.

Her nose crinkles. Cute.

I poke it, and she rears back. What’s her name again?

“Warrick,” she hisses. She rifles through her pockets and pulls out a compact mirror.

I sigh. “You look great.”

“For fuck’s sake, it’s not for me.” She shoves the mirror in front of me, and I blink.

Huh.

My eyes look like hers. Pretty orange rings.

Rayze

I yank the mirror back, waiting for an explanation, but Warrick just stares at me. Specifically my mouth. Then my cleavage.

I whack the side of his head. “Hey.”

He blinks rapidly, and a dark smile curves his lips. “Hi.”

“Did you smoke Brass?” I push.

Warrick chuckles and gestures to the general vicinity of the smoke in answer. Then he steps around me to the body of The Rigged he took out and pulls his blade from its neck.

I watch him, waiting, but he merely rams his shoulder into mine and waves his Serpent blade in goodbye, leaving me behind.

“I’m busy, my devil. I can kill you and eat your pussy later.”

Gods. This man. He wanted me pinned and dead five minutes ago, and now he’s willingly walking away.

I choke back on a laugh, forcing my smile away. It’s not funny. People are dying. I fucked with his head. Now he’s got Brass-rings in his eyes as if there’s magic somewhere inside him reacting to the substance.

There are far bigger issues to focus on then his depraved comedy, but I can’t help but find comfort in it. He’s still my Warrick, even in madness.

I suck in a breath to steady myself. I’m still fucking bleeding from his stab wounds in my back and thigh, but the Brass in the air takes away the pain.

“You coming?” he shouts back to me.

I shake my head in disbelief and load a fresh arrow, jogging to catch up to him. “The Kraken will send in another wave of The Rigged. He won’t stop until your forces are depleted and he can take control of Synlon’s Underground.”

Warrick whistles, dragging his blade along the tunnel wall.

I eye him.

He whistles louder.

“Do you feel anything strange?”

He stops and whips toward me.

I gasp as he shoves me back and into the wall, his blade lining up with my neck. A shocked exhale leaves me, my bow and arrow clattering out of my hands.

“Your voice,” he says in a low groan. “ Stop talking.”

I scowl. “Fuck you.”

He presses into me, smashing his nose against mine. He stares into my eyes, my heart racing as his thick length presses against my core. “I hate you,” he moans and grinds into me. “And if you cost me the Underground, I’ll hate you forever.”

He rips back and stalks away, kicking my bow toward me before he disappears around a corner, chasing the sound of the fight.

I clutch my chest, positive my heart is seconds from slamming into my palm.

Then metal thuds into the trench beyond the entrance. The second wave of The Rigged.

I pluck a Brass shell from inside my coat and pull the pin, tossing the bronze cylinder a safe distance away. Orange smoke detonates outward, but The Rigged keep coming.

It’s fine. It wasn’t for them anyway.

I take the smoke deep into my lungs, my magic sharpening. Then I yank my bow from the ground and steady myself, eyes locked on the wall of gears plowing straight toward me.