Page 75 of The Shard and the Serpent (Shard Daughters #1)

My Prize

Warrick

Brass slinks through the Underground, curling around my boots as I charge The Rigged swarming Chrome Guards. I launch myself forward, and something surges low in my gut. Too strong. Too fast. Shit . My body tears through the air like I was fired from a fucking cannon.

I crash shoulder-first into metal, my Serpent blade flying out of my grip.

The Rigged doesn’t even flinch.

I stumble back, my boots scraping across the gravel as I try to steady myself. The thing turns toward me, its joints hissing, saw-arm twitching.

There’s a pressure in my gut. Something inside me shifts. Something buried. It yawns awake. For a moment, there’s nothing but the punch of my own heartbeat. Then I inhale, take Brass deeper into my lungs, and the thing in my gut builds, destroying any remnants of Volt.

My knuckles—they distort . The air around them blurs and bends, the few inches of space surrounding my fists bleaching to black and white.

What the fuck?

Then The Kraken’s monstrosity lunges.

Rayze

Shot after shot—perfect aim. But it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a game of casualties. It’s a game of exhaustion. Every crumple of metal, The Kraken sends another Rigged into the trench. I reach into my coat for another arrow, and my heart drops.

I’m out.

Gods. Usually the magic in the shafts portals them back into their places, but I’ve gone through them too quickly.

I snap my bow into its harness as metal limbs splash out of the trench and into the Underground. Then I swallow my fucking pride, turn, and sprint.

Warrick

I pivot behind the Rigged and ram my elbow into the plate where its spine meets flesh. It shudders, and I twist around, eyes locking on my blade where it lies across the tunnel.

I dart for it, but The Rigged catches the hem of my vest with the hook of its other arm. I rip away with a snarl, scanning for the one weak point I know. Then I dive for the blade and slam it through the vents at its throat.

Chrome Guards mirror me, and my smile widens as The Rigged crumple around us, blood puddling across the tunnel floor.

But our victory is short-lived.

The pound of boots echoes before my very bad girl rounds the corner, her eyes wide as eight more Rigged chase her.

Damn it.

Rayze

I slide to a stop next to Warrick, my hand immediately going for where I know he keeps a spare dagger sheathed at his ankle. I tug it free, and he gives me an accusatory look.

“Excuse you,” he mutters.

I smirk and pop the dagger into the air, adjusting my grip. “Only fair. You once stole mine.”

Then I raise my arm above my head—“You need to evacuate the Underground, Ivor—” and charge toward the first Rigged.

I vault into the air and slam down, my legs wrapping against their shoulders and my dagger driving straight through the top of their skull.

Warrick

Fuck. Me. She makes hate look good.

“Boss?” Dacre growls. “What are our orders?”

I hold up a hand. “One second.”

I tilt my head, following the crash of The Rigged to the floor as she straddles its armored chest. She yanks out the dagger from the top of its head and stabs it through its vent before she launches upward and tackles the next one.

All the while, her knuckles spark white.

Magic.

I glance down at my fists and grin. Mine—it was different—but it’s the only explanation.

“Evacuate,” I tell Dacre.

“Where?”

“Fang’s Edge.” I crack my neck and dip to the floor, sweeping the remnants of Brass upward with my hands and inhaling deeply. The air around my knuckles warps and dims, threads bending away out of my vision until everything around me shrouds behind a dark veil, color bleeding away.

“Boss?”

My gut writhes in delight. I fucking have magic. I don’t know how or why, but I plan on enjoying this.

“The building can’t house an entire city,” he argues.

A stark battle cry has us both looking to where my devil takes out the eighth Rigged, her face and hair dripping blood.

She stands, the dagger clattering from her palm as she swallows hard and clears her throat, tossing a thumb over her shoulder. “There will be more.”

I rise from my crouch. “Evacuate,” I command a second time, and Dacre bows his head, repeating the order to the remaining Chrome Guards.

My gaze locks with green.

Her chest heaves, and something about this is familiar, my cock stirring. Her covered in blood. Bodies all around.

I wet my lips, and she tracks the movement. “I can’t remember your name again,” I admit softly, my voice strangled. I hate that I can’t recall it. That it somehow managed to slip away.

She steps over the corpses and closes the distance between us. Her eyes flick over my face, the pity there fucking nauseating. “Rayze,” she whispers.

I lift a finger and drag it through the blood on her cheek, shaking my head. “ Rayze ,” I murmur, memories flitting and stitching. There long enough for my heart to swell and my eyes to burn.

A certain clarity filters in. Rare and filled with rage .

Rayze.

Rayze Angeline.

My Angel of Sin.

My beginning.

My end.

She yanks away, and I click my tongue in disapproval.

“Go ahead. Run,” I growl. “But if I catch you, angel, you’re mine .

To fuck. To betray. To worship. To kill.

” I point my blade at her as her chest heaves.

“You will know every inch of me. I will know every perfect, terrifying edge of you.” I trail her backward steps, blood dripping between us.

“You will make up for every second you’ve stolen of my life. ”

I inhale as a cloud of fresh Brass streams from the tunnel exit, and that clarity—it becomes even more crystal fucking clear. My gut swirls with a newfound power, and I tremble with the ferocity of it.

She claimed me. Deeply. Then severed herself. Tore us apart without remorse. I’m a wound. A gaping thing that I can’t mend because she won’t let me.

She is mine. Wholly. Unequivocally. Universally.

But I’ve no idea who she is. I’m not sure I ever have.

Tears burn against my eyes. I’ve no restraint. Not with her. I’m a torn man, and I’m bleeding. From my eyes. From my mind. Fuck, from my soul. There’s nothing I can do but grieve the brightest thing in my life that chose to become the darkest.

“You have magic,” she says, the horror in her voice beautiful. “That’s not possible. I felt it return to me when the Bond dissolved.”

The Bond . My stomach dips with the memory of shiny, silver scissors.

“You have my entire mind,” I snarl. “I’d say we’re almost even.” I drag my gaze over her. “ Almost .”

Rayze wets her lips. “I’m sorry.”

I stop cold. My jaw flexes.

Her bottom lip trembles. “I’m so fucking sorry, Warrick.”

I stare at her mouth. “Do you know what sorry means to a man who can’t remember why?” I spit out the words and charge her.

She lurches back.

“ Nothing ,” I growl. “It’s just words. Pretty, useless words. You said ‘we’ like it was a group effort?” I laugh and tap the point of my blade to my temple. “You got a whole fucking group of friends messing with me?”

Her eyes darken. Resolve settles over her features, her quivering lip settling into a hard scowl. “That’s it then?”

“Oh, that’s far from ‘it’, devil.”

I back her out of the trench, her boots hitting mud.

Her head snaps back, checking above for a new wave of The Rigged, but all my focus turns to that vulnerable neck.

I sheathe my blade and wrench her by the throat, her eyes slamming back to mine in panic.

“Warrick,” and it’s a soft, heartbreaking plea.

She has so many ways to say my name, and yet I’ve only one way to say hers. With yearning and ache, never to truly know it for what it is before she steals it away from me.

She is danger and heartbreak—and I’m immeasurably horrible without her.

My fingers clench around her hard swallow, the war inside myself unbearable. To touch her is to let her go. To speak to her is to forget another conversation.

A dark sound creeps through me. There’s no taming it, only setting it free.

“I did this for you, for us—”

I yell, my nose smashing against hers. It’s nothing coherent, but it’s the only tale she needs to hear. Ours. This is all that’s left. And I can’t—No. Please, Gods, no . This can’t be it. This can’t be all that we are.

The next shout is louder but not greater. There’s no fucking greatness in how I unravel for her, become a shorn helpless thing. A toy. Her toy.

I should kill her. I love her.

She doesn’t flinch or back away. She takes it. Nothing but a wall for my pain to rebound off of and hit me square in the chest again.

Then her hands are on my shoulders, around my neck, on my cheeks. She swipes her thumbs under my eyes as my jaw cracks with the force of another yell.

Her nails curl into my cheeks.

My hands tangle in her hair.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and my face falls to the crook of her neck.

It’s not.

“I can take the pain away.”

My fingers freeze at the chains on my hip.

“You don’t need to carry us,” she says and her voice cracks. “We just have to wait for the Volt to leave your system, and I can take it all away. I can make sure you never touch the drug again, too. It’ll be like—” She swallows. “A fresh start.”

I pull back, my eyes finding hers darker than I’ve ever seen them. She’s serious. Un-fucking-believable. She wants to knot my mind. After everything? All the damage her magic has caused?

“A fresh start,” I breathe angrily. “ A fresh fucking start , Rayze?”

Her chin trembles.

“No, devil,” I laugh darkly. “This pain—you won’t be taking this away. You won’t be getting my forgiveness so easily. Not until you crave me as I’ve craved every inch of you.”

Her breath catches.

“I’m going to tip you to edge,” I hum, closing my eyes and picturing her spread beneath me, “the shape of my name carved into your tongue.” I shudder and lock my gaze with hers, my voice low.

“I want your mind warped with a thousand stories that all end with me . Only then will I consider us done and even.”

I slant her mouth close to mine. A tremble ruptures through me, but I steady my racing pulse.

“I don’t have to cut you to make you bleed, do I?” I ask, and her eyes shimmer with tears, my heart as broken as my fucking mind. I trace a finger down her cheek. “You taught me that,” I whisper.

The burning in my gut swells. Threads in my peripheral snap into focus, vivid and tangled, colors writhing in constant motion.

Thousands weave around Rayze, glowing like a fucking halo around her head, but it’s the spaces between them that pull at me, yawning wide and endless, every gap a promise waiting to be broken open.

They pulse with everything that never was. Paths that closed before they began. Choices swallowed in silence. Beyond them, deeper hollows cling to her every movement, waiting for whatever future she’ll carve next.

My lips curl with a curious smile.

“Warrick,” she gasps, her hands yanking on my wrist. “Don’t—”

“ SLEEP ,” I command.

With phantom hands, I cut away the threads that hold her awake, leaving hollows for the void to fill—and my devilish angel falls limp.

I grunt, catching her before she can hit the mud, cradling her against my chest, her head hanging over the crook of my arm, her eyes closed.

So beautiful.

I trace my thumb against her thigh, humming softly as I walk us out of the trench and up the ramp to the main streets of Synlon.

Metal grinds above. Orange smoke explodes at my back, a fresh wave of The Rigged dropping into the mud, but I hold my devil closer, leaving the fight behind.

My cronies can hold the Underground. I’m not waiting to unwrap my prize.