Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin

The realization shocked me into silence. Manon had wanted to kill her. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. Manon and La Voisin and even Morgane, her own mother, wanted her dead. But—my thoughts congealed like mud—that wasn’t quite right either. I do not have a daughter, Morgane had claimed. Could she too have forgotten her daughter, as I had forgotten my wife? Or had Lou lied about both? I regarded her suspiciously as she rose. “Why?” I repeated firmly.

Patting my cheek, she slipped over the eave without me. Her voice drifted upward with the wind. “Ask me no questions, mon amour, and I shall tell you no lies.”

I frowned at the simple words. Then winced. These felt different than others, biting and snapping like insects. I shook my head to dislodge them, but they remained. They burrowed deeper. Familiar and painful and jarring. Ask me no questions. Though I remained on the rooftop, my vision pitched abruptly, and instead of shingles and smoke, I saw trees, gnarled roots, a bottle of wine. Blue-green eyes. Sickening déjà vu. And I’ll tell you no lies.

No. I shook my head, wrenching free of the imagery, and stabbed my knife into stone. This was here. Another stab. This was real. I swung myself lower. This was now. Stab, stab. I didn’t remember her. Stab. It hadn’t happened. Stab, stab, stab.

I repeated the mantra the entire way down. I repeated it until those blue-green eyes faded with the trees and the wind and the Hollow. Fresh pain cleaved my head at the last. I ignored it, focusing on the world below me. The others waited for me in silence. No witches hid in the shadows. Manon, it seemed, had not betrayed us. I didn’t understand it. Without looking at anyone, I jumped, landing heavy on my feet.

“Are you all right?” Lou steadied me instinctively. When I cringed away without answering, she sighed and motioned us toward the rocks behind the tower, slipping through the shadows like she’d been born there. I watched her go with a pang in my chest.

Ask me no questions, mon amour, and I’ll tell you no lies. Another half-formed memory. Useless. Broken.

Like a witch hunter who couldn’t kill a witch.





Truth or Dare


Lou

Halfway through our return to L’Eau Mélancolique, Célie fell asleep on her horse. Jean Luc—who’d succumbed to a stupor hours ago—hadn’t been able to catch her in time, and she’d plummeted face-first into the mud, bloodying her nose in the process. We’d quickly agreed a rest stop was necessary. Jean Luc had procured two rooms at the next inn, sneaking us in a back door under cover of darkness.

“I’ll be back with food,” he’d promised. Though smoke still obscured the night sky, it must’ve been between midnight and dawn. We’d made excellent time, all things considered—in and out of Chateau le Blanc in just over an hour. Still, few inns served supper at three in the morning. I suspected the sight of Jean Luc’s blue coat, however, might’ve helped the innkeeper forget the aberrant hour.

Coco, Célie, and I claimed one of the rooms for ourselves while we waited, and Reid and Beau disappeared into the one next door. Almost immediately, Célie collapsed facedown on the hay-filled mattress, her breath deepening and her mouth falling open. The trickle of drool on her pillow painted her the quintessential gentlewoman. Coco and I each tugged a boot from her foot.

“I don’t think I can make it to supper,” Coco said, hiding a yawn behind her hand.

My stomach growled audibly. “I can.”

“Save me some food, will you?”

I grinned as she flopped onto the bed beside Célie. It was a tight fit. Neither of them seemed to notice. “Will do.”

Jean Luc edged the door open a few moments later, carrying a tray of dried figs, brioche, and comté. From the silver tureen at its center, the heavenly scent of beef stew drifted outward, curling around my nose. I immediately began to salivate, but he stopped short when he saw Coco and Célie. Lifting a finger to my lips, I plucked the fruit, bread, and cheese from the tray and left it on the table beside the bed. I motioned him back into the hallway, hesitating for only a second before breaking off a piece of cheese.

I loved cheese.

“They’re exhausted.” Closing the door behind me, I popped the morsel into my mouth and nearly moaned. “They can eat when they wake.”

Though clearly irritated at the prospect of dining with me and not Célie, Jean Luc nodded and led me into the men’s room. Beau had lit a candelabra on the dressing table, and it cast soft, ambient light over the sparse furnishings: a single bed, as in our room, and a porcelain bowl for washing. The entire place had a worn yet welcoming atmosphere, probably aided by the colorful quilt on the bed and warm wooden floors.

“The girls are asleep,” Jean Luc grunted, kicking the door shut.

“Should I be insulted?” I pirouetted onto the bed, landing dramatically across Beau’s lap. He sat with his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him, taking up more than his fair share of space. Snorting, he shoved me off the bed.

“Yes.”

Unperturbed, I crossed the room to investigate the contents of the tureen, but Jean Luc knocked my hand aside. Ladling it into cracked wooden bowls, he jerked his chin behind him. “Go wash, for the love of God. Your hands are filthy.”

Unfortunately, Reid stood beside the washbowl. He scowled as I approached, shifting subtly so as not to touch me. When I accidentally splashed him with water, he stalked to the other side of the room. “If we leave after breakfast, we’ll reach L’Eau Mélancolique this afternoon,” I said to no one in particular. Jittery energy coursed through me as I accepted my stew, and I inhaled it greedily—standing over the basin like a rat—to stop from filling the dead air between us. If this was the inner sanctum of masculinity, I wanted no part of it.