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

An Insidious Presence


Lou

From the darkness, a voice arises.

Not that voice. Not the terrible one that croons and beckons. This voice is sharper, biting, cutting. Familiar. It does not tempt me. It—it scolds me.

Wake up, it snaps. You aren’t dead yet.

But I do not know this word. I do not understand death.

No one does. That’s not the point—or maybe that’s the entire point. You’re fading.

Fading. The darkness offers oblivion. Sweet relief.

Fuck that. You’ve worked too hard and too long to give up now. Come on. You want more than oblivion. You want to live.

A ghostly chuckle reverberates through the shadows. Through the unending black. It curls around me, caressing the jagged edges of my consciousness, soothing the broken shards at my center. Surrender, little mouse. Let me devour you.

I hurt. With each pulse of the darkness, the pain intensifies until I cannot bear it.

It’s your heart. The sharp voice returns, louder now. Louder than even the rhythmic drumming. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Instinctively, I shy away, but I cannot hide from the sound. From the pain. It echoes everywhere, all around me. It’s still beating.

I try to process this, try to peer through the darkness to where a heart might indeed beat. But still I see nothing.

Don’t hide from it, Lou. Own your pain. Use it.

Lou. The word is familiar, like the exhalation on a laugh. The breath before jumping, the gasp when you fly instead. It’s a sigh of relief, of irritation, of disappointment. It’s a shout of anger and a cry of passion. It’s . . . me. I am not the darkness. I am something else entirely. And this voice—it’s mine.

There you are, it says—I say—in unabashed relief. About time too.

However, on the wings of one realization comes another, and I flex abruptly, pushing against the crushing black. It responds in kind, no longer simple darkness but a sentient presence all its own. An insidious presence. It feels wrong, somehow. Foreign. It shouldn’t be here—wherever here is—because this place . . . it belongs to me too. Like my heartbeat. Like my name. Though I flex again, testing my strength, spreading myself further, pushing and pushing and pushing, I meet only ironclad resistance.

The darkness is unyielding as stone.





A Game of Questions


Reid

Lou’s fingertips skimmed my leg in time with the others’ rhythmic breathing. With each inhale, she walked them upward. With each exhale, she turned her wrist, trailing downward with the back of her hand. Wind whistled through the cracks in the sanctuary, raising gooseflesh on my arms. I sat rigid beneath her touch, heart pounding in my throat at the subtle friction. Tense. Waiting. Sure enough, those fingers gradually crept up, up, up my thigh in slow seduction, but I caught her wrist, slid my hand to cover hers. To pin it in place.

A foreign emotion congealed in my blood as I stared at her hand beneath mine. I should’ve ached, should’ve tightened with that familiar hunger, that heat, that left me almost fevered when we touched. But this knot in my stomach . . . it wasn’t need. It was something else. Something wrong. While the others had prepared for bed a half hour ago, a general sense of dread had enveloped me. That dread had only intensified when Beau, the last awake, had finally drifted to sleep, leaving Lou and me alone.

Clearing my throat, I squeezed her fingers. Forced a smile. Brushed a kiss against her palm. “We have an early morning. We’ll need to leave Fée Tombe after we free the cauchemar. It’ll be another long few days on the road.”

It sounded like an excuse.

It was one.

A low noise reverberated from her throat. She hadn’t worn her ribbon since we left Cesarine. My gaze dropped to her scar, healing yet still puckered, angry. She stroked it with her free hand. “How does one free a cauchemar?”

“Maybe we can reason with it. Convince it to return to the forest.”

“And if we can’t?”

I sighed. “We can only warn it about the mob. We can’t force it to do anything.”

“And if it decides to eat the mob? If our warning allows it the chance to do so?”

“It won’t,” I said firmly.

She considered me with a half smile. “You’ve developed quite an affinity for us, haven’t you?” Her grin spread. “Monsters.”

I pressed a kiss to her forehead. Ignored the unfamiliar scent of her skin. “Sleep, Lou.”

“I’m not tired,” she purred, her eyes too bright in the darkness. Too pale. “We slept all day.” When her hand crept up my chest once more, I caught it, lacing my fingers through her own. She misinterpreted the movement. Mistook it for an invitation. Before I could blink, she’d hoisted her knee across my lap to straddle me, lifting our hands awkwardly above our heads. When she arched her lower back, pressing her chest into mine, my stomach dropped like a stone. Shit.

I fought to keep my gaze impassive. Of course she wanted to—to touch me. Why wouldn’t she? Less than a month ago, I’d craved her like an addict. The subtle curve of her hip, the thick wave of her hair, the impish gleam in her eyes. I’d been unable to keep from pawing at her every moment of the day—the presence of my own mother hadn’t stopped me. Even then, however, it’d been so much more than physical.

From the very start, Lou had woken me up. Her presence had been infectious. Even infuriated, exasperated, I’d never stopped wanting to be near her.