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

All seven of us.

No, our plan could still work. Jean Luc could fake the injection somehow, and we—

“I am waiting,” Auguste said darkly.

Though Jean Luc fought to keep his face impassive, panic flickered within his eyes’ pale depths—panic and remorse. They met mine for only a second before dropping to the syringe. In that second, I knew. He would fake nothing. He could fake nothing—not with so many eyes on us now. Not under the king’s very nose.

Which left me with two options.

I could attack the king now, and we could likely fight our way out, condemning Jean Luc, Célie, and Madame Labelle in the process. Or I could allow the injection and trust the others to rescue us. Neither option was foolproof. Neither option guaranteed escape. With the latter, at least, we’d be in a centralized location with Madame Labelle. If they rescued one, they could rescue us all. And though Claud claimed he couldn’t intervene, he wouldn’t truly leave us to die, would he?

I had a split second to decide before Jean plunged the quill into my throat.

Sharp pain flared on impact, and the hemlock—as cold and viscous as I remembered it—spread like mire through my veins. I could just feel the warm trickle of blood before numbness crept in, before my vision faded, before Coco slipped unnoticed from the water to the Tremblays’ carriage.

The white patterns resisted the darkness, blazing brighter and hotter as I dimmed.

Auguste held one of my eyes open, even as it rolled back into my head. “Do not fret, fille. This pain shall pass. At sunset, you shall burn with my son and his mother in a lake of black fire.” When he stroked my cheek—almost tenderly—the white patterns finally softened, finally succumbed, finally dissolved into nothing.

We’d gone from the belly of the beast straight into the shitter.





Our Story


Lou

My body awoke in increments. First a twitch of my hand, a tingle in my feet, before lights danced on my eyelids and cotton grew on my tongue. Both felt thick and heavy as my stomach pitched and rolled. My consciousness followed shortly after that—or perhaps not shortly at all—and I felt cold stones beneath my back, hard ridges, dull pain blossoming across my ribs, my temple. Sharper pain at my throat.

Realization trickled in slowly.

Jean Luc had poisoned us. We’d been thrown in prison. We would burn at sunset.

My eyes snapped open at the last.

What time was it?

Staring at the ceiling overhead, I tried to move my fingers, to breathe around the suffocating nausea. I needed to find Reid and Beau. I needed to make sure they were all right—

Only then did I realize two things, like cards flipped over in a game of tarot: warm skin pressed against mine on the right, and wooden bars intersected the ceiling in a cross pattern overhead. Swallowing hard, I turned my head with enormous difficulty. Thank God. Reid lay beside me, his face pale but his chest rising and falling deeply.

Wooden bars.

A muffled cough sounded from nearby, and I slammed my eyes shut, listening intently. Footsteps shuffled closer, and what sounded like a door creaked open. After a few more seconds, it clicked shut once more. I opened my eyes carefully this time, peering out through my lashes. The same wooden bars across the ceiling and floor ran perpendicular as well. Smooth and hand planed, they bisected the room and formed a sort of cage around us.

A cage.

Oh god.

Once more, I forced myself to breathe. Though the room beyond remained dark, lit only by a single torch, it didn’t look like a dungeon. A colossal table dominated the center of the room—circular and covered in what looked like a map, scraps of parchment, and—and—

Realization didn’t trickle now. It rushed in a great flood, and I rolled to my left, away from Reid. We weren’t in the castle dungeon at all, but the council room of Chasseur Tower. I would’ve recognized that table anywhere, except now—instead of charcoal drawings of my mother—portraits of my own face stared back at me. Portraits of Reid. Clearing my throat of bile, I tentatively sat up on my elbows, glancing around the cage. No cots or even chamber pots filled the space. “Beau?” A hoarse whisper, my voice still reverberated too loud in the darkness. “Are you here?”

No one answered.

Cursing quietly, I crawled back to Reid, feeling steadier with each moment. I didn’t know why. By all accounts, I too should’ve been unconscious on the floor, not moving and thinking with relative ease. It made little sense, except . . . I took another deep breath, summoning my magic, both gold and white. Though the golden patterns curled sluggish and confused across the cage, the white ones burst into existence with a vengeance. Their presence soothed the sickness in my body like a balm. My vision cleared, and my stomach settled. The stabbing pain in my temples eased. Of course. Of course. These patterns had been gifted by a goddess. They were greater than me, eternal, stronger than my own human flesh and bone.

They’d saved me.

We were going to be fine.

With a triumphant smile, I checked Reid’s pupils, his heartbeat, and his breathing. I could sense the poison polluting his blood, could almost see it beneath his skin like a black, noxious cloud. Gently, a white pattern coiled around him, illuminating his wan features in a subtle glow. At the brush of my hand, it pulsed and began to sieve the hemlock from his body. The stone around him absorbed the sap like a sponge, returning it to the earth where it belonged. When the last of the poison had gone, the pattern dissolved into white dust, and Reid’s eyes fluttered open. I sat back on my heels as he oriented himself with the room. With me.