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

Claud winked at me. “Fancy meeting you here, poppet. How did you like my sister?”

I choked on a laugh while the woman shrieked, contorting her limbs to escape the tree. It had ceased moving. “I thought—I thought you couldn’t intervene?” And if not— “Where have you been all this time?”

He clicked his tongue playfully. His mere presence seemed to act as a shield; the crush of bodies waned around us, parted, as if all instinctively knew to change direction. “Tut, tut, Louise,” he said, “or I shall think you self-absorbed. Though it pains me to admit, you and your friends manage quite well without me, and I have an entire realm of the natural world to govern.”

“Like hell we can.” Bemused, I helped Reid untangle the woman from the tree. Self-absorbed. Pfft. “But again, I thought you couldn’t—”

“Oh, you thought correctly, peach.” Though Claud still smiled, the air around us thickened with the scent of rot. Of decay. Poisonous toadstools split open at his feet. The loup garou nearest us swelled with rage, snarling as if possessed, and attacked with newfound savagery. “I am not intervening. Indeed, I am governing said realm as we speak.” His smile darkened at the last, and he turned to search the street. His eyes flashed catlike. “And defending it from trespass.”

I knew without asking for whom he searched.

And Morgane had called me a thief.

“How does she control them?” Reid yielded a step as the woman shoved him and fled up the street, still screaming hysterically. “The trees?”

“They loved her once too.”

With those forbidding words, Claud’s frame nearly doubled in size, and he transformed in full: enormous stag antlers burst from his head. Cloven hooves shredded his shoes. And the trees—they bowed to him as he advanced up the street as the Woodwose.

Their king.

Their god.

“Wait!”

He paused at my shout, arching a brow over his shoulder. The gesture seemed too human on his animalistic features now. “My mother,” I continued with both anticipation and dread. “What will you do to her?”

Those yellow eyes blinked. His voice rumbled deep, like that of a bear’s roar. “She has invaded my realm. My being. I will punish her.”

Punish her.

He turned and disappeared in the trees without another word. Too late, I realized I should follow. He’d left little doubt of his intention—he was a god, and she had exploited him. Though he’d warned her—though the Triple Goddess herself had stripped her of power—she hadn’t listened. She hadn’t surrendered. My battle had become their battle. Claud would lead me straight to Morgane, and together, we could—

Reid pulled me in the opposite direction, where the crowd flowed thickest. “We need to evacuate these people.”

“What? No!” I shook my head, but without Claud to protect us, the crush resumed. “No, we need to find Morgane—”

“Look around, Lou.” He didn’t dare let go of my hand, even as those nearest us fled a Dame Rouge who’d torn the beating heart from a man’s chest. Though they hammered against shop windows—pleading for entry—the merchants barred their doors. On both ends of the street, blood witches had cut open their arms. Where their blood spilled, black vines twisted skyward, forming a thick hedge. A barricade. “These people—they have nowhere to run. They’re innocent. You heard Morgane. She won’t stop until all of them are dead.”

“But I—”

“Claud is a god. If he intends to kill Morgane, he’ll kill her. We have to mitigate the casualties.”

My magic pulsed beneath my skin, urging me to listen. To go with him. He was right. Yes. Of course, he was right.

With one last anxious glance at Claud’s back, I nodded, and we sprinted toward Father Achille and Gabrielle, Etienne’s sister, who’d been trapped in a circle of vines. A blood witch coaxed the thorns tighter around them. Behind, Célie rushed Violette and Victoire to safety in the nearest shop—a patisserie manned by none other than Johannes Pan.

At Gabrielle’s cry, he burst into the street with a rolling pin, shouting and swinging it wildly. It struck the blood witch’s head with a sickening crunch. When she crumpled, her thorns shriveled, and Father Achille and Gaby leapt free.

“Come, come!” Pan ushered Gaby toward him while Reid, Jean Luc, and Father Achille converged.

Other witches did too, their eyes intent on the three little girls.

It seemed they still planned to exterminate the Lyon line, regardless of Auguste.

Drawing a deep breath, I plucked a pattern, and it shimmered and expanded like a film over the patisserie. The same protection existed over Chateau le Blanc, over the door to the castle’s treasury. It was a piece of my magic itself—a piece of all Dames des Sorcières who’d come before me. As it left my body, the white patterns dimmed. Just a bit. My connection to them weakened. A worthy sacrifice.

None would enter the patisserie but those I permitted. I caught Gaby’s hand as she passed, squeezing fiercely. “Stay inside,” I told her. My eyes met those of Violette and Victoire. Beau’s sisters. Reid’s half sisters. “All of you.”

Though Gaby and Violette nodded fervently, I didn’t like the stubborn set of Victoire’s chin. Célie pushed all three into the shop before ushering a hysterical couple in after them.