Serpent & Dove

Reid groaned audibly. “Shit.”

I loved her. Despite everything. Despite the lies, the betrayal, the hurt. Despite the Archbishop and Morgane le Blanc. Despite my own brothers. I didn’t know if she returned that love, and I didn’t care.

deep down, I knew better. Lou had broken in that moment. My wild-hearted, foul-mouthed, steel-willed heathen had broken. I had broken her.

a sense of foreboding, I watched him walk toward the door. He paused at the threshold and turned back to me. “I love you, Lou.”

Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.’”

“Why the fuck is everyone in this kingdom trying to murder my wife?”

A bubble of laughter escaped Madame Labelle’s lips, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. “What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?”

“You’ll come with me, of course.” Coco stepped out from behind a large pine, grinning in unabashed delight. “Sorry, I was eavesdropping, but I thought you wouldn’t mind, considering . . .” She nodded down to Lou in her arms.

Lou.

Every trace of anger—every doubt, every question, every thought—emptied from my head as blue-green eyes met my own.

She was awake. Awake and staring at me as if she’d never quite
seen me before. I stepped forward, panicking, praying that her mind hadn’t been affected. That she remembered me. That God hadn’t played yet another cruel, sick joke—

“Reid,” she said slowly, incredulously, “did you just curse?”

Then she leaned over Coco’s arm and heaved bile all over the forest floor.

Though I’d washed away the Archbishop’s blood, some stains went below the surface.

“Don’t hold your breath.” She yanked the pillow from me. “Actually—do.”

I chuckled before turning away. “Good night, Lou.”

She fell asleep long before I did.

As far as I could tell, the innards of my throat were only being held in by a hideously disfiguring scar, my stomach rolled from my mother’s abominable drug, my legs were numb from disuse, and my mind still reeled from what I’d just overheard.

Reid was here.

And he was a witch.

And—and he’d just said fuck.

Perhaps I’d died after all. That was certainly more plausible than Reid swearing with such delicious proficiency.

Admittedly, my head was spinning at Reid’s sudden proximity, so perhaps it was a good idea for him to carry me, after all. I wrapped my arms more firmly around his neck and breathed him in.

Yes. It was a very good idea. “I’m sure.”

Reid sighed in relief before closing his eyes and letting his forehead drop to mine.